DailyMe Archive

One of the things I’ve noticed is the majority of video players currently being used across the Internet put up a large stop sign after the selected video has been played. This morning I watched a video from Kara Swisher that did exactly that. I’ve embedded the video below so you get the idea.

Most of the large video sharing sites (e.g. YouTube, Viddler, DailyMotion, etc.) offer some videos to switch to after the first one has completed. How many people actually switch off to another video? Isn’t there a better way?

As a marketer, I don’t understand the reasoning behind stopping the video after the initial selection has completed. Kara has a huge library of great videos but unfortunately the viewer may never see any of them. There should be a never-ending stream of Kara’s videos for me to hop from one to the next. This new stream would allow me to see more of Kara’s work, interact with it, and potentially find something I’d be likely to share.

Here’s an idea for the video sharing sites: When I upload a video, allow me to pick a "piggyback video". The piggyback video is the one I’d like to play after the initial video. The way it would work is also simple. Video A plays, short delay to select another video and if nothing is selected, Video B begins. For home made video players and corporate-players like Brightcove (which powers Kara’s videos), make a stream. Even if we only move from one video to two back-to-back videos, the branding and reach just doubled. Technical how-to videos would also benefit from piggybacking. I could show one way to solve the Rubik’s cube and then piggyback someone else and their way to solve it.

There are some analytics issues to work through with this idea but the positive content and marketing benefits are strong enough that the idea is worth a look.

Below are four of the newest startups according to Killer Startups for the period ending October 5, 2007. Check out previous Killer Startups posts.

BargainJack – Find the Best Bargains Online

BargainJack is a shopping site focusing on deals and bargain prices from major online retailers such as Amazon and Buy.com. You’ll find Jack’s own daily picks which are accompanied by interesting commentary, perhaps a quick story or review about how the product turns out. Under the tab labeled One Day Deals you’ll find the day’s best deals picked out from other bargains sites like Woot and Yugster; there’s an accompanying RSS feed and users can share their experience and discuss deals in the Daily Deal Forum. read more »

PhotoAlbum – Make Photo Albums from Digital Photos

Do you have tons of photos sitting in your computer being ignored and forgotten? How many photos of memorable moments and great trips are gathering dust in your PC files? Now, we can rescue those poor forgotten photos by organizing them into an online photo album that can be printed out in real life! On PhotoAlbum.com it is easy to make an album by signing up, using the dummy-proof design tool and ordering professional quality books. read more »

DailyMe – Personalized News

DailyMe is a provider and platform of personalized news, entertainment, sports and information as well as a growing online community of users who share and interact with the news, blogs, columns and stories that interest them. Users select their content from categories, keywords, sources and/or profiles, and choose a delivery method, web, email, automatic printing, and schedule that work best for them. read more »

F11 – Discover and Share Soccer Videos

F11.com is a video-sharing website for fans of football (soccer to you Yankees out there). The site is still a work in progress, but currently lets users create personal profiles and upload football-related videos. The site lets you search for videos in a variety of categories (which range from "Goals" to "Apparel" to "Events"). F11 claims its 11 categories (you see where the name comes from now) represent the most important aspects of the game, and therefore all soccer videos should fall into one or more of these genres. read more »