In the six months or so that we’ve had our 3GS iPhones, we have experimented a few times with unedited realtime video broadcasting by way of USTREAM; shot, cropped, and shared many near realtime videos by way of Twitter; and shot, edited, and distributed several not realtime videos through TubeMogul. Realtime is ideal for the moment, near real time is ideal for the event, and not real time is ideal for a longer story. But all three can be shot and viewed on a mobile device, and have a place in Mobile Media Marketing.
Robert Scoble spotted the Rush to video search keywords back in 11/27/07. We predicted the end on 10/26/08. Six months ago, the keywords we watch on Google had 2 or 3 thumbnailed videos on page one, now they have 0 or 1. In the last month, competitive keywords on YouTube have results that change daily as YouTube tweaks their algorithms. Authority seems to be determined first by Keywords, then by Views when an order of magnitude greater, and then by Ratings when extreme one star or five stars. So now it’s back to delivering value by creating videos that inform, entertain, amuse, or uplift, delivering value by communicating unique quality.
You know the Gold Rush is over when they start hanging the claim jumpers!
We had a great time at the 2008 Mountain Mandarin Festival today. As we walked up to the entrance, a friendly lady offered us some free admission tickets. We walked past vendors booths sampling candy, nuts, jelly, and of course Mandarin oranges. Then we came to the highlight of the event — Traylor Ranch Mandarins. We saw a Mandarin booth with signs saying no pesticides, a good indicator. A man was standing in front of the booth, not hiding inside it, giving out whole Mandarins as samples, not just tiny slivers. We decided to buy a 10 lb. bag for $14, and pulled out a twenty. A woman in the booth asked if we had singles, we didn’t. The man out front said we could have two 10 lb. bags for twenty, we said yes. Magnificent Mandarin Marketing!
We found some old footage that helps make a new point about Mobile Video Search Engine Optimization:
If you optimize for Google, YouTube, and iPhone now, you will have even greater success when the iPhone supports Flash or more video sharing sites support the iPhone, and when Google Maps supports video on the iPhone.
We have always had a gradually increasing viewership of our videos, but over the last three months we’ve had an acceleration due to one video — Buck Mating Sounds—Deer Sounds. As you can see, it is the reverse of the usual pattern of peaking early, then fading. The only explanation we could imagine is deer hunting season, but we’ll see what happens.
