About Metacafe.com

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Metacafe is one of the world's largest video sites, attracting more than 25 million unique viewers each month (comScore Media Metrix). We specialize in short-form original content - from new, emerging talents and established Hollywood heavyweights alike. We're committed to delivering an exceptional entertainment experience, and we do so by engaging and empowering our audience every step of the way.

Since 2003 Metacafe has been one of the top independent online video sites, and we're a leader in the evolution of digital entertainment. The company is headquartered in Palo Alto, California, with offices in Tel Aviv and New York. Metacafe is privately held and investors include Accel Partners, Benchmark Capital, DAG Ventures and Highland Capital Partners.

How is Metacafe different?

Metacafe is not a video sharing and hosting site that allows any and every video to be posted. Instead, Metacafe is a video entertainment site that focuses on:

1. Short-form - Metacafe specializes in short-form original video - content that is made for the interactive Internet medium. We don't have full-length television episodes or movies chopped into pieces. The average video on our site is just over 90 seconds long. People come to Metacafe looking for an entertainment break in their day - and we deliver.
2. Entertainment - We're all about entertaining a large audience by featuring only those videos that amaze, inspire and make viewers laugh. This means you won't find hard news stories, personal videos or webcam chatter on Metacafe.
3. Audience-driven - The Metacafe experience is determined entirely by our community. Videos are user-generated, user-selected, user-reviewed and user-rewarded. At Metacafe, we put the audience in the driver's seat, empowering viewers in a much more meaningful way than other video sites.
   •  Community Auditions - A community review panel of more than 80,000 volunteers takes a first look at each of the thousands of videos submitted to the site every day.
   • Community Rankings - Our VideoRank™ system identifies and exposes the most popular videos by automatically gauging every interaction each viewer has with a video.
   • Community Rewards - Our Producer Rewards™ program pays video creators for their best original work, as determined by the viewers.

What does this all add up to? A better entertainment experience. We consistently hear from our viewers that it's easier to find videos they like on our site as compared to others - and that keeps them coming back for more.

December 16, 2007

Consumer Generated Heinz Ketchup TV Commercial Challenge

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Submissions will be accepted through March 14, 2008.  A panel of judges will whittle  entries to 10 semi-finalists, to be revealed on TopThisTV.com on or around April 7.  Consumers will then have a chance to vote online for their favorite spot.  Additionally, four runner-up ads will air on national TV and the creators will each receive $5,700.   

“We know there are many loyal consumers out there who want to creatively express their passion for Heinz Ketchup,” said David Ciesinski, vice president for Heinz Ketchup. “Now they have another chance to do so in a fun, imaginative way that demonstrates how Heinz Ketchup makes everything taste better.”

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Consumer Generated Advertising Revenue

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Here’s an example: a new site, currently in beta, called LiveRail is throwing their hat in the ring. They host video (in high-quality, fast loading, flash format), same as YouTube. They allow you to use an embed code to embed the video on your own site, same as YouTube. There are 2 big differences between LiveRail and YouTube. The first is that the videos appear only where the viewer places them – allowing them to maintain control of ownership. I think this will be an area of contention for some. The second, and key differentiator is this: The embed code includes relevant ad placements below. The ads, when clicked, stop the video and show brief content by advertisers. When finished, it resumes the content that was being watched. The creator of the content gets paid for each view.
Check out the LiveRail beta here.
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Top-Ten Principles of Consumer-Generated Advertising Campaigns

1. Connect The Program To Larger Business Goals: Ensure that your strategy aligns with well-defined goals and objectives, and create a measurement framework for program planning, tracking, adjusting and evaluating. A consumer-generated campaign is not a license to veer into irrelevance or sloppiness.

2. Keep It Authentic: Leverage the full creative power of the participants and don't set narrow guidelines on the creative. The traditional media framework for inserting creative is losing its effectiveness, even among the pros. Allow for flexibility in shape, form and raw spontaneity.

3. Be Transparent: Don't play fast and loose with the fact that the brand facilitated content creation. Avoid a potential backlash by being completely transparent.

4. Encourage Advocacy: Don't be shy about allowing entrants to vote for their favorites and encourage their friends and family to vote. This builds momentum around the campaign, and ensures that the best content rises to the top.

5. Empower Syndication: Make it simple to upload, simple to share, simple to embed on blogs and other community and video platforms. Let the people become the distribution and evangelical pipeline.

6. Tap The Long Tail: Don't hesitate to leverage non-winners for other marketing purposes. Embrace them as passionate and loyal stakeholders, and use the Web site as a repository for their rich content.

7. Capture The Moment: Capitalize on "great brand moments" when consumers are highly vested and more likely to advocate, such as new product launches, purchases, or actual brand use and enjoyment. This will help passionate, credible and authentic storylines rise to the top.

8. Be Consistent: If you create an environment of dialogue and interaction, stakeholders will notice inconsistencies across other customer touch points or company silos. While the campaign may end, its equity around "participation, community and feedback" may live on. Decide beforehand if your brand's cultural values, resources and commitment will sustain after the campaign ends.

9. Embrace Criticism And Deprecation: You've got to take the bad with the good. While a good strategy will acknowledge and plan for detractors, the reality is that everyone is empowered to publish. Accept and embrace this truth, and leverage criticism or deprecation as a gift of feedback and opportunity.

10. Move From Campaign To Platform: Campaigns may have clear beginnings and endings, but there may be dimensions of your program that want to live on forever. Prepare a platform to facilitate and leverage sustained engagement and brand return.

Are you in compliance?

Autodesk User Group International

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AUGI provides new promotional banners!

Have you ever wished you could promote AUGI from your website but didn�t have the time to work through the details to make it happen? If so, here is some great news! AUGI has launched a new service providing promotional banners and the necessary html code to link to the AUGI site. A number of different sizes are provided to satisfy your space constraints. Take a few minutes to browse through the banners and discover how easy it is to promote AUGI from your website
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Spread Firefox

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Spreading Firefox

1. What kinds of things can I do to spread Firefox?

   The easiest way to spread Firefox has also proven to be one of the most effective: simply link to it. If you have joined sfx, you will receive one point each time someone clicks your special affiliate link.

   • We offer a wide variety of buttons and banners that we encourage you to use on your website. Additionally, many sfx members have created their own artwork that you are free to use.
     
     Sfx Image Archive
   • If you participate regularly in a forum or bulletin board on the web, put your Firefox link or button in your signature or as your avatar.
   • Include your Firefox link in your profile for your favorite instant messaging client (e.g. AOL Instant Messenger, MSN Messenger, etc.).
   • Put your Firefox link in your e-mail signature
   • Firefox Materials and Logos Repository!
     
     
     
   
   

   Linking, however, is just a start. Our users have come up with many other novel ways to spread the word that don't require you to leave your computer.

   • Use eye-catching Firefox wallpaper on your desktop.
   • Help convince others to download Firefox. Rate and review us at c|net download.com, BetaNews (Windows Mac Linux) and other popular download sites that offer Firefox.

   However, the best way to spread Firefox is to spread it beyond the computer, in the "real world".

   • Pass out flyers or leave a stack of them in your school's computer cluster, at the gym, at the library, or in your breakroom at work.
   • Get the Firefox poster and put it on your dorm or office wall.
   • Spread the Firefox stickers!
   • Wear the Firefox t-shirt as often as human standards of cleanliness allow.
   • Give a loved one the gift of Firefox.

   Donations are also very much appreciated and are used entirely to fund the development and promotion of Firefox. You can also join and participate in a number of different teams.

   And when you've done all of those things, tell your friends about sfx so they can, too!

2. How do official sfx campaigns work?

   The community drives this site, and at any given time there are always at least a dozen ongoing marketing efforts. From time to time, the sfx team will announce official campaigns. The point of these campaigns is not to draw attention away from our members' campaigns, but to unite the community toward a challenging goal. We work hard to design exciting campaigns, and will provide tools and resources to facilitate the campaign (e.g. we often offer counters that track our progress toward the goal in real time). Campaigns will be announced on the front page by the sfx team, and the latest information will be available for the duration of the campaign in the top green box in the right sidebar.

3. What is the Volunteer Spotlight?

   Each week, the sfx team features on the front page an exceptional sfx member that has blown us away with his or her contributions. Look over some of our past volunteers of the week to get a sense for what kind of efforts we celebrate. Every member chosen for the volunteer spotlight gets an spreadfirefox.com e-mail address, 50 points and free Firefox gear from the Mozilla Store. There is no application or nomination process for becoming volunteer of the week. Just be active in the sfx community, do good work that gets recognized by your peers, and the sfx team will notice you.

Free Advertising  

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The rise of consumer-generated advertising can be viewed as either a boon to brands (outsourcing marketing to loyal customers) or a threat (handing marketing over to a bunch of uncontrollable amateurs). When G.M. solicited consumer input in online ad-making for its Chevy Tahoe, many people responded with anti-S.U.V. messages. Grant McCracken, an author, anthropologist and consultant, takes a broader view, describing consumer involvement as a kind of branding Reformation: marketing professionals used to be the high-priest gatekeepers, but now we can all have a direct relationship with the Almighty Brand. He refers to this as brand "co-creation" (a term he credits to C.K. Prahalad, a business professor at the University of Michigan), and sees it as both inevitable and smart, even in the case of the Tahoe controversy. "The era of the brand that's blandly constructed and hopes not to offend anyone — to be pleasant — that notion is really dead," McCracken says.
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Why go this way?
Duh. Let's see: On one hand, you have six- and seven-figure creative fees for advertisements that are attracting less and less interest, and arguably having smaller and smaller impacts on sales; on the other hand, you have a source of basically free advertising with built-in audiences and tremendous potential for ancillary PR. Which one should advertisers prefer?

"The cost of producing your basic 30-second commercial has become astronomical," Wiener points out. "It's incredibly cost-effective to get user-generated content."

If that weren't reason enough, consumer-generated advertising is also a great way to measure consumers' passion for your product or brand. It's not hard to count how many people are submitting movies, for example. And there's always the potential for hitting the jackpot with a really iconic ad or discovering a new advertising genius. Advertisers are highly attuned to the vast pool of talent out there, and they know how easily good ideas can arise from the ranks of consumers.

In addition, more than a few advertisers are persuaded to try this approach by the effectiveness angle.

"Advertisers are grasping for new ways to reach people," suggests Wiener. "Consumers are now in fragmented target audiences, and the web is a critical means for communicating with them. You want to give them a sticky experience they'll tell their friends about, and the way to do this is with compelling content. Right now, users can often generate the most compelling content of all."

Jackie Huba, co-author of "Creating Customer Evangelists," suggests that advertisers like consumer-generated advertising in part because they "are finding that many of their traditional marketing strategies are less effective. Competition for time, attention and loyalty is more acute. Challenger brands are experimenting with these new ideas and finding out they can create a good deal of word of mouth backed by eye-opening results."
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