Over the next week I’ll be sharing various pieces of the presentation.

The first piece is a brief deck that shows how CNN.com feature story has evolved over the years and in it’s current incarnation, is almost completely dominated by multimedia.

]]> http://www.newinfluencer.com/the-increasing-presence-of-multimedia-in-the-newsphere/feed/ 0 http://www.newinfluencer.com/video-news-releases-best-practices/ http://www.newinfluencer.com/video-news-releases-best-practices/#comments Tue, 14 Oct 2008 14:16:44 +0000 Jiyan http://www.newinfluencer.com/?p=245 In an interview with ReelSEO last week I discussed some best practices involved with using video in news releases.  Some of the topics covered included:

• Advantages to using video in news releases;
• Different approaches to using video;
• Customer success story;
• What types of video work online;
• The future of online video.

I had a great time talking with Grant Crowell and hope people find value in the article and podcast published on ReelSEO.

Earlier in the year I made a few predictions for how I felt the so-called world of ’social media’ was going to unfold through ‘08. Regarding Second Life I wrote,

Although there is a decent chance that Second Life will simply die and go away, I am going to defy popular logic and say that it will actually crawl out of the trough of disillusionment as the technology gets better, integration with the regular Web increases, and a more realist perspective on its potential facilitates more niche, targeted applications.

I feel that Cisco’s virtual press conference was a great application of Second Life for the following reasons:

1. Second Life is inline with Cisco’s Core Strategic Vision

Cisco’s mantra, “The Human Network,” basically expresses the underlying strategic vision for Cisco moving forward. During the press conference Chambers was pretty explicit in expressing Cisco’s vision that the next stage in information-communications technologies would be network-focused and the next stage in the social applications of the Internet would be focused on collaboration – ergo, the Human Network.

At any rate, for Cisco to walk the walk as far as their core strategic vision is concerned they really need to be in exploratory spaces like Second Life that are pushing the envelop on network-based collaboration and sociability.

2. It is Good PR

I know all the naysayers claim that the reach in Second Life is not worthwhile from a cost-benefit but if you segment by vertical I think it makes more sense for high-tech groups like Cisco to engage in the space. As Eric Krangel from Sillicon Alley Insider explains, “for a company like Cisco, Second Life’s tech-loving users are a rich pool of potential developers and wannabe Cisco certified engineers.”

Not only did they hit a good targeted audience via Second Life but they also got some decent media pick-up in the trades (Computerworld, PC World, Sillicon Alley Insider, etc.).

3. It makes sense from a brand perspective

This is probably a little redundant with the first point I made (or maybe a subsidiary point to the first point I made) but if Cisco is going to be a leader in the networking technology industry and beyond, they really need to take chances like this even when there is no guaranteed ROI – and with an annual revenue of over $35 billion they can afford it.

4. Social media is a good fit for their evolving business focus

The Linksys purchase was a milestone in their gradual shift to focus on the end consumer (a point Chambers made in his Q&A). Although the Second Life tactic in this case was far more targeted on a niche audience, their general engagement in social media is a good fit for the direct-to-consumer focus that is surely beginning to unfold in their overall marketing strategy.

Chambers Speaking in Second Life

Now I think there were some clear areas of opportunity in the execution of their strategy. For one, the press conference could have been a bit more dynamic. In general it was just John Chambers standing on a podium. There were times when the visual image might as well have been static.

One of the advantages to the Second Life medium is the potential for visual expression. As Chambers talked about his vision, it would have been great to see a holographic Star-Wars type presentation compliment the things he was saying.

Second, the archived video of the event is offered via an embedded Quicktime player with no interactive functionality. I would have loved to use a widget to embed the video in this blog posting but no such luck. I ran a query to try to find the event on YouTube but again, no such luck. They could have used a few more

Third, I went into Second Life and had some problems activating and viewing the videos (albeit I don’t have a great deal of experience with video in Second Life so unfortunately I don’t have any recommendations here for what they could have done better – it may just be a current limitation with the Second Life platform.

Having issues with video in Second Life

Finally, they should have clearly used PRWeb to publicize their press conference – both before and after the event. Our blog reach is second-to-none in the industry and they could have embedded a video of Chambers speaking in their post-conference announcement.

Overall however these are all nit-picky tactical issues. For all the reasons I mentioned before, I love the fact that Cisco is experimenting in the space and they are showing themselves to be a thought-pioneer in social media by continuing to take chances.

She was a bit wary when I brought up the opportunities latent in some of the video sharing sites and it was her contention that in order to maintain control over the overall visual and audio integrity of the video they had to keep the videos hosted locally.

My counterpoint was that the sheer volume of users in the video sharing sites created an opportunity that was simply too good to pass up.  Even if the brand didn’t want to distribute their full-length videos on the video sharing sites they should still look at the opportunities to connect with potential audiences via shorter video samples that contained links (in the descriptive text) to the full-length hosted versions.

She remained unconvinced and we continued our conversation talking about other things.  After our discussion however, I did some searching for their video content and it was virtually non-existent.

The shame of it all was that the quality of the video was extremely high (she was a professional television producer before after all).  So I wanted to offer some best practices on optimizing video content for online:

Rule #1: Optimize the page that hosts the video

Unlike television, the video doesn’t exist in isolation when it is online.  It is embedded in a Web page and there are a range of opportunities and related best practices associated with this presence:

1. First, make sure the page framing the video is optimized for search.  If the video is about a cat and a dog that are friends then make sure the title tag and titling in the page refer to the content you want to optimize for.
2. Make sure there are social bookmark and sharing buttons (Digg, StumbleUpon, e-mail a friend, etc.) present.  I have yet to see research substantiating this as a best practice (I’ve heard anecdotally that most social bookmark aficionados use toolbar icons instead of on-page icons) but all it takes is one good Digg to help boost your video even further so it doesn’t hurt to include ‘em.
3. Provide a widget that will allow publishers to easily copy your code and paste it into their own Web site or blog and republish your content from their channel.  The bottom line is that you want your video to have a broad reach.  By providing the embed widget you can make it easier to achieve broad online distribution through downstream channels and also mitigate the threat of someone appropriating your content in other ways.
4. Ensure the page contains interactive functions that allow users to rate and comment on the video.  In addition to eliciting more user interaction this will also help create more opportunities down the road for placing video content and also create more opportunities for users to interact with other video content on your site (i.e. based on rating).
5. Create RSS feeds or e-mail alerts for your videos so people can easily subscribe to get updates when you add new ones.

Rule #2: Optimize your site to put your videos front-and-center

1. Put your video front-and-center – Video increases time on site and also likelihood to take some form of action.  If you have high-quality video content that is your lottery ticket. I would want your best video to be the first thing that someone sees when first loading your page. I would want them to play the video and become so enamored with the story they just experienced that they either want to watch more videos or learn more about what is on the site.
2. Make sure that you get your video indexed in Google, Yahoo!, etc video search engines.  Getting video crawled isn’t a big deal – just takes a bit of effort.

Rule #3: Increase distribution of your video content

1. As much as it pains traditional broadcast producers to see their beautiful video productions distorted and washed out on YouTube, ignoring the video sharing sites is a huge mistake.  You don’t have to put your entire video production on the sites but at the very least put a teaser of each video on the site and link that teaser page back to the full, beautiful version of your video hosted locally.
2. Consider tapping a content aggregator – There are companies out there (i.e. Voxant) that would love to aggregate and license your video content.  Forming relationships with these companies would create some peripheral revenue and also create more demand for your video content.
3. Put out video news releases – PRWeb allows you to embed a video hosted on a video sharing site directly into the body of a news release.  I worked with TLC when they were gearing up to launch a ‘webisode’ called Makeover Train.  We put out a video news release to launch the webisode and managed to use the PRWeb distribution network to promote the video embedded in the release.

Just to wrap things up a bit, video has been around for ages and even online video has been around since the advent of the World Wide Web (give or take a few years) .  With ever-increasing bandwidth, improved compression technologies, and rapidly increasing domestication of video production and distribution methods, it has been exploding on the Web over the past several years.

The explosion of video online is an opportunity for traditional broadcasters – the guys who know how to make top-tier content – to capitalize on the quality of their content but it will also require some pretty fundamental changes in the way that they need to think about the role of video.

The software itself is pretty basic – it basically provides an interface that allows you to upload a video file, add data that will be passed on to the video sharing site, and then submit the file to a number of video sharing sites. It isn’t fundamentally different than a list of links to major video sharing sites except you save time by only uploading the video once (whether that is worth $100 per month is questionable in my mind).

The concept is not really that radical actually. SEO software (like Web Position Gold) does the same thing with Web sites and Web search engines, and more recently I’ve seen a number of services that aggregate links and pass data to social bookmark sites like Social Poster.

Traffic Geyser simply saves you a bit of time adding video to video sharing sites, and if I were in the online video business I might even consider buying their software – if it were $20 for a lifetime license (as opposed to the ridiculous price tag of $100 per month).

What I found to be a bit snake-oilish was the claim on their Web site that “Pay Per Click isn’t the answer.” They show a few case studies where high performing videos rank #1 in Google for targeted keywords.

In my experience I haven’t seen a lot of online businesses make a living out of selling high results in Google and proclaiming that customers didn’t need to purchase Google ads. In fact, that is tantamount to writing an e-mail to Google asking them to blacklist you.

That being said, a few things I want to address here.

1. Videos can perform well in search – if they have backlinks

Traffic Geyser is not lying when they say that pages in video sharing sites can perform well in Google’s organic search. Video sharing sites like YouTube and Google Video are going to be interwoven with domains that have a lot of PageRank to pass around. In fact, if you run a query for “PRWeb in Plain English” in Google you will see that the YouTube results rank #1 and #2.

Now here is the catch – the high performance of these videos is primarily the result of the links pointing to the URL hosting the videos. We launched these videos as part of a broader marketing campaign that involved distribution of PRWeb press releases with the embedded video and posting of the video to a number of blogs.

Over time, the links pointing to the video page made that page a good candidate for a top result in Google. That is something that Traffic Geyser neglects to tell you however – that you can put your content out there, but someone has to care enough to link to it if you want long term results, which leads me to my next point.

2. Videos can perform well in search – if they have good, relevant content

Traffic Geyser sells their $100 per month subscription with royalty-free images and a “slideshow creator” that allow you to produce “video without a camera.” Basically, they want to give people the tools to come up with anything that can be uploaded into video sharing sites.

If content doesn’t matter to you, your customers, or your brand, then this approach will probably work. Otherwise, you may want to think a little more carefully before you start driving people to your content.

When we wanted to create our video content, we went out and hired Common Craft, one of the most talented production teams out there (who have also done video work for a little company called Google). We wanted to make sure that the thousands of people who were going to see our video, left with a good impression of our brand and a desire to enter into a long-term relationship with us.

That being said – we didn’t spend a fortune on the production budget and we were the first client that contracted them to make a video. We found them because they were creating some great independent materials on social media technologies. One idea? Go out onto video sharing sites and see who is creating great video content in your space.

At the end of the day, you might be able to get a top result for a short amount of time but if the traffic that is flowing through search engines to your content sees shoddy craftsmanship – what is that going to tell them about your brand or product and more importantly, what do you think they are likely to do? Would your typical consumer entrust their business to a company when their only impression of that company was a video that looked like it was made by a fifth grader in two hours?

If you care about your brand or your company, you may want to consider what it is you are putting out there for public consumption. Additionally, good video content is going to get you more back links and better placement in search over the long haul.

3. You don’t need to upload your video to 25 different video sharing sites

On principle, I’m not crazy about software that goes and pushes content to a number of different social media sites with no regard for the etiquette of those sites. In practice, it simply isn’t effective. You are better off focusing on one or two of the top video sharing sites than getting your video onto 15 or 20 different ones.

Again, over the long haul one of your goals is to make your video on YouTube perform well. If you have your video spread out over 15 or 20 sites, then your links are also going to be spread out. Would you rather have one YouTube video with 100 back-links or 20 videos dispersed with 5 back-links each? Let me put this another way – would you rather have a page 1 result in Google or dominate pages 5-6?

4. You’re better off not spamming video sharing sites or pissing off Google

I’ve sort of alluded to this already, but I’m really not crazy about the idea of blasting off some crap content to a bunch of video sharing sites on principal alone. The idea behind these video sharing sites is that the infrastructure is present to create a two-way flow of communication between you and the people you are interested in connecting with. The video is the vessel that carries your message to your intended audience but it isn’t just a one-way message because people can comment on your YouTube video, add it to their blogs, and even write directly back to you – in text and with video submissions! You can also build out your network in video sharing sites and over time, people will subscribe to your channel and be immediately notified when you upload new videos.

Participating in social media can be a way of creating real connections with customers, stakeholders, etc. when done correctly. When abused, it normally doesn’t end well for the perpetrator.

At any rate, my overall perception of Traffic Geyser is that some guys in San Diego cobbled together some software and are selling it for $100 per month and going on a marketing blitzkrieg, claiming top results in Google. It is snake oil – the latest craze and it will be antiquated in the next six months leaving Traffic Geyser customers feeling disappointed and the Traffic Geyser owners feeling happy because they just made millions of dollars by teaching people how to make terrible video content and spam the Internet.

Remember – all those social media sites are free to use. When approached properly they can perform even perform well in search. Just make sure that when people come to your content, there is something for them to see.

My advice – if you have $1200 to spare (the cost of Traffic Geyser over 12 months) use the money and buy a camera or take a class and learn how to build your own great piece of video content. It isn’t that hard. Alternatively, think about hiring out a local production firm or even a local freelancer – and upload your video to the top two or three video sharing sites yourself.

You can also announce it using embedded video in a PRWeb press release

According to Wikipedia, multimedia can be described as “media that uses multiple forms of information content and information processing (e.g. text, audio, graphics, animation, video, interactivity) to inform or entertain the (user) audience.”

The Rising Influence of Multimedia Online

Over the past few years, several trends have contributed to the increasing prominence of online multimedia. First, broadband usage continues to increase. According to the Pew Internet and American Life project, over 47% of all adult Americans have a broadband connection at home. Second, tools for the production and consumption of multimedia, such as iPods, camera-enabled phones, and handycams, continue to become more easily accessible to a broad population. Finally, online services like YouTube, MySpace and iTunes are pushing multimedia to millions of users each day. The results are staggering:

1. 75% of Internet users watched streaming video online in May 2007, accounting for more than 8.3 billion video streams online.
2. 12% of Internet users have downloaded or listened to a podcast, and that is expected to reach over 12 million households by 2010.
3. The worldwide online gaming population has surpassed 215 million people.
4. YouTube attracted 9 million visitors who viewed 176 million pages in February 2006, with Google Video (76 million pages viewed) and MSN Video (38 million pages viewed) following in second and third place (Liedtke, 2006).

With the meteoric rise in multimedia usage, it is imperative for PR practitioners to familiarize themselves with the various forms of multimedia online. In doing so, they can understand both the potential and limitations of what they can accomplish so they can better implement multimedia tactics that are in-line with their overall strategy.

While there are many forms of multimedia online, this white paper will focus on audio, video, and online gaming. It will provide an overview of these mediums while offering insight into how PR professionals can take advantage of them as part of their overall outreach efforts.

The Power and Peril of Podcasting: A Cautionary Tale

In June 2006, an AOL customer called the company’s service hotline to cancel his account. Instead of closing his account as requested, the customer service representative instead employed multiple sales tactics to try to convince the customer to keep his account open. The conversation became heated and ended with the rep saying: “Someday, when you calm down, you’re going to realize that all I was trying to do was help you, and it was actually in your best interest to listen to me.”

While the experience itself is not uncommon, this situation was unique in that the AOL customer, Vincent Ferrari, recorded the call. Ferrari then posted an audio clip of the conversation to his blog and notified a few Websites. Within an hour, his server crashed due to the sheer volume of online requests the audio file received. Within a week, Ferrari received countless inquiries from mainstream media outlets (he later appeared on the Today show and Nightline) and his audio clip was distributed to millions online, resulting in a PR crisis for AOL.

Although the growing influence of social media and the blogosphere helped facilitate the viral impact of Ferrari’s story, it was hearing the voices of the customer service representative and Ferrari himself that made the story so compelling. This anecdote illustrates the power of audio in amplifying the impact of a story.

Online Audio

Although there are various forms of online audio, the practice of podcasting has emerged over the past several years to take center stage. Podcasting refers to audio files that are distributed and syndicated over the Web using RSS (really simple syndication). Anyone can subscribe to a podcast and be immediately notified when a new audio file (episode) is published so they can then listen to it on their Web browser or download it to their portable audio device.

Podcasts can be thought of simply as online radio shows that are globally accessible, except with far less barriers to entry for producers. In fact, more and more traditional radio outlets have begun to transfer their audio content online and distribute it through podcast technologies. Simultaneously, because the barriers to entry are so low for content producers, podcasting has spawned all sorts of niche programming.

More than other forms of multimedia, the growth in podcasting is linked to the growth in ownership of portable media devices. In 2005, Pew reported that more than 22 million Americans owned iPods or MP3 players and 29% of them had downloaded podcasts from the Web . That number has risen in the past years, and with the continued evolution of handheld multimedia device such as the recent introduction of Apple’s iPhone, it is expected that the number of portable media owners will continue to grow.

Podcasting offers the following benefits:

1. Target niche audiences – Unlike traditional radio, podcasting is highly targeted and it allows PR pros to narrowcast their message to their intended audience.
2. Demographic - There is considerable evidence that the podcast audience is a young, affluent demographic that is enticing to many marketers and PR professionals.
3. Detachable – According to noted podcasting expert Shel Holtz, “podcasting time-shifts radio-like content so you can listen at your leisure. It also allows you to detach content once imprisoned on your computer so you can take it with you wherever you go.”
4. Convenient - Like radio, podcasting offers the opportunity to target audiences when they are engaged in other activities, such as commuting to work.

Communications professionals interested in incorporating podcasting into their PR efforts need to consider whether they have the time and resources to launch their own podcast. Although the tools are highly accessible, podcasting can require substantial time commitments. You might find that it makes better sense to pitch podcasts already in existence.

Alternatively, if you choose to develop your own podcasts, you might consider hosting a regular podcast series. When treated like a show or series, a podcast can offer organizations an enhanced opportunity to connect and build relationships with their audience, as well as attract the attention of other key stakeholders such as journalists, bloggers, and potential customers.

Regardless of how you do it, by taking advantage of the multimedia nature of the podcasting medium and the additional distribution channels it affords, you can dramatically increase the scope and impact of your news.

Online Video

The democratic presidential candidate debate held in July 2007 was a milestone for online video when YouTube was selected as the vehicle through which American voters submitted their questions for the candidates in video format. Although online video had played a notable role in US politics over the past several years, this was the first time an online video Web site was integrated into mainstream media for a federal election campaign.

Online video has clearly reached the tipping point. In May 2007, three out of every four Internet users had downloaded streaming video at some point during the month. There are a number of ways in which online video can be characterized. Like radio, many television stations are beginning to offer their content through the Web. In this scope, the Internet serves as a distribution channel that resembles traditional television. Web sites like YouTube and MySpace Video, often referred to as video sharing sites, are more exemplary of new forms of online video. Not only do these Web sites host various types of mainstream content, but they also host large quantities of independently produced, niche content. It is these video sharing sites that offer PR professionals an opportunity to communicate their message online.

Video sharing sites allow anyone to upload and share video content or to rate and comment on other videos hosted on the site. Placement of content on these sites is normally decided through the rating that a video has received. In addition, many video sharing sites offer functionality that facilitates the creation of social networks, such as the ability to subscribe to other people’s videos and join various types of groups.

Video sharing sites offer PR professionals a great opportunity to optimize the visibility of their video content and connect with their audiences. Using online video offers the following benefits:

1. Reach niche and mass audiences – Although using video sharing sites can help reach targeted audiences, it also has the potential to reach a mass audience. In February 2006, YouTube attracted 9 million visitors who viewed 176 million pages. Furthermore, a number of corporate-sponsored videos placed on video sharing sites have received millions of views alone. As an example, Smirnoff’s Tea Party video was downloaded over 3 million times on YouTube.
2. Increased Conversion Rates – There is evidence that indicates that video is more likely than text to compel audiences to take action. According to a 2005 survey conducted by the Online Publishers Association (OPA), 44 percent of respondents reported that they had taken some kind of action as a result of seeing a video advertisement.
3. Inexpensive distribution – Once a video has been produced, it can be quickly and freely uploaded to distribution channels that receive millions of visits each day. The top video sharing sites – YouTube, Google Video, Yahoo! Video, and MySpace, offer free membership and hosting.
4. Viral Impact – Designed to facilitate the sharing of video content, video sharing sites contain social media functionality. Most sites offer tools that allow other publishers and bloggers to easily embed and share videos hosted on their servers. The social media nature of these sites can have a viral effect on popular videos.
5. Mainstream Exposure – Many video sharing sites have become resources for mainstream media outlets, with many broadcast and cable television stations now using clips from online video sharing sites in their regular programming.

Although the material barriers to entry for video sharing sites are low, not every type of video receives traction. According to Forrester, entertainment and news videos receive the most impressions online. The most successful videos tend to be short, irreverent, or highly controversial. Unless they have these characteristics, most corporate videos or public service announcements tend to receive little traction on video sharing sites.

Online Gaming

When MTV created a plan to market their reality show Laguna Beach, they made the decision to go online. In an effort to provide viewers with an enhanced experience of their show, they set up a virtual version of Laguna Beach using VR (virtual reality) technology from There.com. When the virtual version of Laguna Beach launched in September 2006, it drew almost 300,000 registrants in its first 10 weeks.

The online gaming population is now estimated to be over 200 million worldwide . The vast majority of online gaming tends to take place in Internet portals like Yahoo! or MSN, where users play shorter, less immersive games. Although these offer PR and marketing pros opportunities to communicate their message or brand, much of the focus in online gaming has been oriented towards massive multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPGs), such as the Laguna Beach example cited above.

MMORPGs are virtual worlds where large communities of users interact with one another in game environments. In 2006, global membership in these communities exceeded 15 million. What appeals to PR professionals is not the total number of users, but the nature of their usage. MMORPG players spend on average over 20 hours per week, and they are also financially vested in their game play. There is also evidence that indicates the number of people in MMORPGs continues to grow steadily. Since opening to the public in 2003, Second Life, a 3-D virtual world entirely built and owned by its residents, has grown explosively and today reports more than 8 million residents from around the globe.

Online gaming offers the following benefits:

1. Immersive experiences – The potential to provide an immersive experience is unprecedented with MMORPGs. There is no other medium that invites the audience to participate and interact to the same extent. MMORPGs also provide PR professionals with an array of new opportunities to communicate their message in an interactive way.
2. Greater message retention – The message retention rates associated with online gaming as a whole tend to be several times higher than that of more traditional forms of media. Due to the highly interactive nature of MMORPGs, it can be even higher.
3. New distribution channel – Because MMORPGs are still relatively new in the communications landscape, they represent an opportunity to embrace an audience that has grown weary of more traditional forms of PR and marketing.

Despite the potential for PR professionals that exists with MMORPGs, they are still very much in their infancy and their reach remains extremely limited. Furthermore, they involve substantial time and financial commitment, and therefore, most organizations to date who have experimented with these virtual worlds are large Fortune-500 companies with substantial marketing and PR budgets.

Conclusion

The Internet is rapidly evolving from a text-based medium into a multimedia platform. Traditional media outlets are beginning to shift their focus online while new media outlets are constantly emerging. For communicators, this means there is an unprecedented opportunity to connect with audiences in new, interactive ways. However, the multimedia landscape is still in its infancy, and as a result, formulating and executing successful communications strategies can be a challenging endeavor.

Before attempting to integrate multimedia into your PR efforts, you must first understand what types of multimedia are best suited to your goals. You should then build a strategy that incorporates multimedia – whether video, audio, and/or online gaming – into your PR activity. They should complement the traditional approaches you already use, rather than replace the tactics that you have perfected over the years.

Remember to look before you leap. There may be opportunities to engage with those already active with multimedia in your focus area. For instance, there are thousands of podcasts currently active throughout the Web, focused on a countless array of topics. If there is a podcast that is focused on your subject, it may be a better use of your resources to reach out to the podcaster before you spend considerable time and effort required to launch your own podcast.

Finally, make sure to temper your expectations. Many who have found success with multimedia online have been experimenting with the medium for years. It is important not to get discouraged if your efforts do not immediately produce desired results. By getting started now, you are setting yourself up to become an expert in leveraging the potential of multimedia by the time it becomes a standard practice.

References

1. Horrigan, J 2006, ‘Home Broadband Adoption 2006’, Pew Internet and American Life Project, viewed August 28, 2007, http://www.pewinternet.org/PPF/r/184/report_display.asp
2. comScore 2007, ‘3 Out of 4 U.S. Internet Users Streamed Video Online in May’, comScore, 17 July.
3. Jobson, N 2005, ‘Podcasting: ‘Significant growth by 2010′, WebProNews.com, 13 April.
4. comScore 2007, ‘Worldwide Online Gaming Community Reaches 217 Million People’, comScore, 28 August.
5. Liedtke, M 2006, ‘Now starring on the Internet: YouTube.com’, Associated Press, 9 April.
6. Madden, M 2006, ‘Podcast Downloading’, Pew Internet and American Life Project, viewed August 28, 2007, http://www.pewinternet.org/PPF/r/193/report_display.asp
7. Holtz, S 2005, ‘Rationalizing a Business Podcast’, Global PR Blog Week, 20 September.
8. comScore 2007, ‘3 Out of 4 U.S. Internet Users Streamed Video Online in May’, comScore, 17 July.
9. Smirnoff 2006, YouTube, viewed 28 August 2007, <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PTU2He2BIc0>
10. McGann, R 2005, ‘Study: Video Key Opportunity for Online Advertisers, Publishers’, ClickZ, February 8.
11. Haven, B 2006, ‘Should your Brand Use Online Video?’, Forrester, October 3.
12. Wallace, M 2007, ‘A Second Life for MTV’, Wired, Issue 15.02.
13. comScore 2007, ‘Worldwide Online Gaming Community Reaches 217 Million People’, comScore, 28 August.
14. MMOGChart 2006, MMOGChart, viewed 28 August 2007, <http://www.mmogchart.com/>
15. Yee, N 2005, ‘MMORPG Hours vs. TV Hours’, The Daedalus Project, < http://www.nickyee.com/daedalus/archives/000891.php>
16. Second Life 2007, Second Life, viewed 28 October, 2007, <http://secondlife.com/whatis/>
17. Kretchmer, S 2007, ‘The Emergent Advergames Industry: Developments, Impact, and Direction’, Centre for Research on Innovation and Competition, <http://www.cric.ac.uk/cric/events/dgi/abstracts/kretchmer.htm>