Drew has sent you a video.
I send videos to my mother so that she can see her granddaughter on a regular basis. Not just SEE her granddaughter, but to witness moments in her life that are meaningful and special (eating Grandma’s pumpkin bread, or opening a gift that Grandma sent her). I’ve sent videos to a past neighbor so he could see the water leak in the house he is not around to sell. Casual high school acquaintances are posting videos to MY Facebook page, saying hello or simply commenting on their everyday life.
Why? Because we have a close, but forgotten, personal bond? Not necessarily – but because the tools make it easy for them to communicate in this way (more and more computers have built in webcameras), so why not?
Video is changing the social media world – Facebook in particular.
Video from sites like YouTube used to be primarily for BROADcast, but more and more people are using web video as a personal message. Videos for mom, videos for friends and videos for a specific group of customers are making traditional forms of communication even more obsolete.
MediaPost’s “Online Spin” questions how to monetize this medium – I think a simple solution is videos with a lower third advertisement, as utilized by YouTube, but with Google Adsense Touch. When the video creator uploads / or links the video to the Social Media website, the title of their video, keywords in their profile, or tags that they associated with the video could be mined for ad content. Once the video is played, ads related to these words (e.g. “our vacation”, “Jamaica”, “Drew goes to Wal-Mart”, or “ice cream”) show up below the video when it is viewed.
I can see it now: Sofia’s next gift-opening video to grandma will be sponsored by Toys-R-Us. Makes the family moment that much more tender, huh? But seriously, the changing landscape of media is forcing advertisers to conform to new and unique ways of selling. And if Duncan Hines wants to piggyback on a cup cake-eating video to grandma – I’d say, “over the river and through the woods,” my friends.