New Site Media Group » charlottesville online multimedia

Your Step-by-Step Guide to Publishing Online Video

Steinar — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 21:13:16 +0000

This is your one-stop shop to learn how to shoot, edit, publish and promote online video for the Internet. This free guide includes tutorials shooting with digital cameras & video cameras, editing with Windows & Mac, and publishing & promoting either on your site, YouTube or any of the popular video sharing site.

Need some help with online video?

For your free copy of our extensive Video Publishing Guide, please provide your name and email:

You must fill out the form and I promise NEVER to rent, share, sell or otherwise abuse your email address.

2009 Internet Marketing Trend #7 – Mobile Marketing

Steinar — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 21:38:12 +0000

The #1 mobile phone in the world is the iPhone and with over 10,000 applications and 1 million application downloads, it has set the bar for mobile marketing. Mobile marketing is leveraging mobile phone technology to communicate with your customers or prospects. This could include mobile advertising, a mobile version of your website, or more interactive communication such as via Facebook, Twitter, RSS feed, or blogging. And yes, your can even share videos on most of these newer devices.

The potential here is staggering as mobile phone usage rates continue to increase exponentially. More and more, people rely on their mobile devices for information, not just making calls and checking the time. Spend 5 minutes on a college campus or airport lobby and you’ll soon appreciate the explosive growth of mobile communication and the postential for mobile marketing.

To be a market leader, you must embrace mobile marketing. It sounds strange, even fictional, but trust me, this will be the norm for the next generation and you must get your foot in the door now to set the bar within your industry.

Call me @ 434-806-3272 if you like to learn more about Mobile Marketing and how your company can leverage this great opportunity.

2009 Internet Marketing Trend #4 – Video Marketing

Steinar — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 21:11:05 +0000

Video is everywhere these – online, on our phones, and the backseat of nearly minivan I see these days. Advancements in broadband speends, video equipment, editing software, and websites that enable video sharing have cleared the path for an explosion in the popularity of online video.

Of course, YouTube is the most popular online video sharing site, but more and more we’re seeing companies use video within their websites to interact with customers in a new and exciting way. The 2008 Olympics for example boasted more coverage online vs. TV and the 2008 Presidential Race included a substantial use of online video to communicate with the market. Nearly every major corporation has embraced some form of online video marketing and it continues to get easier for smaller and mid-sized companies to do the same.

Whether you would like to produce a simple, professional business profile or create a platform for more casual video blogging, the technology is within reach to make this an affordable and quite simple possibility. At New Site Media Group, we use high-definition video and the latest professional tools to get the job done, but we also see tremendous value to learning some of the more affordable options for more of a DIY solution.

In either case, we would love to discuss video marketing with you to help understand how this exciting new medium fits within your business goals. Please call me @ 434-806-3272 to discuss today.

High Definition Online Video Services – Charlottesville and beyond!

Steinar — Fri, 20 Feb 2009 01:13:06 +0000

My name is Steinar Knutsen, and I am the Owner and Founder of New Site Media Group. We are Charlottesville’s premier high-definition online video production company! The videos that we produce bring the finest quality and visual emotion to any and all viewers on the web. Our videos can be added to any website, indexed by Internet search engines, and are produced in a HD Widescreen DVD format.

Case Study: Real Estate Videos

As we all know, real estate inventories are amassing, prices are coming down, there are fewer buyers, and the competition is working hard to move their listings. The question is- how are you as a Realtor working to stand apart from the competition? Using video is a powerful way for you to differentiate yourself from other agents online, and can even help you secure more listings. Telling a prospective client that you will have a video tour of their home produced and marketed online is a really good incentive for them to list with you, and an even better reason for them to come back!

Video tours save buyers and sellers countless hours in preview appointments and open houses. Our TRUE video tours provide “life-like” video walk-throughs of your real estate properties, allowing buyers to get a real sense of the property’s scale and flow. By offering video tours of your listings, you give your clients a means of previewing your listings before they take the next step of scheduling an appointment – saving everyone countless hours in the decision making process. In truth, buyers who view video tours often take up to three times less the amount of time when making a purchase decision!

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At New Site Media Group, we use the latest high-end video equipment and post production software. We offer a myriad of Internet video solutions that enhance the marketability of your products or service. With the continuous advances in technology, studies show that full motion video is the most compelling visual medium for online marketing.

We will also work for you to help get your name and business seen all over the World Wide Web! We market our videos online to all the top video sites that offer real estate homes for sale.

Please contact me if you need any further information about our services!

Steinar Knutsen
New Site Media Group
434-806-3272

How To Create Online Video That Works

Steinar — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 16:55:56 +0000

With the recent explosion and expansion of online video, the biggest question is how to best drive viewer action and monetize this new medium. Online video has a lot of promise. It offers what was once limited to expensive TV advertising: reach and emotional engagement with potential customers. And, it’s relatively cheap and provides immediate, measurable feedback.

Even with these strong benefits, most agree that the video opportunity has yet to be fully realized. Companies struggle to best make use of this new medium, and have found that porting television-style advertising to the Web is regularly rejected by the online audience. Thirty-second pre-roll, crazy user-generated ads, and the hunt for viral ads are all a hangover from the old TV world, still hunting for mass appeal without satisfying the demand for relevance of today’s online world.

It’s important to recognize that the Internet and television deliver two completely different video experiences. Television is “lean back” where people engage with the content in front of them when they want to. The Internet is “lean forward,” where people are actively controlling their experience. With users in control businesses must deliver information in a way that engages them when they finally say “OK, talk to me.” Here are six steps to creating online video that works:

1) Make it Authentic

Customers are jaded by typical sales-pitches. When everything is available at the click of a mouse, having a good product is no longer enough.

Creating authentic video that captures the human element allows customers to connect on a personal level. This connection builds trust and drives action.

2) Make it Relevant

With customers in control, irrelevant video is at best ignored and at worst creates a negative impression when viewers feel their time is wasted. Video that works shares compelling stories that resonate with the audience. No gimmicks, no ploys. Respect viewers’ time and provide them with actionable content.

3) Make it Engaging

Good information is no longer enough. With thousands of sites providing similar services, your online video has to stand out from the competition. Entertainment goes hand-in-hand with engagement. Video must deliver content in a format that interests and excites users.

4) Make it Google-Friendly

The advent of Universal Search has changed the search game. Engines now return more and more videos, blogs, news articles, books and more in their results. The new algorithms weigh video heavily, increasing your relevance in search results. Good meta-data, file naming, architecture, and distribution on sites like YouTube all help.

5) Make an Action Path

Our internal research has shown that adding video to a site can drive 36% more clicks, 20% more inbound calls, and more than double time on site. A recent Kelsey Group study found 55% of people who view a video visit the company’s Web site; 30% visit a physical store; and 24% make a purchase as a result of watching.

Viewers only do this if there’s a reason to do so. Provide a call to action, a trackable URL to visit, a coupon, discount code, or unique phone number to call. This way your video can be evaluated against other marketing efforts.

6) Make it Shareable

YouTube taught everyone that video is portable and starts conversations between friends. Videos that don’t meet this new expectation limit their own effectiveness. Sharing is an easy action that viewers can take to promote your business. By enabling conversations to spread you’re giving yourself an easy opportunity to gain viewership.

To promote sharing make sure your video can be embedded, emailed and posted to the different social media sites. (Most video players, like YouTube, Viddler and Blip.tv automatically include those options – so take advantage of them!)

All in All: Make it Happen

Making online video that drives action requires us to understand how the Web makes the video viewing experience different from TV. It’s an environment with infinite choice and limited attention spans with all of the control in the hands of the user. Once this lean forward dynamic is understood and accounted for, making actionable video becomes much easier. It’s the falling back on our collective TV-watching experience as the model for Internet video that stymies action and hurts the success of the video.

All businesses, from the pizza place in Brooklyn to a top retail chain, can leverage this new video consumption to grow their revenue. By focusing on authenticity, and providing a clear, measurable action path, video can become a valuable component of any online marketing effort.

Sony Refreshes Bravia HDTV Line, Promotes 240Hz Refresh Rate

Steinar — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 00:20:22 +0000

Sony Electronics showed off its latest high-definition televisions today. The new HDTV models reflect the company’s emphasis on improved color reproduction, fast 240Hz refresh rates, and Internet connectivity.

Sony announced 18 televisions in total, across six product lines.

Fast Refresh Rate

Six new models introduced today at CES 2009 feature Sony’s 240Hz technology. Designed to compensate for motion by inserting extra frames to smooth out fast-moving sequences, 240Hz is currently the fastest technology commercially available (LG Display has shown a prototype of its forthcoming 480Hz panel).

Sony has a two-prong approach to its 240Hz technology. The company inserts nine interpolated frames between each actual frame of video when playing back film content; and it inserts up to three additional inerpreted frames between each actual video frames. In addition, Sony has an image blur reduction circuit to help reduce motion issues along the horizontal and vertical axis.

The Sony Bravia XBR9 series gets 240Hz Motionflow technology in all models greater than 40 inches. These three models–the Bravia KDL-52XBR9, the Bravia KDL-46XBR9, and the Bravia KDL-40XBR9All–also feature an ethernet connection, Bravia Link HDMI CEC for accesing additional entertainment components, integrated Bravia Internet Video (first introduced two years ago), DLNA and USB host support (for playing mulitmedia files), and Sony’s newly announced Bravia Widgets for additional Internet content (financial news, Yahoo Video, Flickr, weather reports) via the Yahoo Widgets Engine.

All also feature Sony’s Wide Color Gamut Cold Cathode Fluorescent Light (WCG-CCFL) backlight technology, which enables the panel to access a broader color palette.

The 32-inch Bravia KDL-32XBR9 boasts both full 1920 by 1080p resolution and Motionflow 120Hz refresh technology, impressive specs to find in a relatively small-screen television. But, this model lacks integrated Bravia Internet Video and WCG-CCFL backlighting.

New Bravia Z Series

Also new is the Bravia Z- series. Three models–the KDL-52Z5100, the KDL-46Z5100, and the KDL-40Z5100–all pack Motionflow 240Hz and all of the features of the XBR9 series but the WCG-CCFL technology; and adds in Energy Star 3.0 compliance.

All of the Bravia XBR9 and Z-series models are due out this spring.

Energy Efficien

In keeping with this year’s energy friendly trends, Sony introduced its Bravia VE5-series. Due out in the summer, this line–Bravia KDL-52VE5, the Bravia KDL-46VE5, and the Bravia KDL-40VE5– features high-efficiency HCFL backlighting, which uses reduced-size cathode tubes in order to improve power efficiency by 40 percent compared with other Sony LCDs. These models also feature a zero-watt standby power switch, a light sesnor with dynamic backlight control to adjust the screen’s brightness down for use in dim environments, and a presence sensor that turns off the TV if it doesn’t detect motion for a specified period of time. These models all feature Motionflow 120Hz technology, are Bravia Link-compatible, have a USB port, and have Bravia Sync HDMI CEC.

Notably, only one line in Sony’s Bravia HDTVs lacks 120Hz technology–the Bravia S5100-series. Also, with this year’s lineup, Sony has just two 720p models left in its arsenal: The 32-inch Bravia KDL-32L5000, and the 26-inch KDL-26L5000.

Conspicuously absent from Sony’s announcements today: Any mention of LED backlit displays. The company will continue to ship its XBR8 series with LED backlighting, though, and LED remains on its radar.

Apple’s iMovie Makes Internet Video Easier in 2009

Steinar — Thu, 01 Jan 2009 20:36:06 +0000

Personally, I love iMovie and am excited at the prospect of some improvements this year including better integration with video hosting sites, such as Youtube. Clearly, internet video is getting much easier to publish – great news for everyone.

Apple will offer a significant update to iMovie at next week’s Macworld. It will largely focus on Internet video in the Cloud for the YouTube generation.

I’ve heard that iMovie will largely (if not entirely) be a Web Application and Apple would offer its users to “upload your movies to us and edit them there.”

There are currently a few online applications that let you do video editing currently. Google’s Youtube is also adding rudimentary editing features.

I am not certain if this means that iMovie is now entirely a Web Application or if Apple is offering a “Cloud” component to its iMovie application.

iMovie in the Cloud would also offer users the ability to easily view their movies on iPod Touches or iPhones. If the application is entirely Web based, it means that potential customers include the “other 90%” of users who use Windows.

- Computerworld Blog

Online Survey Shows Internet Video Marketing Works

Steinar — Mon, 22 Dec 2008 18:19:35 +0000

Someone mentioned to me once or twice that Internet video marketing not only worked but that it worked REALLY well. I didn’t doubt it but you know how it is… you probably have no desire to film yourself talking to camera (a fear I may now have to overcome) and then there is the time it takes to create the video (which is actually no time at all – it’s certainly a lot less than it takes to write a blog post).

It isn’t enough to just put your videos out there and hope people see them. Like anything online you need to pick the best keywords, do some promotion, and if you want viewers to do something in particular after watching your videos (instead of moving onto someone else’s video) there has to be a strong call to action and/or motivation for them to click away from YouTube.

The basic findings in a national phone survey that ended in December show:

48% of internet users said they had ever visited a video-sharing site such as YouTube. A year ago, in December 2006, 33% of internet users said they had ever visited such sites. That represents growth of more than 45% year-to-year.
15% of respondents said they had used a video-sharing site “yesterday” — the day before they were contacted for our survey. A year ago, 8% had visited such a site “yesterday.” Thus, on an average day, the number of users of video sites nearly doubled from the end of 2006 to the end of 2007.

This is valuable information that should be calculated in your efforts to promote your website. If you aren’t using video in your advertising, based on these surveys, you are probably missing out on a lot of potential traffic.