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The Value of Video

We all love video, Its a great platform to communicate a great amount of emotion over a very short period of time.

Whenever someone says to me “You have to read this book” I always say can I find her on TED or you tube?”

My life long friend Oliver Hall MD’s a company called Liquid Productions and has been putting videos on people’s websites  to help them convey their messages for a number of years now and seen great uplift in ROI from his clients sites as a result.

The tension is that until the media is interactive you cannot truly track conversions.

The reason newspaper advertising does not compare to Google ads is because Google ads are completely trackable. With good analytics there is no guessing involved. All results are tracked

You Tube have begun to invest in interactive video and allowing payments near the video like this video which is distrubing so do not watch!,

When the “1 click payment infrastructure has matured in a couple of years conversions will be able to get completed by clicking on the actual video at the end of the message.

This is cool but more importantly seamlessly finishes the video feedback loop to show exactly how much money that video made up.

As mobile network infrastructure improves and moves to 4G, due to the lack of real estate on smart phone devices video will be the media of choice to convey big messages quickly and effectively.

Look out for video guys going mobile and hiking their prices when the value of their media is finally realised.

(Not for me please Oli) 🙂

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Moral Compass

I love asking the big questions and being OK with having very few answers and often being misunderstood.

Its rare these days that I question what is right and wrong as In an interconnected world some people probably spend their lives asking this and never doing anything. Instead my big questions tend to look a little bit like this when I am trying to make decisions……….

What do I want written on my grave stone?

What story do I want to be a part of?

Is what I am about to do the easy option?

Am I being honouring and loving to those around me?

Am I thinking long term or looking for immediate gratification?

It does become tricky when as I have found recently massive opportunities can come along that only maybe meet 30% of the good answers to those questions and then the rubber hits the road!

They are not black and white situations that are opposite to my beliefs but hang in the big grey abyss.  If I took the work on I would be misunderstood and run the almost certain risk of making a good number of peoples life much worse.

If you take the Sex scene for a clear example…….

I almost certainly would be happy to support and take on a mobile project for a party shop that mainly sold helium balloons and poppers but also sold fluffy toy handcuffs or a few sex toys

At the other end of the spectrum I  am actively involved with an Anti Slavery Charity who help bonded sex workers get free from their torture.

At some point along that line I change from being helpful to actually campaigning against.

Choosing at what point you are pro, which point you abstain and at what point you are actively against is a tricky one.

All I know is that the questions I have mentioned are vital, the answers may change from time to time but I am not worried about that, I am only worried if I or anyone else stops asking the important questions altogether.

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E Ink Everywhere?

First off Props to the Magento Man, Alan Cole for talking me through this stuff and having a bit of fun dreaming with me about what might be in a few years time.

Whilst my Kindle seems partially ridiculous like I have traded my iPhone in for a Nokia 3210 it also has the beginnings of extraordinary technology in it, E Ink.
E Ink is a bit like an Etch-a-Sketch, once you make the image it takes no energy to leave it on the screen, exponentially increasing the life span of device battery life making greenys happy.

Follow me on this journey, the end is fun………………

So next will come crap colour and crap motion Eink

Then brilliant full colour, full video Eink

Then it should  get thinner and more flexible.

Then the value of it will fall to almost nothing so we can use it everywhere.

If you then mix that with cloud computing where our “digital selves” is all in one place with a Near Field chip or a Finger print swipe access we can do some crazy stuff making our digital experiences truly ubiquitous.

I am not sure the following will happen but will be fun if it can.

Imagine putting some clear E paper film over your mirror and skyping someone whilst brushing your teeth.

Or lining all your walls with it and whenever you feel like it changing the style and colour of your wallpaper and then watching a film on the whole wall.

How about every restaurant table top being your menu, Facebook, live kitchen video feed and doodle kit all in one.

Let’s see what happens.