The problem with comments

We have received a few emails lately from people a little concerned by whats being said in the comments and I hate to say this but I have to agree. I can understand there are going to be some people who watch a video on the site and don't like it, but what we are seeing is beyond a joke.

When we decided to have the "no login required to comment" system it was because we thought it would be nice for the video creator to see that someone from work/school/family/etc had gone to check out their video. These are the people who are unlikely to create an account for a site just to comment so we thought "lets leave it open so video creators can get some kudos from passers by". Thats now starting to look like a bad move and we are considering what we can do to fix this free for all mud slinging that seems to be going on in the comments. If anyone has any brilliant suggestions for how we can keep the comments open enough for passers by but control the haters then send me an email at jake@adimade.com id LOVE to hear your suggestion.

For those of you who have videos in the projects and have been nice enough to offer words of praise to your competitors, thank you. Adimade was setup with people like your good selves in mind.

And just quickly, for all the conspiracy theorists out there that think we have disabled the CAPTCHA for the comments.. its actually broken, we are trying to fix it at the moment.

Cheers,

Jake.

The voting problem

In the past few weeks I have been talking via email to a few of the video creators and something each of them has raised is the voting. It seems that there are a few video creators that have taken to gaming the system and low-ball voting on all of the other competitors videos. This is a little disapointing as I would like to think that members are a supportive bunch, but when there is money involved then for some this goes out the window.

So we are learning a lot about what to do for the forth comming projects and I hope everyone will be happy to hear that all new projects from now on will be decided partly on votes and partly on a panel of judges. The idea being that the highest rated videos will make it into the finalists group and from there the judging panel will decide who takes away the cash rewards. we are also planning on changing the voting system slightly but will have to wait and see if the new system will be ready in time for the next projects.

So if you're one of the people who are low-balling other people videos, stop it. If you are one of the people that have had their video low-balled then rest assured we are aware of the problem and will make sure you wont be disadvantaged..

Hope that clears a few things up..

Cheers,

Jake.

ONLIVE VIDEO WATCHERS ARE DIVERSE

Based on a study by, Media Contacts, they have attempted to segment the online video audience. The four findings are listed below. See Media week article here.

On Demanders – this group is 30 percent more likely to a heavy video users. This 18- to 34-year-old skewing group gravitates to DVRs and video on demand, and are 89 percent more likely to pay for content to avoid ads than the typical user.

Sight & Sounders – this group skews toward the 55 and over demographic, and are mostly unimpressed with video content and video ads. Nearly half have been watching online video for less than a year, and most prefer TV.

Television Devotees – this female-skewing segment frequently use the Web to catch up on TV – and are fans of the broadcast and cable networks Web offerings. They appear to accept online video ads.

Content Explorers - they are platform agnostic, and will watch pretty much anything on the Web – from long-form drama to short, user-generated clips. Perhaps surprisingly, this group skews toward 35-54, higher income category.

Where does the video creator / watcher fit into these categories. Granted creators make up a fraction of users on sites like YouTube, it is a growing area in both quantity and quality. Where do you fit in these categories?

Peace.

Nat

Australian Celebrity YouTuber!

Don't think Australian, other than Blunty3000, can rack up the Youtube views into the hundreds of thousands??? Well this article appeared in The Age today, about Hugh Atkin, who is an Australian YouTube Video creator. His stuff is downright clever, satirical and darn funny. His videos constantly get thousands of views.

His Clinton and Cruise Video and the Rudd Chinese Democracy clips are amoung his most popular, but for mine, it would have to be the recent Corey Delaney's Other Party.

From The Age...
"His latest offering, an online video called Clinton And Cruise - On The Campaign Trail, has featured on The New York Times and Guardian websites and has been watched by almost 100,000 people."

Now he is getting paid to produce videos for ABC's Unleashed website. Its seems now well and truly that great producers of Youtube and User Generated Videos can use this as a genuine platform for launching their video/film directing/producing careers.

Getting the ball rolling..

It's been WAY too long since I last posted here so hows about a quick wrapup of whats been going on.. yes?

- so far the site hasnt fallen over (which is great news) although there have been a few glitches thanks to the inconsistency between firefox and IE.. I now understand why web dev people complain so much about standardisation.

- We have got a great response from all our facebook friends that we spammed (if you wernt one of them then your welcome to add me to facebook so you get it next time) as everyone seemed to have good things to say about the idea and the site.

- I have been doing my best to get in contact with everyone that uploads a video and I have to say a big thankyou to Beau for his feedback. I asked him for any comments or suggestions he had for the site and was stoked when he came back with some great suggestions. We will be sure to post the planned updates here soon.

- We had a bit of a bun fight starting over a video that may or may not have used some copyrighted music.. great news is that I just got a recut version of the ad with public domain music so that will be going up very soon.

a HUGE thankyou to the people that have uploaded videos already, I have been impressed with the efforts people have gone to, its great to see. Any for anyone who doesnt have their vid in yet be sure to get moving :)

Cheers,

Jake

Adimade Now Listed on Vidopp

Just a quick update to say Adimade's AnythingAde project is listed on Vidopp.com (click on picture to see listing). So a quick shout out to Douglas over at VidOpp! SHOUT! VidOpp is a collection of all the video competitions on the web in one place for video talent to find quickly and easily. They are a great site, and anyone interested in Video Competitions should definately bookmark them or subscribe to the VidOpp News feed.

The great thing about VidOpp is that they have listed 192 video contests with cash prizes were featured on the site in 2007, with prizes totaling $1,095,425! check out full article hear.

I forgot to mention... WE LAUNCHED!!

So in all the commotion of getting the site ready for last nights launch I/we totally forgot about the blog updates.. So lets recap shall we?

Last night Paul (the guy who did all the leg work on building the site for us) was given the A-OK to take the bubble wrap off the site (when i say bubble wrap I mean the password protection) and we went live! Despite having more than enough opportunity prior to this auspicious occasion, I decided that i was not happy with a few of the images and made some last minute changes (I know changing a live site is so freaken dangerous but what can I say, i like to live on the edge).

Today the marketing began in earnest with the inevitable SPAMing of everyone on facebook to let them know we have a new site and to spread the word. Nat has also been busy making friends with people on you tube trying to drum up some video creator interest and we already have an entry which is great!

So after 6 months or so down the track the real work is now starting and there is definitely a sense of excitement in the air.