Video Discussions and Presentations with VoiceThread

VoiceThread is an interesting multimedia presentation and Video application with some unique features. The presentation may include mostly all kind of media. The key feature of VoiceThread is the the interactivity of presentations. Visitors are able to add comments beside or within a presentation like it happens at some interactive video applications. The comments may become added by text, audio or video. With this feature VoiceThread is a great application for various purposes like collaboration, education or discussions. Related to video discussions VoiceThread may be compared with Seesmic.

Web based Video Communities with Business Opportunity

Business Thursday: Citizen entrepreneurship is a characteristic of social media. People may participate in business by a couple of means like widgets or even running own social media communities and Video is a feature with an own appeal.

Boostcast is a web based service, that enables everyone to run an own video sharing community even at an own domain. This service is customizable to give a unique look to particular communities. For monetization there are several up to date business opportunities offered like in stream advertising and community owners are able to integrate own advertising partners. To acquire new members to an own community this business opportunity may become passed on to attract new users. By this the up to date video community solution comes complete with an up to date business model.

Actually Boostcast already host nearly 20000 video communities. This figure may show that success will not achieved easily. A great concept might be needed and niches mostly are worth a try. To facilitate creativity Boostcast is offering an award to video community owners.

The BOBs Blog Award streams Award Ceremony Live

Tomorrow the award ceremony of The BOBs happens, a blog award. There are some great features added to the award ceremony. The ceremony will be streamed live at the internet and accompanied by live blogging realized by using the Cover it Live application, which has been covered here. That is great at all, but the best thing is that everyone may put the live video and blogging streams onto an own blog or website by embedding the codes. You may get the codes at the homepage of The BOBs or view the event at this page. Starting time is 27th Nov. 20 CET.

The AppAppeal Directory of Webbased Applications

AppAppeal is another directory for webbased applications like the already mentioned Go2Web20.net and Simple Spark. AppAppeal is an edited directory that looks for up to date webbased applications. Issues they mention for their choice of apps are easy use and registration processes. By this one may expect a quality choice of apps at AppAppeal without risks to join.

Glue combines Semantic Data with Social Networking and Shopping

Glue seems to me one of the first true semantic web applications. It is a social networking and social shopping hybrid. The Glue application is a browser bar, that connects to friends and others like a co browsing application. Opposite to most other co browsing applications Glue connects and interacts with particular web pages, which have enabled the Glue experience. Whereas there is no limitation actually this happens mostly at popular shopping destinations for books and movies and other things. By showing up the browser bar at enabled pages users are able to get reviews and recommendations by friends and other people and of course to add own ratings and reviews. People can also connect within the browser bar, join lifestreams of others and put their own lifestreams onto the web by connecting to other social networking services. Below there is a shared video supplied by Glue


Glue Overview from AdaptiveBlue on Vimeo.

The Tusavvy Social Search Engine

Tusavvy is further social search engine and again a social search engine with a different approach. The Tusavvy index is in part based on the social web and how people have linked websites and other data. The index ranks pages by popularity and other factors, where relevance and groups of interests are most important. By doing this the search engine aims to provide information important to niche interests. The index of the search engine is build by a crawler. But the main factor to crawl the web is following data at the social web.

This approach to crawling the web becomes visible at the search engine results pages (serps). The serps do consist of two different columns, pages discovered and tagged by people and most popular pages at the web at all. A nice and useful feature of the serps is the ability to add and delete keywords to narrow search results. There is also various factors to assort the search results, by date, by popularity and by the proprietory zRank. Tusavvy is in public beta actually and free to join.

OneRiot combines Social Search with Buzz Rankings

OneRiot is a new search engine, that has just been launched on 11th November and that claims to have 2 million members already. OneRiot is a search engine, that indexes the web. But the search results are based on a proprietary popularity ranking called the Pulse. The ranking of the search results is based on up to date popularity giving the results an aspect of a the live web search engine like SocialMention mentioned at social web research. The intention is to deliver most up to date information about queries.

The rankings at OneRiot are based on the behavior of the members and the exposure and popularity of web pages within the community. The popularity of sites or items becomes evaluated by members using a toolbar and communicating what pages or items have been bookmarked, visited or watched. There are a couple of tools for buzz research like indicators for the popularity of web pages at add ons.

Free Social Media Webinars at HubSpot

HubSpot is a webbased internet marketing suite. The service supplies some interesting social media marketing information at marketing ressources. There white papers and webinars beside others. HubSpot hosts live webinars and makes archived versions available. Especially at marketing tips and webinars there are a couple of interesting social media marketing papers and presentations. The following links to a comprehensive and free Social Media Marketing Kit download with a video and an ebook.

The HubSpot service is an interesting up to date internet marketing suite. The webbased service contains several publishing tools, a search engine optimized content management system and a publishing tool for business blogs. Furthermore there are optimization tools for search engine marketing and social media marketing. For both there are analytical tools integrated like keyword intelligence and link management, automated buzz monitoring and lead management. There are two versions, one for business owners and one for marketing agencies.

The Invision.tv Media Interface for Internet TV and Video

Invision is the next service in the range of the upcoming new web interfaces for tv and video. Invision.tv is describing themselve as a guide for internet tv and video. They got a lot to offer, full episodes and videos, and to find further stuff there is a video search engine. The content reaches from internet video to established tv channels. The site is easy to navigate and there is a broad choice of media already available at the homepage. Further media is located at the 'Channels' menu tab. Channels at the homepage may become assorted by date or popularity. Another way to find interesting stuff is by the tab 'Interests'.

Furthermore there are social networking capabilities integrated. People may connect with others to discuss and share media or create groups of interests. To members the interface is cusomizable and they may receive information about new episodes, shows or videos. Last but not least there is a playlist editor. Edited playlists may become shared with others or at the internet.

Mobile Commerce Applications and Services

Business Thursday: The mobile market is one of the most promising growth markets and now might be the right time to start a business to participate or to establish a mobile channel. There are some business opportunities that are most similar to the web and some that are unique. The most similar business opportunity to the web is to monetize mobile pages by advertising. Another opportunity is to monetize applications. Something unique in mobile business is premium sms messaging. In the following there are two webbased applications, which are easy to use for everyone and a took kit to monetize applications. For more professional business solutions have a look at mobile commerce and to monetize content by advertising visit mobile advertising.

Fortumo offers messaging services in european countries and china. These messaging service may become applied to offer premium content services and to create a sms chat box. People may either pay to receive content or to send messages. A more advanced option is the opportunity to create own sms campaigns and to offer rewards. An outstanding option is the ability to connect the premium content facility with YouTube. This way it is a way to monetize video content. The Fortumo service is free to join and offers ready to use applications and advanced service for developers. The business opportunity is based on revenue sharing. If you look for an international service, you may try TeleWord.

Playscreen is a mobile platform for user generated content, that has already been covered here.

Mogees is a service to monetize mobile applications. They are offering a tool kit that needs to become integrated into an application. By this the application may become transformed into a shareware version to sell the full version. Another way is to monetize applications by the subscription model. All the business is handled by the online service.

Internet Video Trends and Movies

Here are some interesting internet video and video business trends in addition to the post emedia trends, where it has been mentioned that internet video becomes narrative elements.

At first there is a article confirming that internet video becomes favored to the disadvantage of tv viewing.
Web Video Chips Away at TV

The conclusion is a need for new content and at least this will be in part user generated content. A research from Gartner has found an increasing demand for Protail Video, a term describing semi professional content and similar to the term prosumer.
Gartner: Demand For 'Protail' Video On The Rise

The latter trend is followed by marketers looking for new advertising opportunities.
The Suits Are All About New Media

Opposite to this there seems to be some trouble in the range of professionally produced internet video formats like webisodes. The following article reports about lay offs, which might be reasoned in the weak economy. Personally I think that people are able to evaluate content and that there is a true favor for internet content just because of the success. The Gartner research is confirming this. At least it seems that the market of professionally produced internet video formats is not booming like social media.
Hyped Web Video Sector Starts to Hurt

The above context is difficult to match with the following. There are two further websites offering free content, movies and tv episodes, which one usually would describe as premium content. This is the german MSN Movies website and Crackle, a Sony property. I had already fun at Crackle by watching shorts. But in the context of the content business one may either think of a wise strategic step because of tough competition or one needs to question the value of professionally produced content. At all it seems that it will be most difficult to establish a business based on the paid content business model. Especially this might be due to the early hyped video on demand business model.
Sony Shapes Snappier Crackle

There are two other articles with future media trends. This concerns the use of the so called White Spaces. This is free part of the broadcasting signal, which either may be used for broadband internet connection or as a backchannel to realize interactive tv. Probably it will be used for both. Great news for new media enthusiasts. The second article is about an interactive tv pilot project in the US.
Google, Microsoft Win Big With FCC 'White Spaces' Ruling
LIN TV to Test Interactive Television

Taboola Video Recommendation Engine with Advertising and Business Opportunities

Taboola is a video discovery and recommendation solution. The system analyses video content and matches it with the user behavior. To publishers Taboola is offering the video discovery platform called ViDiscovery. It is a customizable video recommendation solution to engage viewers and to increase the retention at a website by a personalized video experience. The business opportunity consists of an integrated video advertising solution called DiscoverAd. Further information about the system and for advertisers is available at the website.

Further video advertising solutions and business opportunities are available by the tags below.

Developing Widgets on a PaaS for Flex

Adobe has launched a public beta platform for the development of rich media applications aka widgets. The platform is called Cocomo. Cocomo is a PaaS, which means that both the development tools and the application hosting is managed by Adobe. There are already a lot of cool features available like voip, collaboration and file sharing.

The Junta42 Article Rating Service now features Top Blogs

Junta42 is a content marketing portal offering an article rating service for content marketing and content publishing articles. They now have launched a new rating service for content marketing blogs. The ranking service is scoring blogs and offers widgets for every blog just beside the rankings.

There are a lot of useful tools and business opportunities at Junta42. Right at the homepage there is a rating service for content marketing articles. Articles may become submitted by authors or are gathered by editors of the service. For business there is a matching services, which brings together marketers and publishers of consumber and business content.

Other marketing related article ranking service are Sphinn, which is about online marketing at all, and the search engine marketing related SEO Voter. Find more marketing business networks.

Co Browsing with Plista

A new co browsing application has been launched. The service is called Plista. As the other covered co browsing applications the tool enables to share interesting sources and to leave comments at third party websites. And there are a couple of further things this application can do. Plista makes recommendations in several ways. There are suggestions and a menu to navigate as well as matching with other people and their choice of websites. The latter feature may be used to find like minded people. Furthermore there are intelligent recommendations based on the user behaviour and made available by the self learning application. This is a similar feature like the just introduced newsfeed applications do offer. Last but not least it is a social networking applications to share sources and information with others, known and newly matched friends. The application is free.

PostRank filters Newsfeeds for Buzz and Information

PostRank is newsfeed filter that enables to find the most popular and the most related information. The application automates two important tasks, looking for popular feeds and personalization to find related news. For both tasks there is a buzz filter to find the most engaging content at the socialsphere. PostRank is doing this by analysing social media sources like posts about an issue and resulting acitivities like bookmarking and commenting. The application may become used online as a webbased reader or with nearly every application, browsers or newsreader software. There is a video introduction available, a particular page for users and for developers.

Filtering information is a great way to manage possible information overload. Another way to organize information overload might be the use of self learning applications that filter and suggest resources automaticly like FeedHub or Feeds 2.0. Here you will find further newsfeed applications.

YouTube Live Event

YouTube will host a live event on 22th November. There is a big announcement at YouTube Live. It will be a major global event with all kind of artists, big stars and independents, comedians and scientists. The event celebrates all participants of the site and will be streamed from San Francisco. Find further information at the YouTube Live site.

Online Gallery for Vector Art

Vector Art is using vector graphics for art. It is a kind of computer graphics and as usual one may do many things using a computer program. But generally I would describe vector art as a way to make illustrations and of course electronic images. There is a new online gallery and artist community dedicated to vector art managed and founded by two artists, Jared Nickerson and Brad Mahaffey. By this one may expect a lot of good stuff and expert opinion. The galley is called BloodSweatVector.

Spot.us matches Citizens with Journalists

The approach of Spot.us to journalism is a hybrid of citizen journalism and conventional reporting. Spot.us is calling it 'community funded reporting'. The way this is done happens by several steps. The initial step is to suggest a story. Then people become matched with journalists, if someone is interested in the subject and pitches it. Now people may fund the story by donating money. The rights to a resulting story may become bought by a news publisher or available to everyone by a creative commons license.

Motive Interactive offers Ajax based Media Planning Tool

Ajax has changed the way websites are created and navigated. Motive Interactive is bringing this great experience to media planning. The innovative interface is called Advent 2.0. It is available to advertisers as well as to publishers. Both parties now can control the performance using a most comfortable interface. There are a couple of presentations available at the homepage. The Motive Interactive network is offering performance based advertising and affiliate marketing. Advertisers may buy display advertising, too.

Social Networking with Artificial Intelligence

TrueThinker enhances social networking with artificial intelligence. It is a knowledge management and networking tool for information gathering, storing and sharing. The webbased service offers a personalizable interface that is based on ajax. Artificial intelligence is used to assort the information and for search. Members are able to create public and private groups. The service is fee based and by this free of ads and targets private as well as business users. To try the service there is a free trial available.

In the future for sure further services will embrace artificial intelligence to enhance social networking and other kind of services. This will enable further interactions between applications and fulfill automated tasks. To learn more about TrueThinker there are a couple of presentation available at the homepage.

Further information about artificial intelligence.

New Media Hub and Surf Board with innovative Interface

With Radus another service has launched offering a new kind of interface to experience and surf the web. It is a social network aggregator at the same time offering access to various social media networks including facilities to post from within the web application. Radus describes itself as a media hub and content discovery tool. This is a main feature of the homepage with up to date news and a side bar at the right to access various topics. The news section of course is customizable and beside popular sources news from most active users are displayed. What makes it useful for music and video is a playlist editor at the bottom of the right to create personlized playlists.

A Blog Publishing Network to Earn Money

There are a couple of strategies to earn money by blogging. Usually this happens by blogvertising. But this does require some knowledge about the advertising landscape and mostly a serious amount of visitors to earn a reasonable amount of money and to be accepted by an advertising network. To join a blog publishing network that pays for blogging might be an alternate option. Being part of a network assures some visitors by networking and the earning opportunity comes with the network.

So does today. It is a blog publishing network serving both novice and experienced bloggers. Newbies are invited to start an own blog using the free blog hosting service. Experienced bloggers may submit their blog to the directory. The latter is useful at all as today has an own blog search engine to become found and a directory with a broad array of topics. You may register here.

Another blog publishing network that aims to pay for blogging is Overblog. Whereas free publishing is already available the earning opportunity actually is announced to come soon. Nevertheless it already might be an interesting networking option as Overblog is available in multiple languages and does encourage bloggers to connect with each other.

And of course there is Blogger. With Blogger one gets easily connected to Google Adsense, which might become integrated without programming skills by a widget.

Social Web Research and Popularity Indexes

Business Thursday: Finding popular sources is a crucial mean of research to find and interact with influencers. Here are some new services to research the blogosphere, forums and the social web.

BoardsMD.com is a research tool for boards and forums. They have an own ranking system called the Health Score. This ranking system counts the number of members of forums, the amount of posts and the activity by scoring discussions. There are a lot of tools available to find and match forums related to topics and to find most active forums. Furthermore there are several monitoting tools, email alerts to stay informed about particular boards and at the website there are rankings about various topics. Last but not least board owners may become listed at the directory.

TopOfBlogs is a blog ranking service using own metrics and integrates third party metrics, which makes it a meta tool for blog research. They are counting pageviews and feed subscribers. Integrated third party services are Google PageRank, Alexa Ranking and Technorati Ranks. Blogger may list their weblog at the directory.

DiggTop shows top rated stories and media at Digg. It is a desktop tool to gather information and for monitoring.

SocialMention is both a search engine and research tool. It monitors and searches the social web in real time and by this it is showing up to date search results. The search engine is able to find various kind of media and posts. It searches blogs, bookmarks, news, videos and even comments and microblogging services.

You will find further related popularity indexes and social media research tools by the link Social Media Research.

Business and Start Up Valuation Services and Tools

Some new services with information about start ups have been launched. These may either offer information about launch time or more insights into the business with information about collaboration, merger and financial valuation.

Watching the start up market is done by FirstEntrant.com. It is a social networking site monitoring which company has entered the market first. The site has lists about several vertical social media ranges like social bookmarking, business networking and video sharing sites. To watch start ups and new market entries in the range of social media and web apps there are two other interesting directories listing closed alpha and beta as well as fully launched services, Go2Web20.net and Simple Spark.

The PDEC KIT is a special online service to monitor the financial performance of companies financed by venture capital. There are particular reports available about social networking and online advertising companies. A more general business valuation service is available by BizBuySell, a marketplace to buy and sell companies.

Twitter Research Tools

Here is a choice of further Twitter tools for marketing and research. In general there is a trend to more professional marketing tools and analytics. This concerns the analysis of unfollowing and the influence of members as well as the value of posts.

Friends and Members

Just tweet it is a directory of Twitter users to find other like minded people.
tweetmeme shows communications.
TweetWheel is a research tool for relationships.
Twemes shows global tags and conversations.
Twinfluence analyses the influence of members.
TwitterLess informs about unfollowing.
Tweeple Twak, actually in private alpha, aims to analyse unfollowing.

Monitoring Tools

SocialTops.com is a popularity index for posted stories and topics. You need to click on Today's Top or somewhere else as no stories have been found at the homepage itself.
TweetBeep.com is a monitoring tool for topics and names.

Statistics

Tweetrush visualizes usage stats for Twitter and Twitter clients.
TwitGraph analyses user activity and visualizes topics by the frequency of words.
What's your Tweet worth evaluates the value of posts.

Last but not least there is a new blog dedicated to twittering: TwiTip

WordTracker released a Keyword Tool for Q&A Queries

WordTracker is an online tool to research relevant keywords for search engine optimization. It makes it easy to find words relevant to business segments, that one may use within a website to be found. WordTracker now has released a service dedicated to real questions. By Keyword Questions one now is able to find questions related to business segments and may target these questions instead of particular keywords alone.

WordTracker is a recommendable service offering free and premium services, which are both available at the homepage. Furthermore there is a free keyword suggestion tool available.

The MP3 Ghetto Blaster is here

I already wondered how the problem of tiny smartphone screens will become solved related to viewing videos on a mobile phone. The solution rather will be flexible screens and even foldable or rollable screens made of technologies like epaper than a ghetto blaster design. But might a ghetto blaster styled mobile phone with a big screen be an alternative and comfortable option? (Is there a ghetto blaster on the market equipped with phone and networking facilities?) It might be or might not, but here is a solution for mp3. It is a shopping bag with a ghetto blaster look, that is equipped with real speakers and a port for mp3 players. Well, it might be a convenient gadget for picnics and such occasions: The Ghetto Blaster Tote

User generated Advertising at Current.com

Using a thorough approach the news sharing site Current is matching citizen journalism with user generated advertising. Current is a well known site to share written news and video news. A success story has been reported by ReadWriteWeb that Current makes millions by user generated advertising. This of course supposes that the feature is worth to have a look. It is easily to become found right at the top menu and by this it is an essential part of the homepage. The link refers to a particular page called Viewer Ads. At this page visitors are encouraged to make an advert. At the top there are some ads and below sponsoring offers by advertisers. It seems to be a fair and lucrative business as further information is telling that spots aired at Current will earn 2500 dollars and if a spot is aired by a sponsor elsewhere, too, the opportunities are even rising up to 60000 dollars. Below there is the coverage by ReadWriteWeb with some further information.

Has Current Solved the User Generated Advertising Mystery?

New Overlay Advertising Solution for Internet Video

Keystream is a new video advertising provider, which uses the overlay feature of interactive video. An ad becomes implemented within a video and opens in new windows, if one clicks on it. The system is supplied as software as a service serving both advertisers and publishers. What is different with other providers of interactive video advertising is that the solution searches and finds blank spaces within a video automaticly. At these spaces the adverts may become placed.

An Email Marketing Report with Fresh Metrics

A free email marketing report has been published by Mailer Mailer, a webbased email and newsletter marketing solution provider. The report covers industry sectors and key elements that influence email click and open rates. A key finding has been that emails now are opened sooner with about one third within the first two hours. Probably this is because a better and ongoing integration of internet tools into working processes. The report has analysed "over 350 million emails in 21 different industries from the first six months of 2008".

Email Marketing Metrics Report

Amazing Online Advertising Innovation within Calendars

This is a real online advertising innovation. Calgoo provides In Calendar Advertising with this first to market application. It might become for calendars what advertising at maps is for local advertising. The application is compatible with major online calendars and even available for outlook. There are amazing targeting opportunities right suitable to events noted at a calendar. For businesses it might even be an opportunity to get quotes and offers for their event planning. The service has just launched and is even looking for campaign ideas within a forum at the Calgoo website.

eMoney Applications for Facebook

iCoins is a provider of electronic money and wallet systems enabling sending and receiving money online for free. They now have released a Facebook application with an integrated money transfer system. The application is called Hotcoins. It is a free money transfer system and prize game at the same time. People may transfer money free of charge and anonymously like using cash. The system may be used for any purposes like making gifts or paying someone. To exchange the electronic money into real cash there is the CoinJars ewallet application available at Facebook, which connects to a licensed emoney issuer. Further information about the system is available at the iCoins homepage, for further electronic money and incentive systems for social media usage click here.

Using Social Media for Online Support and Business

Business Thursday: The social media sphere is a space of communications and interacting both for business and private purposes. Usually it is about information. Some services are going beyond this by offering real business services for website support. These services are helpful to website owners and service providers in any case and do help even small companies or private publishers to realize a real time support service.

A service to realize online support is Get Satisfaction. It is a social support platform already delivering support services for thousands of companies and products. The service is used by some real big companies and newcomers like Twitter. At the Get Satisfaction platform employees as well as users meet to deliver support and advices. At the same time it is a great tool to get feedback from customers. Support services do happen at the Get Satisfaction website by linking to it. To offer contact within a site there is a widget available.

Expert services are another way to offer online support. But usually these platforms are indepent businesses that are not related to particular websites or products. Nevertheless these platforms can be used to offer support serivces and to enrich the experience of a website. There are even business opportunities for new revenue streams by affiliate programs and offering advices beyond the own homepage. To offer support by using an expert service one needs to join an expert network. As a member one may link to an own profile or service offer from a website and serve foreign customers that are visiting the platform. Two services offering such services are LivePerson and Support Space.

Remixable Film Content

To easily copy content is as well an advantage as a problem of digital media. MOD Films aims to make a business out of the advantages and the remixing culture. The company produces remixable film content and film production methods. Remixable films are described as a kind of sampling. Examples are available at MOD Films services and further content by another site of the company, remixable.tv.

Machinima Sources and Videos

I did some further research about of machinima and have found a diversified genre. Furthermore I have found a nice advertising example with complete information about how this video has been made and furthermore some sources and video sharing sites.

The machinima genre does differ by the available forms of media as described at the already mentioned wikipedia machinima article. At first there are all kind of electronic games, primarily mmorg and video games. A video sharing site for this kind of genre is machinima.com. It is a typical video sharing site with a lot of short videos. Nice to view are the featured videos, where my favorite has been the Dude series. Further video sharing site for videos made within games are Gamerz Theatre and sims99.com.

Different to videos with game scenes are the videos made within virtual worlds. A video sharing site dedicated to virtual reality worlds is Koinup. It is a place to share avatars and other created virtual reality items. By the media tab at the menu one reaches the machinima genre. A recommendable artist is Giu. Some further virtual reality videos are available again by a second life channel at machinima.com.

As a third kind of genre one may describe the use of special software independly from third party media as described above. This kind of software enables to easily create videos without programing skills. Related software is mentioned at the wikipedia machinima article.

The latter is the way Volvo has created a video to promote the V50. At the Game On Project homepage there is the award winning video available. Furthermore the whole production process is described, which makes it a nice case study.

Here are some further sources. A community of interest to promote the machinima genre is Celebrating Machinima. The site has a forum and does enable video uploads. Machinima 101 is another forum. At Second Life there is a particular page for information on how to create Machinima at the Creation Portal. Last but not least there is a machinima channel at Twitter.

Personally I am something fascinated by the idea to make a movie within a virtual reality world by playing real world and to start a virtual film production and studio. You may contact, if you feel the same by the contact at the bottom at the left.

Vidize is a Video Talk Show Application

Vidize.com is an online application to host and record video talk shows online and to publish these show on blogs and websites. After joining the service the talk master is able to invite guests to join the show and record the contributions of all participants. Participation does happen by webcams. The whole show will be stored and can become embedded at blogs and websites.

Another but different talk show tool is TalkShoe. This applications works by phone calls and enables audio recordings.

Some amazing eMedia Trends

At the end of very month I do some basic research for the update of FOLDEN.INFO and I have found some really interesting articles and trends, that are most related to the topics here at emediablogger. This concerns interactive video and is even related to the former post about machinima, interactive films made within virtual reality or games.

At the first article there is an expert opinion that there is not only a shift toward video consumption at the internet, but that there is evolving a new kind of media format. This new format is described as storytelling by video. Whereas there is no example mentioned, I do think about the latest movements of converging various forms of internet media into new kinds of services. Exemplary I do think about interactive video services like the new YouTube feature to link videos or Seesmic, which is for video conversations enabled by follower functions that are usually available at microblogging services. Last but not least there are the live video services, that are beloved here. You will find this statement at the end of the following article.

Online Video Market Evolves, Begins Morphing Into New 'Storytelling' Device

The second case, that is related to new narrative forms of video, are alternative reality games. At these kind of games there is a given and designed playground with a story and some characters. But the story and the game evolves by the engagement of users, who are solving tasks and contribute to the story. This happens as well in the real world as online by using all means that seem to be suitable. At the article especially the usage of internet video is mentioned and the possibilities for marketing. Here is a wikipedia definition of alternate reality games.

Industry Watch: Games Break Loose

Last but not least two articles about an interactive tv advertising pilot project and the emerging social media space.

MPG, Navic Test Interactive Ads (TV)

Social media goes global

Of course there have been more noteworthy occurrences. If you like to have a look at my review of latest internet marketing and emedia trends, you may visit the monthly internet trend coverage at FOLDEN.INFO. To stay connected and to be informed about updates you may either subscribe to the full text newsletter or to the newsfeed, which links to the newsletter contains parts of it.