Video has been touted as the next great online marketing vehicle, and  interviews with experts will likely be a big a significant part of the mix.

TurnHere specializes in producing these types of videos, and client Chronicle Books says the videos that have been distributed via BookVideos.TV retailer sites such as Barnes and Noble, and YouTube have increased attention from the press as well as book sales.

People who watch video online are happy to watching talking heads with greater patience than a TV audience. It doesn't require flashy production -- just smart  charasmatic people giving their informed opinions and analysis.

Vator.tv is another site driven largely by the interview process, including shows that rate startups looking for venture capital. It is engaging and a great audience builder.

First person video is a cost effective method of putting a face on a company and to market to potential customers. This will be one of the most significant online marketing shifts of 2008.

Friendly Computers, now the country’s largest computer retail repair franchise touted for reliable and “friendly” customer support, announced it has acquired a leading computer sales/repair retailer and vowed to use its new strength to wipe out the nation’s frustration caused by inept big box store customer service.

Isn't it a pleasure to hear a friendly voice -- or any voice at all -- on the phone when you have to call for customer service? The Internet has made buying nearly any good or service a commodity market. Therefore, customer service can be a true differentiator.

Telecom company Genesys Telecommunications Laboratories was recognized by Frost and Sullivan as customer service company of the year, which is surprising considering what we in the U.S. generally have to deal with when calling our phone companies.

Computer services company Friendly Computers heavily markets its customer service, and as a result the company continues to thrive and has now grown to stores in 39 states. Friendly Computers recently purchased the Computer Renaissance chain and will continue to stress customer service and inexpensive service technicians.

Community relations is also a key differentiator, and Friendly is giving away laptops to disabled Iraq veterans to exemplify its concern.

I've noticed since moving to Oregon that the customer service is noticeably better here than the other 3 states where I've lived -- California, Pennsylvania and New York. From the grocery store to the doctor's office to the insurance companies -- folks in Oregon are more considerate, helpful and patient than elsewhere. Marketers looking for a way to stand out from the crowd need to remember that keeping customers happy is critical to success.

The online advertising industry has standardized on a handful of ad sizes -- leaderboard, box, and a few skyscraper variants -- and companies (such as are recognizing that putting interactive widgets in these spaces that contain advertising can be more profitable than running traditional banners.

The technology has progressed in the past few years so that any type of content can be a widget, and integrating widgets with advertising provides a payoff to keep readers interested. Widgets for favorite songs, mashups, video content, and news aggregation ad value, and that is necessary in today's analytics and pay for performance world.

RSS, Javascript, AJAX and the like have provided us with a powerful tool set for delivering exciting content from anywhere to anywhere. Companies that can figure out how to make advertising a part of the mix will reap the benefits through higher click through rates and better CPMs.

Via GigaOm

You know a shift is at hand when risk-averse corporate types are willing to jump on social networking. Many of the great community and content sharing features have been add-ons that can be appended to existing publishing platforms, but content management system are now making recent web innovations part and parcel of their applications.

Adding to the growing roster of publishing systems that have gone all web 2.0 are Vignette and OpenText.

Vignette has been around forever, and now the company's Web experience includes rich media, blogs, wikis, and other community features. These applications are used to host public content as well as for private intranets.

OpenText will shortly release new web 2.0 tools, joining Vignette and Bitrix as the latest CMS companies getting hip with web 2.0. \

The integration of advertising into the publishing mix is another hurdle yet to be cleared in simplifying content management. Services that include tools for incorporating industry standard ad sizes and tightly integrating analytics with advertising are still needed.

 

 

 

CD music sales will be passed by online music sales by the time we're gearing up for the next presidential election, according to MediaPost.

Because online music sales are rising quickly and CD sales are slowing retracting, the two figures will intersect around 2012. The bad news for the music industry is that the total market will continue to shrink.

From a high of $14.2 billion in 2000, total revenues will shrink to just $8.6 billion in 2012, if Forrester's prediction holds.

Performers can make up some of this shortfall by touring more, but as I've said before, the music industry needs to stream tunes for free and generate more money from advertising. Online streaming services such as Last.fm today have created free channels in hopes of generating song sales, but incorporating audio and video advertisements is the best hope for expanding revenue.

The same can be said for music videos, which while not as important as before, are ripe for product placement. Put a Nissan Altima in a music video and get a six-figure check.

 

 

Now is not the happiest of times for those inside and around eBay. Some of the top sellers on the auction site are boycotting eBay because the company has raised fees for listing goods for sale.

While eBay is free to make the change it feels necessary to gird its flagging revenue, the company is nothing without the millions who list goods for sale their. So far the boycott is having only limited effect, but even losing a small percentage of sellers to craigslist or other competitors could result in significant losses over time.

The online world is moving towards a pay per performance model, so eBay needs to get with the times by charging fees primarily based on when they sell.

According to a Forbes article "eBay's business model has been out of sync with the performance-based models popularized by the search economy," which dictates that users pay for performance, such as a lead to complete a sale."

EBay should include some nominal fee based on the number of goods listed, and get the bulk of its revenue from actual sales. With Meg Whitman stepping down, the new leadership needs to respond quickly.

Last week I attended a webinar give by HubSpot on the fundamentals of search engine optimization, and I'm passing on a few noteworthy tips. The company says that 75 percent of SEO is not related to the content that is shown to readres -- most of the value comes from links and meta tags.

Despite this, HubSpot warns against paying for links because they quickly decrease in value and aren't as worthwhile as genuine links from highly trafficked sites. Regarding content, HubSpot's Mike Volpe suggests not taking content from other sites. Among meta tags, he rates heading tags, the title and description all above keywords, which search engines are de-emphasizing. Getting publishers to use keywords in their anchor text linking to your site is also helpful. Another useful tip -- make sure you include titles in the image tags.

The webinar also offered links to some helpful free SEO content:

Website Grader

SEOMoz

SEOBook tools

Comcast is building a video website that could be strong competition for Hulu, Joost and the like.

Fancast delivers full length TV shows both current and classic, including House, The Office and Adam-12. Comcast's edge is that it will direct its millions of subscribers to the website where it can derive extra revenue from advertising around its videos and TV listings. Like TiVo, Comcast will also soon enable customers to program their DVRs online, a useful service because the keyboard is better than the remote control for drilling down on content.

I've been saying that Comcast should buy an Internet company such as Yahoo or AOL, but it looks like that's not going to happen. Comcast, which is fighting off competition from the telcos such as AT&T and satelllite companies, wants to bridge the online and TV worlds, and buying a company that has content and strong advertising relationships would be an effective way to fast track that move.

Comcast may live to regret remaining timid in a time that calls for boldness because the market is open -- for now. If Google starts developing services in the TV world or AT&T combines both universes, Comcast may never be able to catch up.

Forget a shiny interface, a catchy URL,  or contracts with major companies, having a robust and open application programming interface (API) is the key to quickly gaining an audience in the new web world.

Social networks Facebook and MySpace along with Twitter and  Last.fm  are leading the API charge today, following in the footsteps of Google's maps and Amazon.

Allowing tinkerers, other publishers and individual to mashup your data and services is the quickest way of letting them spread virally across the web. Widgets that include an advertising portion will ensure that you can make some money off your investment. If the APIs allow deep linking you had better be ready to connect with consumers with thoughtful revenue generating applications and services when they click through to your site.

My advice to any startup that is building an application -- make sure that open APIs and widgets are included front and center with any business plan. If it's video - have a player widget. If it's a communications service, make sure it can interact well with others.

 

Like being dunked in frigid water, the TV marketplace is about to be shocked by the switch from analog to digital. The forced switch of broadcasters from analog to digital in 2009 could leave 10 percent of TV watchers who don't have digital-ready TVs out in the cold.

Nielsen Companys says that the figure could go as high 16 percent if the households that have both analog and digital sets are tallied.

The TV networks are already scrambling because of the writer's strike and consumers spending more time online, and this development won't help. I doubt that people with older analog boxes have broadband, so these folks -- generally lower income -- won't be those jumping to online video watching.

The networks need to get the marketing message out that the change is coming with ads that run during prime time. We should anticipate a huge boom in digital TVs being sold after the tax rebate checks are sent out in May as well as over the Christmas holidays as the holdouts make the switch.