Martijn Kersten

Final reflection post

2009-11-21T19:10:00.000-08:00

So, it comes to an end, and it wasn't bad at all. In this last post I'm reflecting the last 2 months of my community-feeling and my first blogging experience.
At first my community, Vimeo. I didn't regret that I chosen this one because it really has resulted in something.
I registered myself because my passion is about Video(art). Vimeo really found a niche in the market. YouTube is full of webcamvideos, iphone registration of concerts etc. In fact a lot of rubbish. But that's good, a lot of people like it. But I guess and know, that there are also a lot of people out there like me. Just want to browse and search and want to find some quality videos with some narrative in it. I came too Vimeo, through a video of an video artist who included his vimeo-footage to his website. I didn't know what is was, Vimeo. I thought a wannabe YouTube. But when I visited the site, I was really happy because I finally found a site/community where I could find the videos I really want. So it was a first experience match.
And it's really nice to enter a community of people who share the same interest. I'm not so into entering communities. I'm only an active member of 2 communities. Hyves and Vimeo.

When I found Vimeo, I knew I had to make an account for my own videos. At first it was just for storing purpose. I just had one friend (from real-life) as a contact, and ofcourse I watched videos from the others but I didn't do anything with it.
But than I came more active on Vimeo. Gave some ratings ('likes') to videos, commented it and I added some persons as contacts, because I really liked their videos.
Last weeks it really became fun. Everyday I got some replies on my comments, some people started to watch and 'like' my videos, commented it and also added me as a contact. That was the best experience, and I owe it to the module 'Community Building', because otherwise I'm sure it didn't happen that fast.
My main activities were sking questions, giving comments and 'likes'. About the community feeling. Giving likes, comments, adding contacts, groups, channels, well these are the things you can do on Vimeo. And I think that's enough. People in this community don't want more fancy gadgets stuff, giving each others 'image-gifst' etc., because it's about the video and it's content. I think for that reason, Vimeo is that kind of popular by video artists.

How they make money?
It's obviously that there are some banners from advertisers but not many. They get most of their money out of the Premium accounts. It costs 60 dollar a year, and you get some good stuff back for it.
Even higher quality video, 5GB/week upload space, Unlimited HD uploading, Embed in HD! , Faster, priority uploading, Super-customizable video player, Original file storage and downloading, Unlimited Groups, Channels & Albums, You never see ads, ever!

Those are some specifications which are really important for the serious user of Vimeo. You can customize a lot more things, your videos get an higher quality boost. The most users are semiprofessional or professional and I guess a lot of them have a premium membership. This premium membership has also something special. I asked myself the question: How does Vimeo keeps the site clean from crap videos and how doesn't it become a 2nd YouTube.
Their policy for uploading is clear.

Upload ONLY videos you create and have the necessary permissions to upload.
You may only upload videos you have created yourself or participated closely to help create.

Public domain videos are also prohibited.
Users uploading popular or professional content that they have created should add their role and involvement in the video description and on their profile to avoid accidental deletion.

Do Not Upload Videos Intended for Commercial use.
You may not upload commercials, infomercials, or demos that actively sell or promote a product or service.
No gameplay videos, "fan vids", sexually explicit videos, or music videos, movies, TV, and trailers that you found on the web.

The moderation system is reactive. You can flag items as a registered user, and you have to say why. I think this is why Vimeo is still about quality video.

But people CAN upload home-made videos and it's not illegal. But why aren't there a lot of that kind of videos on it? I really don't know, and I hope it will stay 'clean' for a long time!

Olivia Ma on YouTube as a news channel

2009-11-20T14:51:00.000-08:00

Nice video, as a combination of video and social media. Nice content, told by a news manager for YouTube.

Some highlights from our conversation:

• Every 60 seconds, 20 hours’ worth of video is being uploaded to YouTube, which is equivalent to 86,000 full-length Hollywood films being uploaded every week.

• Some companies are still nervous about having a presence on YouTube. But Google encourages businesses to come on board. Olivia notes that YouTube now has thousands of professional content partners, ranging from Hollywood studios and tech companies to news organizations. So there should no longer be a hesitancy among online news organizations about whether you’re allowed to post to YouTube. You are.

Thanks, Olivia!

5 Steps to Become a Better Social Media Marketer

2009-11-18T17:09:00.000-08:00

If you want to be more effective with driving traffic to your website or blog with social media, here are five steps that are sure to improve your results.

1. Targeting the Right Sites

There are hundreds or maybe even thousands of social media sites that you could be using. Obviously no one has the time to use them all effectively, and some of them aren’t worth your time anyway.

One of the first things you will need to do is find a few sites that will work well for you. Of course the larger sites like Digg and StumbleUpon are popular choices because of the large traffic volumes that they send. But if you are looking for sites that can send high quality traffic, first look for niche-specific social media sites.

Also targeting a general news website like Digg or Reddit can be helpful because once you have developed a strong profile you can promote all types of content, not just stuff that fits into one specific niche.

2. Consistent Use

If you hope to ever become a true authority on social media, you’ll have to implement consistent use. As you use the sites that you have targeted every day you’ll become familiar with what works and what doesn’t, and you’ll get to know some of the other consistent users.

3. Development of Content that Appeals to the Audience

Driving traffic to your website through social media will require content development that meets the expectations of social media users. Creating blog content that targets social media users doesn’t mean that you have to alienate your subscribers, contrary to the opinion of some people. What it does mean is that you will have to dedicate the time and effort to find a topic that is of particular interest to your readers and present it in a way that also appeals to social media users. For example, social media users like lists, breaking news, photos, controversy, and informative topics.

4. Networking and Helping Others

Content creation and networking are the two most important aspects of social media marketing. Great content without a network will have a harder time becoming popular and a strong network is an asset, but its value will not be realized without great content.

Networking on social media sites involves voting for the submissions of others, leaving comments, adding friends, and generally getting to know other users. With a strong network your submissions and votes will get more attention and you’ll have some friends to call on when you need help getting those extra votes needed to get over the hump.

5. Conversion

In most cases just getting traffic to a website will not be your ultimate goal. Social media traffic is pretty much useless if you are not able to convert some of it into what you want. Maybe you want to convert the traffic into links, or maybe subscribers. The conversion rate of social media traffic will usually be lower than the rates of other types of traffic, but the huge volumes sent by social media can offset a lower conversion rate and make it very valuable traffic.

While these steps will all help you to reach your goals of promoting your site with social media, they all require one very important step – taking action. So go get started today and build some momentum with social media.

Reflection Vimeo 5.0

2009-11-13T07:49:00.000-08:00

Well for the first time, unfortunately, I've got real community-feeling news. Everyday on Vimeo, there's a selection on the homepage of some videos. The team behind Vimeo is responsible for this. There are many videos on the vimeo network, so it's nice there's someone else who's checking and selecting the best ones. I really liked one of the videos, so I decided, for the community feeling, to add a comment and a "like" (symbol on Vimeo, that you like a vid) .

A couple of days later, I received an nice reaction of the maker. What a surprise! But the best part was, he also checked out my profile and videos. And he really liked my showreel '09. So he gave that video a 'like' and also added me as a contact. A nice feeling! It was the video in Reflection 4.0 (monday november 2nd). The best experience untill now...

1080p resolution YouTube..WTF

2009-11-11T13:19:00.000-08:00

Although YouTube has been supporting videos in high definition for at least a year now, the resolution till now was 720p.

But they're now thinking of to upgrade up to 1080p, also referred to as “full HD” or “true high-definition” because 1080p is currently the maximum resolution that anything supports (well, almost). Beginning next week, YouTube will be adding 1080p support to its video playback options.

Of course, as with other high definition playback formats, you’ll need to have 1080p quality video going in to get the proper quality coming back out. But a growing number of consumer video cameras are now supporting the true HD format, so it makes sense that YouTube would want to up the stakes in terms of quality.

Good news for videographers who’ve already uploaded 1080p quality video in the past, too — YouTube will be re-encoding your videos for you to allow playback at the proper true HD resolution. They also plan to prominently feature great examples of 1080p videos in an upcoming homepage spotlight, so if you have some footage that really shows off what true high resolution can do, now is the time to upload it.

I don't think anyone will respond. But if you read this: Does your video camera record at 1080p? Will you be using the new true high definition feature when it launches next week?

Burberry and social media

2009-11-06T09:37:00.000-08:00

Luxury goods group Burberry has hooked up with social networking company Facebook to launch a Website celebrating its trench coat, becoming the latest retailer to use social media in a bid to boost its brand.

The Web site, artofthetrench.com, will allow members connected via Facebook to submit images and stories about Burberry trench coats and share them with one other.

First designed by Burberry founder Thomas Burberry for British army offices in 1914, the trench coat is still one of the company's top-selling garments.

I think the move puts Burberry among a procession of retailers using social media like Facebook, Twitter and YouTube to get their brands in front of consumers and interact with them. Such as Sony, which I published couple posts ago.

Reflection 4.0

2009-11-02T08:47:00.000-08:00

And again I found a really nice video to share with you.

My opinion and question to the maker:
Smashing video! What an inspiration.
I really like it. How did you come up with the idea? :)

My experience with vimeo as a community till now is very simple. People there, love to see videos and want to see a lot. Ofcourse there are people who comment and share tips, but it's not equivalent to 'text-only' communities. You really see a completely different behaviour.

SPOOKY

2009-10-31T05:32:00.000-07:00

Every subject can have it's community right?
Well, it's halloween! And I was looking for those spooky communities. And I've found a lot of them. Ideas for costumes, pumpkin carving tools, where you can find props as skeletons and tombstones, ghost stories, halloween games, e-cards, fonts, news and serious halloween parties.
If I have a look at Europe, a couple of years ago, Halloween wasn't a big hit. Certainly here in Holland. But I think in a couple of years this creepy party from the US (originally it's from Europe) will be 'celebrated' in a kind of same way they do overseas. And why not, if it brings people togehter? After all, that can also be community.

http://www.halloweencommunity.com/
http://www.thehalloweennetwork.com/
http://www.hallowfreaks.com/

Sony viral

2009-10-26T04:54:00.000-07:00

Ah, gadget violence: if you want to create a viral video, it cannot fail. That’s what Sony Australia was thinking when they created a video in which a PS3 Slim gets smashed into a Sony Bravia LCD TV at 50 mph (22 meters per second).

It’s part of a promotion during which Sony Australia is giving away 25,000 PS3 slims for buyers of selected Bravia LCD TV models.

A couple of blogs were invited for the event, which included a specially-constructed sled that hurled the 3.2 kg heavy PS3 Slim into the Sony Bravia KDL46X 3100 Full HD LCD TV which was standing some 60m away. Simply check out the beauty of sheer destruction in the video below. And yeah, it was recorded in high speed, so you can have a clear view on each frame!

Turtle 2.0

2009-10-22T11:00:00.000-07:00

I found this video on 'my community' right now and I really like it.

It combines live action footage with CG-effects and great sound design.

I like the minimal approach. I also commented the video, and waiting for a reaction.

I received a reaction on another video which I have commented.

Ofcourse I wanted to know a bit of how it's made. The reply I received:

thanks a lot
almost everything is made out of photographs arranged and processed in Photoshop and After Effects

Again, really nice and it gave me a lot of inspiration.

Reflection 3.0

2009-10-20T10:50:00.000-07:00

To plug in on my previous blog, I can use my vimeo experience from multimediamanagement for this reflection. I said in my last post, that we have to come up with video status reports every week. Because I'm the video guy in our team, I've chosen vimeo for uploading our videos.

Because we have a lot community building our other class, everybody is watching eachothers videos. I like vimeo because other persons can 'like' your video through giving a 'heart'.

Unfortunately, most students didn't chosen vimeo.com but the embedded video uploader on the ning. Rubbish I think. You can't see how many times the video has played, and I really want to know that!

But yeah, what can we do about it. Our videos have been commented by several persons.

Some reactions:

Great work for the first film!

Thats how we roll! b*tch*s!

Fine vid, guys! It sets certain standards, for sure! Tnx! =;\

Really nice to read those, it gives a positive push to the next video, and make it even better.

P.S. Watch our Inglorious Bachelors videos on http://vimeo.com/inglorious

Learning community

2009-10-16T10:36:00.000-07:00

This block at school (Winter Programm B) it's all about community building for me I guess.

Ofcourse the module Community Building has a lot of community in it, but also the other course I follow has a great amount of community in it. The module name is Multimediamanagement.

We have to come up with a concept for an Serious Urban Game. Ofcourse this concept is important, but the main idea is to focus on the overall management. How do you organize things in your team (5-6 members) how do you divide tasks and how do you give structure to it all.

I think it sounds more simple than it is. I am working in an international team witch another dutch guy and 3 germans. We all have different time schedules and planning, which is inevitable, is very hard. But what's community building in this module?

Well, it's the first time (for me) that all the teams are sharing their knowledge and activities on the internet. Everybody can see what the others do, and everybody can see what your team is doing. A very cool experience. Every week each team has to come up with new results and go to a higher level, but also have to record a video status report. It's nice to watch the different interpretations.

I think this kind of community can be used more often, because this is the first time I am really experience a 'learning community'. A+

A first reaction

2009-10-12T13:48:00.000-07:00

I commented on a Vimeo video a couple of days ago, and the first reaction is a fact.

It's from Enrico;

hi! thanks :)
it is all home made! No budget just patient :) we shooted each frame with a normal digital photo camera and we used 2 halogen lights in order to have bright and homogeneous set.
best
enrico

Since I really like the video, I will share it with you. I think it has taken a very long time to produce it, because it looks very complicated to me. The maker of this has great graphic/drawing skills. And if you watch the video you'll see the preproduction was very important. He really knows what he did, and he certainly made a very broad storyboard and/or script.

Just watch it!

Vimeo Reflection 2.0

2009-10-08T16:38:00.000-07:00

Well, I didn't receive some reaction from the post where I added a question.

So, my plan is to sit and wait. Ofcourse not!

Well, actually I will do that with that video. But in the meantime I added some questions to another videos.

And with some result! I asked how they animated the tentacles of the animation. And they said there was a video on Vimeo where they show what they've done.

So look at this.

That's looking good! The software they used was Maya, after an couple of test they decided it was the best result. I also have used Maya sometimes, but the learn curve is very high. It's completely different than Cinema 4D. 3ds max is a bit equal, but still very different.

Another 'social?' TV show

2009-10-06T16:07:00.000-07:00

So, another cross-media show has ended, where the producers want to trigger the audience themost they can. Forums on a special website, to create discussions, polls, live television,televoting, SMS voting and for the belgium public, you could vote with a red button! (it's a special button if you have digital television). Do you see the euro marks? Well, I do!

But let's face it, this is a kind of television we see more and more, and it's definitely social-media TV. Because passive watchers can be converted to active watchers. They can choose their favourite.The show I was talking about was, the search for a new female member of the popular girl band K3.

Last year one member quitted, and a new member must been found. In the final show there were 3 candidates left, 2 dutchies 1 belgium. Watchers of the show could vote which 2 candidates should be left. 1 Dutchie had to go. At last the current members chosen their favourite. They chosen Josje, from Amsterdam

.I think it was also a marketing decision. Because K3 is very popular in Holland, so I think more children will now be dedicated to K3.

Vimeo reflection

2009-10-01T09:21:00.000-07:00

I searched on Vimeo for some cool videos, to reply on it. Most replies on Vimeo contains: Great! Wow!

Because I want some interaction with other members I'll have to ask some questions, or do some controversial. Well I wait to use that last thing for another time.

The video I found worthwile to watch and to comment.

I really like the cinematography, and colors. The acting is also very nice.

I was curious to the camera they've used, and the location where they did the shoot.

So I hope I will get an reaction and interaction!

Why is everyone using twitter?

2009-09-29T12:57:00.000-07:00

Plenty of people would happily have Twitter muzzled, rather than endure the beeping alert for yet another new text message.

But I'm betting that Twitter will get a lot noisier before netizens move on to the next new thing. Why? Because Twitter targets the same crowd that digs MySpace and, frankly, that site is getting stale. We cyberjunkies need a new thrill, and what better than a service that combines social networking, blogging and texting? Dozens of other companies are trying to do the same thing with services like VelvetPuffin and Google's Dodgeball.

But only Twitter has figured out how to make it easy.
I know, it's totally silly and shallow, but that's precisely why Twitter is on its way to becoming the next killer app. And if you don't like it, well, in the words of one Twit from San Francisco, "I'm so sick to death of Twitter-haters. If you don't like it, why waste your time writing, reading, or talking about it? Sheesh."

I really liked this article and opinion. I am not an active Twitter-member, but I have an account. I don't see the point why it's so funny or amusing to let everybody knows what you're doing any time of the day. Maybe it needs some time to see the light?

First vid.

2009-09-26T09:35:00.000-07:00

I found a video which is perfect to illustrate why I like vimeo.

Mainly it's two things: 1. the content and the idea 2. how they made it.

When I watch a video, first I want to see and feel what they are trying to tell me. And the best videos can combine those two, feeling and storytelling. Secondly I will take place behind the camera. I image the set, lights, crew and props. What did they in production and what in post production?

An example.

This is a great example to explain my experience with videos. This a video which has great content and the visual impression is perfectly combined with the story. And for the most scenes I know how they set up the crew and lights, because I think that's interesting too.

and the winner is...

2009-09-24T11:35:00.000-07:00

Do you hear the timpanis?

And the winner is...

And why? Simple, I spend hours a week watching videos on this site.

You may know, YouTube is great for home videos or to upload 10 minutes of an unauthorized copy of a new movie. But when we talk about Vimeo, and I hope that what I'm going to say is still true in a couple of months, has very high-quality professional content. And that's what I want!

I have a passion for audiovisual productions, and I love to watch short films or commercials form Indie filmmakers. Or just some people which are creative and record amazing footage.

Next thing to do, is find a great introduction video which can perfectly translate what I've just said.

Community Building ?

2009-09-22T14:01:00.000-07:00

I was wondering, why someone would have a blog. Why would someone want to share their feelings or ideas with the rest of the world. Okay, if you are on a internship or traveling around the world, I can understand that someone wants to share their experience with friends and family.

But when I'm typing this, I'm thinking about other reasons for a blog. If you can do something really good, and you want to share some knowledge with someone else, I think that's a good reason for blogging. Because I've learned some things by reading some blogs.

But now, I'm gonna experience what it is, to have a blog. I will add some information about me and what I'm doing and some links to things which have my interests. Next thing to do, is sign in to a community. I'm searching for it right now...

I hope you will like it!