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Heartland Technology Solutions Channel IT Summit 2011

Posted Sep 22 2011 by in Aaron Booker, Arlin Sorenesen, Channel IT Summit 2011, Heartland Technology Solutions, HTG Peer Groups with 0 Comments

 

Aaron Booker from Varvid joins Arlin Sorenesen of Heartland Technology Solutions in Harlan, Iowa to talk about HTS‘s Channel IT Summit. Arlin explains he’s seeking a way to deepen the relationship with the Vendors he partners with through the Heartland Technology Group by sharing the experience of what it’s like for VARS to be “in the trenches.” Arlin states “what better way than to invite them to come out here to rural Iowa to experience our business at HTS to share some of the things we’ve learned over the last 25 years.”

Arlin plans to talk about HTG, which has over 260 members that are part of his organization worldwide, and his goal for the summit is for Vendors to get a feel for what it’s like to serve SMB customers out in the real world. Arlin thinks that Vendors will be surprised at how complex the business really is for him and HTG, as they aim to serve a vast array of different kinds of clients. HTG services small micro businesses up to some of the mid-market customers, all of whom have very different needs and these different sized organizations expect very different things. As Arlin says himself “it’s not as simple as it seems on paper and we think we’re going to be able to show this to the Vendors who attend this week.”

The main points that Heartland Technology Solutions‘ Channel IT Summit 2011 promises attendees to come away with are:

• Understanding the roles in a typical VAR company
• Understanding how VAR’s grow and the barriers to growth
• Understanding things you should not do when working with VAR’s
• Understanding how to work effectively with SMB communities
• Understanding some of the frustrations VAR’s experience working with your tools and trying to procure your products and services
• Experience rural Iowa and hear from SMB partners and customers first hand

 

To find out more, visit:

Facebook’s New Subscribe Button Means More Exposure For Online Video

Posted Sep 15 2011 by in Facebook, Online Video, Social Media with 0 Comments

Facebook has unveiled a new feature called the Subscribe Button that enables users to receive publicly visible status updates from people who aren’t on their friend list. This same feature will also allow users to customize the updates they see from those who are on their friends list, a further elaboration on the current basic feature of being able to block a particular friend’s updates from showing up on the News Feed.

A comparison of a subscription versus a page.

Facebook’s official announcement states that the new subscribe feature can be used to:

  • Choose what you see from people in News Feed
  • Hear from people, even if you’re not friends
  • Let people hear from you, even if you’re not friends

As far as being able to choose what shows up in your News Feed, the Subscribe Button will give you three choices regarding the amount of content you’d like to see:

  • All updates: Everything your friend posts
  • Most updates: The amount you’d normally see
  • Important updates only: Just highlights, like a new job or move

The Subscribe Button also allows you to hear from people who you aren’t friends with, like celebrities, artists, political figures and journalists; which has much more accurate connotations than becoming their friend, or liking them. One way to conceptualize Facebook’s new Subscribe Button is that it’s very similar to following someone on Twitter.

This a huge move forward for Facebook in the individuals control over their own content aggregation. Instead of your news feed being full of your friends’ exclamations of joy about their day off from work, or woes about their procrastination habit, you’ll be able to receive more developed and curated content; like links to news articles, information on newly released films or music, or important political speeches or events. Additionally, any Facebook user who wants to share their public updates with a wider audience than just their friends list can opt in and add a subscribe button to their profile, so this feature is not limited to celebrities or organizations.

An example of Facebook's subscription option

What does this mean for video? Ostensibly, the new Subscribe Button is going to aggrandize the sharing of video via Facebook in a major way. In the past video has been limited to sharing among friends as posts to their wall, or via a private message. Now, users are granted a much higher level of control over who they’re receiving content from, and profiles who have a large number of subscribers will be able to push their content out to a much larger audience. Considering that Facebook is the 3rd highest ranked site for online video views (according to comScore.com) we can expect to see video sharing to increase drastically with the rise of the Facebook Subscribe option.

Video SEO is Paramount to E-Commerce Success

Posted Jul 18 2011 by in Online Video, SEO, Sunday Sky with 0 Comments

An e-commerce video solutions provider called Sunday Sky recently released their report titled “The State Of Video In E-Commerce – Q1 2011” which delivers an overview and update for the latest trends in the ways online retailers are using video. The study shows that more and more e-retailers are turning to video for their marketing needs, and online video is on the rise both in terms of production by providers, and views by consumers.

The report focused on online video’s presence in top e-retailers’ websites, video indexing by search engines, SEO impact of using online retail videos and revenue potential of an effective online video strategy, which gives a comprehensive view of the online video world. One of the major findings was that even with the number of retailers who mass-scaled their videos increasing by nearly 50%, an astounding 68% of retailers still have not implemented an online video strategy. This statistic illustrates the online video landscape impeccably as it reinforces a trend we’ve noticed at Varvid, that the companies who “get” video and who’re investing are seeing results at an exponential rate, while those who don’t “get” video are being left in the dust.

Other important data show that the number of people subscribing to online retailer’s YouTube channels increased by more than 20% and most video results for retail-related keywords are continuing to only be posted solely on YouTube. This indicates substantial growth of viewership and engagement, especially in the domain of e-commerce an online advertising. A particularly crucial finding is that certain keyword categories (like “computer gaming”) have a higher presence of video results than others (like “office supplies” or “furniture”) which shows the pragmatism involved in what a video communicates, and the importance of keywords and research.

Video should not be created for the sake of making video; if the time, effort and resources are being allotted for a video project, it’s crucial to decide on how it will function in your overall marketing campaign. Knowing which keywords and topics that are receiving more views should play a major role in the planning and execution of your videos because if you don’t have a strategy for your video work, it’s most likely doomed to slip into the abysmal depths of the internet and find very few views, if any at all.

Varvid Produces Live Webcast from the Ingram Micro Cloud Summit 2011

Posted Jun 1 2011 by in Aaron Booker, Ingram Micro, Ingram Micro Cloud Summit 2011, Travel, Varvid Team with 1 Comment

On June 1st, Varvid shot, produced, and provided live streaming video through our webcasting service offering for the Ingram Micro Cloud Summit 2011 in Phoenix AZ. “The focus of this summit is the monetizing of the cloud,” stated Ingram Micro’s VP of Managed Services Renée Bergeron, who kicked off the events with her Executive Presentation titled Managed Services and Cloud Computing. Joe Paneterri (the VAR Guy and Talkin Cloud) was the emcee.  Great event with nearly 300 resellers and 200 other guests attending the presentation and almost 1,000 Ingram Micro partners and staff from 11 countries who were able to tune in to the opening session via Varvid provided streaming video.  Ingram announced a website for all their cloud partners and vendor parters – http://www.ingrammicrocloud.com – the webcast was embedded in this site.  Your Ingram Micro Login is all you need to access a tremendous amount of information on the cloud, now and in the future.

Ingram Micro announced 8 new cloud service partners: VMware, BMC Software, N-able, Seimens, SherWeb, Symantec, Cisco, & Trend Micro and revealed their plans to serve as the channel’s leader in all things cloud by providing cloud business services, establishing a cloud community, and offering an immense portfolio of cloud services.

Here are some pictures and screenshots from the live webcast that highlight the event:

Aaron Booker at his Webcasting battlestation

Varvid's Webcasting equipment in operation

Guido Jouret of Enterprise Video & Cisco Systems

Joe Panettieri - The VAR Guy, talkincloud.com, and mspmentor.com

A shot of the Cloud Summit 2011 audience with Guido Jouret in the bottom right

The closing slide for the June 1st Cloud Summit 2011

 

 

Where in the World is Varvid?

Posted Apr 28 2011 by in Event Coverage, Varvid Partners, Varvid Team with 0 Comments

For those of you who don’t know, we have a page on our site titled “Where in the World is Varvid” which keeps you all up to date as to where Varvid is traveling. While it might not be as accurate at tracking the Varvid team as the iPhone and iPad appear to be it does display all the events we’re attending, and it’s a great resource to use if you’re interested in an on-site professional video shoot, and want to save money on travel cost.


We’re currently in the midst of an insanely busy couple of weeks. Right now our team is in San Antonio Texas covering the Xerox Fusion Summit April 26th-29th, which is a meeting for the Xerox Channel Partners where Xerox offers opportunities for partners to optimize their sales and revenue. On April 28th, we’ll also be at ASCII’s Success Summit in Washington DC, where Drew Graham will be giving a presentation titled “How to Make Video Impact Your Sales” to all the attendees of this coveted event hosted by the ASCII Group.

On the first of May, the entire Varvid crew will be reunited in Dallas Texas, where they’ll be covering the HTG 2011 Q2 Summit. This year’s event will focus on growing businesses by means of sales and marketing, operations, partnering with vendors, service management, and other areas of interest to HTG members. Special Interest Groups (SIGs) will meet to talk about healthcare, managed services, application development, cloud computing and business-specific topics such as social media, marketing, compensation and hiring. Check out the HTG Peer Group’s Facebook Page, Twitter Page and their LinkedIn Page to keep up to date with next week’s peer group shenanigans.

Death of the Flip, Birth of the New VENUE

Posted Apr 26 2011 by in Cisco, Varvid Team, VENUE Packages with 0 Comments

Earlier this month Cisco announced that they are discontinuing the production of the beloved HD Flip camera. Cisco stated that they’re strategically realigning their business to focus on core products by putting less investment into the consumer market and reinvigorating their network-centric platform strategy. The reception from the online community has been quite diversified, with voices like NASDAQ praising the decision from an investors perspective, while many average consumers feel like they’re being left in the dark.

Here at Varvid, this couldn’t have come at a better time. We’ve already been eying other video products in order to diversify the potential of the VENUE program and to offer an element of versatility to our clients. So, while many are mourning the death of Cisco’s Flip, we’ve been given the opportunity to finally move ahead with our new business model. We’re still working together to put the finishing touches onto the overhaul of the VENUE offering, and we’re excited with what we’ve been coming up with. Until we have the details worked out, we’ll still be supplying new VENUE clients with HD Flips. But stay tuned, because we’ll be making our announcement soon.

New York Times Highlights Advantages of Online Video for Small Businesses

Posted Mar 21 2011 by in New York Times, Online Video, YouTube with 0 Comments

On March 16th, the small business page of the New York Times published an article titled Online Video Offers Low-Cost Marketing For Your Company. The piece focused on the small businesses Ceilume, BBQguys.com, GoPro.com and Directfix.com and explained how they’ve each used online video to leverage their online presence, boost business, and attract new customers.

A few years ago, Ceilume was a small California manufacturing company making a transition from custom jobs, to the production of vinyl ceiling tiles. The business model was set into place, but they needed a cost effective way to publicize their new services. In 2008, President of Ceilume Ed Davis decided to set up a YouTube page and began posting videos varying from how-to instructional shorts, product demonstrations, and advertisements. Since then their channel has had over 99,000 visitors and their uploaded videos have been viewed over 500,000 times, meaning they’ve reached tens of thousands of potential customers with marginal cost compared to what pre-YouTube video distribution solutions would have demanded.

Based out of Baton Rouge La. BBQguys.com began posting videos of tantalizing bbq dishes being prepared on their manufactured grills and, as the videos became more popular, they hired local chef Tony Matassa to be their on-camera personality. This has turned their channel into a quasi web-series/infomercial, and to this day, Matassa is still hosting their videos. BBQguys.com now have close to 400 videos posted on their channel, all of which have a total of 1.4 million views.  NY Times writer Kermit Pattinson explains that BBQguys.com is an exemplary case where “online video has helped the company recover its human touch virtually,” and they’ve done this by creating engaging videos which show how their products function in real life, while connecting with the audience by providing professional recipes, culinary advice and mouth watering video footage. Please note: watching their videos while hungry is an excruciating experience, you have been warned!

Read the article here to see how GoPro.com and Directfix.com used online video to propel their businesses, and to get an idea of how you could use video in your own company.

Varvid Staff At MVP Nation 2011 in Full Force!

Posted Mar 4 2011 by in MVP Nation, Varvid Partners, Varvid Team with 3 Comments

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We just set up our booth here at MVP Nation 2011 in Seattle, and we’re geared up for a long day of video, VARS and Vendors. Check varvid.tv later today for interviews with Harry Brelsford, CEO of SMB Nation, and other members of the SMB Nation crew.

MVP Nation is a new event that connects three important communities in one place at one time, Microsoft MVPs, community members (composed of customers, channel partners, consultants, and members of the public) as well community sponsors.

YouTube to Stream Live NHL & NBA Games

Posted Feb 25 2011 by in Online Video, YouTube with 0 Comments

Google’s YouTube is currently in discussion with the National Hockey League, the National Basketball Association and certain European soccer leagues about streaming live games online, according to a Google executive. And, in an interview on February 23rd, The Bloomberg Report quotes Google’s Director of Content for Asia Pacific Gautam Anand as explaining how YouTube is hoping to show more live sports by the end of 2011.

This isn’t the video giant’s first foray into the sports world, as in January of last year a contract was made between YouTube and the Indian Premier League to host live streaming cricket games for the whole 2010 season. This deal provides Google with a share of ad revenue from both the league’s website and the games, with the channel bringing in about 55 million visits from more than 250 countries.

If this deal goes through, it would be a major win for YouTube, and could potentially be a huge blow to cable networks if people start watching the games online, rather than on their networks. The significance of sports programming lies not only in the huge boost in viewers YouTube would receive, but also in the length of the programs themselves. Consider the average length for an NBA game (2 hours 30 minutes) and the average length of an NHL game (anywhere from 2-3 hours, or more) in comparison to the typical video clip you see on YouTube. Having more viewers who’re staying on their site for longer periods of time gives Google’s YouTube a huge opportunity for the advertising dollar, and will also open the floodgates for online video advertising. We’ll be following this story and keep you posted on any updates.

 

ComScore 2010 Year in Review Confirms Online Video Growth in U.S.

Posted Feb 15 2011 by in comScore, Online Video with 0 Comments

On Tuesday February 8th, Comscore released their coveted U.S. Digital Year in Review for 2010 which analyzes the online trends in the U.S. media landscape. One of the main focuses of the report is online video, and what we’re really interested in: Online Video Advertising. First, the online video numbers: The report shows that in 2010 an average of 179 million individual Americans watched video each month, which is a little over half of the nations’ entire population (307 million) and in December 2010 alone, 88.6 million people watched online video on an average day, up 32 percent from December 2009, and total viewing sessions for the last month of 2010 reached an astonishing 5.8 billion, which is up 13 percent from December 2009. A great insight that puts this all into perspective, is that the average American spent more than 14 hours watching online video in the month of December 2010 (12 percent increase from last Dec.2009) and the average viewer streamed a record of 201 videos (an 8 percent rise from Dec. 2009).

Growth in online video views can be largely attributed to the convenience and cost of watching content which is normally broadcast, like movies and TV shows. However, most online video portals are supported by advertising – video advertising. Data from 2010 shows that a full 50% of Americans are reached by online video ads each month.

One interesting statistic shows that while traditional TV ads take up 25% of total viewing time, online video ads take up only 1.6% of total viewing time. From a consumer perspective, that makes online video watching a much less-interrupted experience than TV, and so more enjoyable. It also means that advertisers are wising up to the “viral” game – make your ads short and entertaining, blurring the border between content and advertising and making ads something that consumers want to tell their friends about. That’s the future of advertising: engaging, interactive content that excites the viewer on its own, while also delivering a branded message.

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