Sessions at SXSW Interactive 2011 about Online Video on Tuesday 15th March

Social media and online video battle for mindshare among marketers. Which one totally rules? We’ll lock Russ Somers, Director of Marketing at Invodo and Natanya Anderson, VP of Content Strategy and Delivery at Powered, in a cage (metaphorically – or maybe literally) to lead a Core Conversation on the pros and cons of each. On the video side: Russ leads marketing for Invodo, a company at the forefront of the eCommerce video industry. Invodo produces video and technology to drive conversion for online retailers including Toys R Us, Verizon Wireless and Golfsmith. On the social side: Natanya leads content strategy for full-service social media agency Powered, guiding the development and delivery of creative content to clients including HP, Sony, iVillage, Atkins and RadioShack. Natanya and Russ provide industry insights and lead what will be, with your contributions, a spirited discussion.

LEVEL: Beginner

Since the beginning of man, different permutations of the “Instruction Manual” have ridden as passenger in the sidecar of technology’s motorcycle. And like technology, the format of the instruction manual has evolved, but is the “science” behind them keeping up? Video demos may be the status quo across today’s interverse, BUT… The day of the 40-minute-long, boring video demo is over. Short, entertaining video tutorials are winning the attention and appreciation of a socially networked audience eager to pass along a link to something they find entertaining and useful. Smart brands are realizing the opportunity to create and use video tutorials as purveyors of brand culture. Injecting humor, style, and creative storytelling into an instructional tutorial not only can help grab and keep an audience’s attention, but may encourage the audience to actively promote the content to others purely based on its creativity or experiential value. Demos are dead. Fun, creative tutorials not only teach, but also promote. The branded tutorial is rapidly becoming the new, and necessary standard.

LEVEL: Intermediate

Video is a medium, not a product. It`s the next best thing to a human interaction, but commercially it`s better, because it scales communication over time and space. The story of online video is the story of the human need to connect and reconnect. It's the water cooler effect on the web, and people are more eager to relate over a video than a book. More so, online video comes at an entry point that's a fraction of broadcast and at a production quality that's equal to. This represents an opportunity for brands and individuals to develop and own new channels of communication that consider both purpose and utility. Most importantly, video inspires us to realize the limitless potential of the web to facilitate communication that's rich in emotion. This presentation will explore the art and science of developing video content that's exclusively considered for the web.

LEVEL: Advanced

With over 24 hours of video being uploaded every minute on YouTube and over 56 hours of video being uploaded per minute to lifestreaming sites such as UStream and Justin.tv, companies are starting to use videoblogs as a way of directly reaching out to new and existing customers. This panel, full of experienced videobloggers and online video consultants, will walk through the steps of getting a company up and running in online video, including points such as: What equipment is needed, How “produced” does a company video need to be, How to get comfortable in front of the camera, What different formats are available, is streaming video more effective than a carefully produced video blog, How online video can work with assets such as an existing blog, and What is the ROI of online video for a company? The panel will also cover all of the different channels for online video that can be used by companies–from a Corporate Website to YouTube, Vimeo and lifestreaming services such as Qik and Justin.tv. By the end of this panel, companies will be able to apply what they have learned immediately and start their video blog that day. There will also be an online resource available with the panel presentation as well as articles, software and services that companies can use to make their online video presence the best it can be. The panel will also participate in a 15-minute audience Q&A session, which will allow people to address specific questions about getting started in online video.

LEVEL: Beginner

The challenge of the future is not data gathering but analysis, trying to make sense of what the tidal wave of information actually means. Dropcam's live 24/7 streaming with DVR, paired with social tools offers a new way of user engagement and data analytics. This and other new technologies allow for much finer grained analysis for data streams, turning previously unusable elements like webcam generated latent video into incredibly rich insights. New uses with streaming media offer new data and analysis that didn't exist before.

LEVEL: Intermediate

It's true, you can make money with Online Video! Learn the secrets of internet television company Revision3, and how its chief revenue officer Brad Murphy built the company's unique monetization model. Learn the details of how he convinced more than 100 advertisers, including Ford, Netflix, GoDaddy, and HP to support Revision3's shows, along with tips and tricks to help you build an effective sponsorship program. Revision3 produces and distributes 25 shows delivering 42 million monthly views and an extremely loyal and engaged audience. With 99% unaided recall for 1+ sponsor and 55% of Revision3 viewers having purchased a product or service, Revision3 has found a way to profitability by effectively bringing sponsors into content.

LEVEL: Intermediate

Web video isn’t a fading fad; consumers are watching and searching for more media online than ever before. Only five years in, YouTube is the second largest search engine and 4th most visited site overall. As YouTube and other online video destinations become resources for finding information, web video creation needs to dramatically scale at the same time to produce reliable, quality content.

In the past, web video has largely been limited to production quality or user-generated content, resulting in expensive or low-quality content. Now there’s a new breed of content creators trying to address consumer demand by scaling content creation with search-driven content production.

Scaling content creation doesn’t need to mean a mediocre product or big budgets. This session will show you how content creators can use new technologies and processes to make sure that quantity doesn't overrides quality in web video.

LEVEL: Intermediate

Well over 90% of people who shoot video with a camcorder, point & shoot, or mobile device do nothing with it. This video, orphaned and sad, longs to be shared and loved. Today video on the web is still largely stuck in a non-interactive, non-social networked, broadcast-like "I post footage and you can view it" world. Basic commenting, metadata, and tagging of entire video clips provide rudimentary social capabilities, but new enabling technologies are required to make video truly a shared experience.

As the cost, scale, and responsiveness of cloud computing converges with maturing social networks, the underpinnings are now in place to develop the kinds of systems required to make working with video fast, widely accessible, and collaborative. Letting users share not only movies, but the source files as well, co-editing across two or more creators, remixing of trusted associates already published content, automated frame-accurate (rather than entire movie) tagging, and auto-creation of context-specific metadata are just some of the possibilities these new systems could enable.

This session will explore the current state of online video in the realm of social networking; why so few ever take their video off the device on which it was shot; the benefits of further enhancing shared experiences with video; and the tools, technologies, and behaviors required to allow video to be a standard communication tool in social media.

LEVEL: Intermediate