how viral are viral videos?

In his November '07 column in TechCrunch, Dan Greenberg talks about the BIG secret about viral videos -  they're not what you think - they're plants.  We have all thought about this now and then while perusing YouTube.  While perhaps not all videos are professionally made, Greenberg's rules and suggestions for optimizing a video to make it SUPER viral videos make sense.   One thing I am not sure I agree with is his idea that the idea doesn't necessarily have to be really good.   Nevertheless, his rules all make sense.

http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/11/22/the-secret-strategies-behind-many-viral-videos/ 

Running into a Car?

This was a post on a blog i used to write.  Posted on...

Wednesday, October 24, 2007

Running into a Car?

This commercial for a car has a jogger run into the car, not once but twice, because it's not noticable? Looks like it hurt a lot to me.

I am watching the baseball playoffs (multitasking as I write this) and baseball players sure are superstitious. Keep cutting away to the players in the sox bullpen playing the spoons like madmen on the bullpen ceiling. Good thing their stolen stuffed parrot was given back by the frat boys at Northeastern who stole it.

The superstious talk reminds me of a triple header issue commercial that had the potential of spinning out of control. It was a baseball commerical for Pizza Hut using Orel Hirsheiser, nine 10-year old baseball players and a black cat. The black cat got spooked when one of the kids yelled and went sprinting accross the baseball field but the trainer cat him before he got away. This was the worst of it but it reminds me of the old saying about the problems of filming kids or animals. Try filming those two ingredients together then add a sports star with very little on-camera presence (he was a lovely charming guy) and many sane people would have run for the hills. Commercial was cute but hardly memorable. The kids were doing all the superstitious baseball stuff that kids and adults do.

Divine Moments of Clarity

This was a post on a blog I used to write on blogger and was posted on ....

 

Monday, October 22, 2007

Divine Moments of Clarity

What is it about those divine moments of clarity that the moving image transports us to? I just felt it in a video posted on YouTube -- the PostSecrets project  when the man's voice says, "I love her anyway."   That 'moment' feels real and genuine. It's much like an emotional roller coaster when suddenly there's a brief glimpse of compelete honesty (at the top), it may be the music or the idea, or the images, or the confluence of all three. Sometimes we can recall sharing one of those moments with someone whose no longer here, and it evokes sadness. But it's pure and beautiful and I find myself yearning for more, much like the way we might replay a sad song again and again, or the way a smell can transport us to a moment long gone. Oh yeah, smell... that's about the only major sense that video misses.

and they're off.....

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