Protected: Test

Testing flash ffmpeg

As I mentioned before when publishing video content you need to facor in the quality of the video and accessibility for the internet user. Quicktime with the excellent h264 encoder delivers excellent quality video providing you get your settings right. It is also geared to mobile device delivery.
Flash on the other hand is pre installed on 98% of pc’s and the intall/upgrade is more straight forward than Quicktime.
I tested ffmpegx but found I could not encode from .mov (Quicktime) to .flv (flash) and discovered that I needed to reverse the audio and video tracks by hand in Quicktime Pro.
Here is the result I am not too impressed by the quality as the images are softer especially when you compare it to the same video on the home page here but on the other hand it is a free open source app.

Get the latest Flash Player to see this player.

On the other hand I if you are willing to compromise the size of the video it stacks up quite well

Get the latest Flash Player to see this player.

testing Quicktime plugin

We are testing a Quicktime plugin for WordPress
Please press play to view and let us know what you think of the quality
Quicktime required to view and can be downloaded here

Tourism potential of Wicklow

There is a lot of debate about In Ireland about the state of the economy at present. However we need to focus on the export potential of Ireland and one of our greatest export resources is tourism.
Bearing this in mind marketing video podcasts using social media affords the opportunity to reach out to potential visitors and in an engaging manner, ultimately attracting far greater numbers of tourists to this country.
Here is a podcast we produced to showcase what Wicklow has to offer especially as an international hillwalking destination.
Quicktime is required to view and can be easily installed here

Social media and video markets tourism

Reason why the video podcasts & Social Media can market tourism  successfully:

1. Size of  global online market

2. Social media can add value to companies through increased sales
e.g The local marketing and sales potential of Twitter
In a test run April 23 2009, an exclusive to social media application Twitter promotion  called Tweete Pie brought in 15% of the day’s business for Naked Pizza : source Adage.com. 

3 Twitter beta testing applications for small businesses :source TechCrunch

4.Podcasting  can increase sales by boosting  Google search ranking using  Google video sitemaps (see benefits below)

5. Price: Professional video podcasts can be produced at an affordable price

6  Accessibility and ease of use : dramatic increase in the past 2 years in internet use. Far more likely for users to view on line video content rather than view  a hard copy DVD

7 Expectation: Internet users now expect to be able to veiw video content on internet sites

8.Shift of marketing spend from old media to digital media

9 Global Mapping: A recent initiative by Tourism bodies in Caherciveen in Kerry was to print maps of tourist accommodation and attractions. Google maps is now available in Ireland and can be added to video podcast content allowing internet visitors to pin point exact tourist locations.

The benefits  of video for SEO ranking purposes:

A. Video on independent websites are quickly and heavily indexed and ranked by the major search engines.
B. Advertising: The growth of online video advertising eg hulu.com

Online video after years of being a small player on the web is set to transform the way business and consumers interact in the viral environment. 
Companies are turning to video: 
To keep their employees, clients and shareholders informed 
To provide consumers with real “how to” videos 
To decrease their cost of customer service
To deliver original videos promoting their brands and products 
To form dedicated networks where users  can communicate through video. source itvx.net

Online video has the potential to create a positive brand experience for the customer and develop trust in a product /service
Including videos adds additional ways to optimize  a business’s keywords and phrases. By adding content relevant to  keywords and phrases, combined with the related videos, weight is added  to a business’s site and its content.

C. The video content can be duplicated on 3rd party website such as Youtube without any duplicate content penalties.

D. Allows for more text and pages to optimise  keywords and phrases 

E. Embedding videos in  site pages increases the “stickiness factor” of pages, which can increase both traffic and search rankings for a specific page. Google and most search engines use a variety of factors to determine the ranking importance a specific page online, one of which is average visitor session length on a page. Visitor length on a page can be increased by embedding a video. These longer site visits may be interpreted by Google that the page has increased value and in turn may be given a bump that translates into higher search engine rankings.

F. Choosing a video that is  both themed to a businesses content and informative can help with the “stickiness factor”  as search engines  need something to crawl.

G. As videos  can help in adding new, fresh and dynamic content to the site it is important get  video content found by the search engines. Google has introduced Video Sitemaps that will index the video content. If video files are named correctly this is valuable to the search engines. 

H Videos are now listed in the search engine results pages adding valuable links and alternative sources to brand names and web site.

I. Size of market
The growth of professional online video:
Demand for professionally produced and distributed online video continued unabated in 2008, with cumulative volume advancing 24.3% to 41.6 billion views. Over the past ten years, audiences have accessed 142.7 billion pieces of professionally produced, brand-hosted and distributed video.
Source : AccuStream iMedia Research.

J. Consumers conducting travel research online continue to outnumber those booking online,” says Lynn Franco, Director of The Conference Board Consumer Research Center, citing data from a 2007 survey of 10,000 households nationwide. Online travel-related research outpaces actual online buying by two-to-one, Franco says. Which means it is increasingly important for industry websites to grab and keep visitors, and video is one way to accomplish that. source : hotelmarketing.com

K. Video provides that extra level of experience on a website that helps build an emotional connection to the visitor by delivering the full impact of a hotel’s, resort’s or destination’s unique blend of sights and sounds that conveys the feel that is a brands hallmark.
And web videos are now supported by Online Travel Agency websites as well as the websites of hotel, resort, destination or transportation properties. Add that to the increasing amount of consumer-to-consumer and social media in the industry with customers sharing peer-to-peer reviews, assessments, images and stories about their travel experiences and you have a situation tailor-made for the full array of media.
I do think the whole video experience is going to be more and more of a requirement online because people are willing to buy more and more online, but they want to understand, get a better feel of exactly what it is they are buying, said Susan Kidwell of online ad agency AvenueA/Razorfish which handles the Carnival Cruise Line Account, as quoted in iMedia Connection’s Sept. 21, 2007 publication.

L. A significant percentage of traffic now comes to keyworded internal pages, audio and video files through search engines, rather than through the web site’s] front door, says Russell Johnson, President of California-based TravelMedia, which hosts a trade site at travelmedia and a consumer site at connectedtraveler. In August of 2006 he told TravelDailyNews.com, The Web is becoming a collaborative mesh of activity rather than linear portals. Creating video for tourism industry websites and online tourism brochures is even more cost-effective if its part of a broader media plan. source hotelmarketing.com

M. is for social media revolution : http://www.blog4business.com/2009/08/20/social-media-revolution/

N. Twitter is now a search engine: You can find out what customers are talking about you product or service and refine your search geographically to target customers in particular locations

c Mike Kelly www.blog4business.com 2009

Social Media Revolution

Still not convinced of the marketing potential of social media and on line video?
Watch this then and you will be

Bloomsday

We are testing flash video. The quality appears to be holding up compared to Quicktime although there are slight audio sync issues compared to our originally edited DVD. Flash is more accessible to users and is installed on 98% of computers and upgrading is very simple with a 1 click process.
Please click on the play button to view this sample.

Get the latest Flash Player to see this player.

Bloomsday in Sandycove

This is a video we produced to promote Bloomsday in Ireland. It demonstrates the potential of video podcasts to market Ireland internationally as a tourism destination.
We produce professional video podcasts to market tourism globally at an affordable price. Quicktime required to view

Here is the YouTube version.The quality is not quite as good as the Quicktime version but the flash video version is more accessible

youtube v itunes

Marketing your business podcasts to as big an audience as possible is crucial. For me youtube clicks all the boxes as regards reaching a significant target audience, uploading/publishing content and user friendly experience for viewers(potential customers). Its all about where your customers are on line. You can map your video, use keys tags and program descriptions to increase your visibility to viewers and use what for me is a very exciting SEO app Google Video SiteMaps (you may need assistance/advice from a web designer for this). Remember you have a global audience at your fingertips.

Another App to reach a worldwide audience is itunes. There are 4 key differences Youtube and itunes in my opinion.
1 hosting: youtube hosts your video content whereas you nedd to host your podcasts for viewing on ituned with a valid RSS link.
2 Uploading content : Youtube more straight forward with an easier to use upload/publish interface.
3 Streaming: Youtube streams (plays as it is downloading) videos whereas the user has to download an itunes episode before viewing it.
4 Accessibility for the end user : Make the experience of viewing your business podcast as user friendly as possible. Dont make assumptions- you may know what buttons to press but does you customers. For me Youtube is more user friendly for non technical people.

To compare the image quality please click here to view a video we published to itunes
1. Download/launch itunes
2 Click get episode
3 Wait to download (2-3 mins)
4.Play

Below is the Youtube version

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Qik live video broadcast using nokia e51

I have been a big fan of the potential of Qik for some time. Qik lets you broadcast live video from you mobile phone to your Qik a/c. You can embed it it your blog, Youtube a/c, Facebook profile also thus reaching an even wider audience. It can be used to great effect but the technology can have its limits depending on your internet connection speed, the amount of content been broadcast and your data plan.You may experience a delay while broadcasting as the video data is been pushed to the server so make sure not to turn off Qik until all the video has been transferred.. The image quality is average but that is a small price to pay considering the tremendous technology at your disposal. Qik have now partnered up with Pat Phelan’s Maxroam to offer a roaming data plan with the excellent Qikroam

Press play to view part of a talk given by Zack Exley, political and technology consultant which was broadcast live from the EU blog conference in Dublin in 2008 using the nokia e51