Why so late to the YouTube game? As I’ve explained before in previous blog posts and webinars, I believe that it’s important to create a layered experience across different media. In other words, don’t just post the same stuff to Facebook, Twitter, your website, YouTube, your blog, etc. Have an overall strategy, but take advantage of each site’s capabilities and culture to maximize followers across all platforms.

Until recently, we didn’t have a clear idea of how we wanted to incorporate YouTube into our marketing, sales and client engagement strategy. We had videos from Matrix Group staff events, but we had reserved our Facebook page for information and posts about the project we’re working on and corporate culture. I didn’t want to use YouTube as another place to promote corporate culture. And until we hired a new Marketing Coordinator, we didn’t have the bandwidth to staff an active YouTube channel properly.

But this past week, we launched The Matrix Minute, which is a series of interviews with in-house and outside experts who discuss web technologies, mobile technologies, social media, design and web development. Occasionally, we’ll feature local CEOs who will talk about leadership and what their organizations are doing to stay relevant and vibrant.

Here’s how the Matrix Minute fits into our overall sales and marketing strategy:

• As a company, we’re extremely committed to ongoing education for staff and clients so content-rich interviews make sense for us.
• It’s a way to showcase the expertise we have within the staff.
• It’s a way to leverage the expertise of our clients and partners.
• It’s a way to continue demonstrating thought leadership.
• We get to show off our video production capabilities.
• YouTube is owned by Google and Google favors keyword-rich videos and descriptions so the channel is good for search engine optimization (SEO).
• It’s a way to layer YouTube into our strategy in a way that’s new and different from what we’re doing on our website and social media.

The Matrix Minute has also been a lot of fun.  So far, I’ve been doing all of the interviews and I’m learning a ton. Ray Stankiewicz, New Biz Manager at Matrix Group, is the producer and Melissa Bader, Designer at Matrix Group, does the video editing.

We’ve got a half dozen interviews already online. For example, Jill Foster of Live Your Talk talks about videoblogging. Jennell Evans of Strategic Interactions shares her tips for managing remote teams. And Sherrie Bakshi of Matrix Group talks about why 2011 is the year to start a corporate blog.

BTW, we call it The Matrix Minute, but the interviews are usually 2-3 minutes long. 1 minute just didn’t provide enough time for a meaningful interview and Matrix Minutes sounded goofy.

I hope you’ll check us out on YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/MatrixGroup) and you’ll rate, comment and subscribe. Tell us what you think of our latest initiative!

So I decided it was time for a face-off between the iPad and the Kindle. I invited my friend Eileen to come over to the house with her Kindle.  Eileen would represent the Kindle while my 5 year-old would represent the iPad.  Here’s the face-off video where I play host and ask the co-stars to compare the iPad vs. the Kindle in terms of:  e-bookstore experience, screen size and display, resolution, page turning and search.  See for yourself and be the judge.  Who do you think won this face-off?

This homemade video brings home the point that with the Web and social sharing sites, everyone’s a critic, a moviemaker, or a citizen journalist. Despite a legion of tech writers reviewing the iPad, I felt compelled to create my own iPad review.  And now I’ll reach out to my network of friends, clients, colleagues and followers on Facebook, Twitter, blog and e-mail to share my video, get their feedback and try to influence their thinking about these devices.

How about you?  Are you publishing your own content to social networking and sharing sites?  What’s your take on the iPad and have you decided to get one?

Ugh, so what’s an advertiser to do?

This morning, I had the pleasure of seeing Dave Nelsen, President of Dialog, talk about social media for business.  While discussing YouTube, Dave showed us a video that he called “the future of advertising.”  The T-Mobile Dance is a 2:41 minute video of commuters at Liverpool Station in England dancing their hearts out.  As more and more people join in, onlookers snap photos, take video and share the experience with their friends through their T-Mobile phones, of course.

Dave made the point that this video represents the future of advertising because:

• The company got me to willingly watch a loooong ad. This would never happen on TV!
• Because YouTube allows comments, over 16,000 people have commented on this video, creating incredible buzz and feedback for the company.
• The video was so successful that T-Mobile created a YouTube channel for its “Life’s for Sharing” campaign.  Fans can even create their own videos and T-Mobile posts the best of the bunch.  There’s a video of a Korean baby singing Hey Jude and a singer jamming from atop a bus. How’s that for a user-generated content strategy?

And it’s not just large companies that are using YouTube to promote their products. My 5-year old son eagerly watches what are essentially product ads from a company called Trains Galore on their YouTube Channel. My husband Maki loves the YouTube channel of Ten-Tec, Inc., a manufacturer of high quality radio equipment for amateur radio operators.

These small retailers likely don’t have big budgets for advertising, but they have clearly found a following on YouTube.  This video advertising wooden Thomas the Tank Engine trains has gotten nearly 300,000 views and 50 comments!

All of this is not to say that the future of advertising is YouTube.  But YouTube represents an incredibly flexible way that companies are promoting their products through inspired creative, a viral strategy, and a user-generate content strategy.

How about you?  How are you using social media to promote your company?  What’s your YouTube strategy?

Over the past year, content on demand has matured a lot.  I can now rent and purchase movies, many of them in HD, using iTunes on my Mac, on my Apple TV, and my PS3.  The Apple and Sony networks each have a large database of movies, although the Apple inventory seems larger and the shopping and viewing experience is far superior on iTunes and the Apple TV.  Movies become available on my devices the same time they become available through Netflix and my  neighborhood Hollywood Video.

Which makes me wonder if the Blu-Ray vs. HD battle almost missed the mark.  Blu-Ray is a storage format and scripting platform and it’s fabulous.  But when I purchase or rent an HD movie from a content on demand network, Blu-ray is irrelevant because I don’t need a storage format; I get the movie directly to my drive.

Don’t get me wrong.  I love Blu-Ray.  My new Sony VAIO laptop plays Blu-Ray discs and I love, love, love the clarity of the audio and video, as well as all the cool extras on the discs.  So for now, I will continue to buy my favorite movies on Blu-Ray, but for the random movie rentals, I will likely go online and have my movies of choice downloaded to my Apple TV or PS3 in 20 minutes.

How about you?  Are you buying or renting movies online?  Who is your preferred vendor?  Are you still buying movies on disc?

It turns out that even churches have adopted new media, and in a big way (why am I surprised by this?). After doing a bunch of Google searches, I realized that not only have many churches created extensive Web sites, many now have sermons and readings online, and yes, many now stream services live.

A popular aggregator site is Streaming Faith. I am blown away by this site. You have to register but it’s free and once you login, a whole world is available to you. Every day and every hour, you can watch live streams of services; you can listen to podcasts; you can watch pre-recorded sermons; you can make a donation online to your favorite church; and you can watch music videos.  You can even browse a list of ministers and ministries.  The videos are streamed using Windows Media Player and you will be amazed at the quality of the video.

Even if you aren’t religious, aren’t Christian or don’t attend church, this site is noteworthy and worth a look.

Earlier this year, Microsoft released Silverlight, their answer to Adobe’s Flash. The official Web site describes Silverlight as “a cross-browser, cross-platform, and cross-device plug-in for delivering the next generation of .NET based media experiences and rich interactive applications for the Web.” I downloaded Silverlight in order to watch the Democratic National Convention live, in HD. The picture was unbelievably crisp and the audio was terrific. BTW, I checked; no HD feed on the official Republican Convention site.

I didn’t realize it, but the NBC Olympics Web site had videos powered by Silverlight (not in HD, however). Here’s a link to a video feed of the closing ceremony and a PC World article describing what Silverlight allowed the Web site developers to do.

On the personal front, we just got an HD video camera. After a lot of research, we settled on the Sony HDR-CX12. Here’s why:

• It’s small and lightweight
• It records HD video directly to a memory stick, which makes it easy to transfer video to my PC
• I can take photos while shooting video; the photos are 10.2 megapixel
• Automatic face detection for videos and photos
• Fantastic reviews on Amazon.com

The verdict on the camera? I love it. I took some sample video while at the National Aquarium in Baltimore on Sunday. Once home, I easily transferred the videos and photos to my laptop, then used the Sony software to burn a DVD and watch the video on my TV. The image was stunning, even though I didn’t burn it in HD. The camera even took automatic photos whenever someone smiled, no kidding! Even more impressive, we took video in super low light and camera performed like a champ. The price tag under $900 (+ the $100 instant cash rebate) puts HD within reach (it’s even less on Amazon).

Finally, I’m enjoying all the HD podcasts that people are putting up on iTunes. I’ve subscribed to HD podcasts related to travel and feng shui. It feels so luxurious to watch these podcasts in HD and I love it.

Apple TV vs. Sony PS3

Let’s start with the Apple service.  We have an Apple TV (we bought ours for $199), which is a device that hooks up to your TV and connects via wireless to your Macintosh computer.  Using the Apple TV, we can stream photos, music and podcasts to our big screen TV.  Perhaps most fun of all, Apple TV has a custom interface for surfing YouTube!  Surfing YouTube as a family, on the big screen, from the comfort of my couch, is wonderful.  And now, we can rent or purchase movies from Apple.

The Sony service is available on the PS3.  I love our PS3 because I absolutely love Blu-ray.  The Sony service has a good selection of movies, although you’d think that a company like Sony would have a much bigger selection than Apple because it is in the entertainment business, but what do I know about these things.

My comparison of the services:

• Both have a reasonably wide selection of movies in both standard and HD.  Sony, of course, has Blu-Ray offerings, which is fabulous.
• On both sides, it’s $3.99 to rent a movie, $4.99 for the HD version — for new releases.  It’s less expensive for older titles and shorter, children’s movies.  It seems to be $9.99 to purchase a movie.
• We rented “Bucket List” (because it’s kid-friendly) in HD via the Apple TV.  We rented “The Tigger Movie” in standard definition on the PS3 because CJ insisted it was his turn to pick a movie.  It took an astonishingly fast 20 minutes to download both movies (less for the Tigger movie).  The picture quality was great, no glitches, great sound, even for the Tigger movie.
• Apple has a much better user interface, big surprise.  It’s hard to get to the Sony store, and it’s not clear which titles are available in HD unless you navigate to the HD menu.
• On the Apple TV, you have 30 days to watch the movie, and once you start, you have 24 hours to finish watching.  On the PS3, you have 15 days to watch a movie.

The Downsides to Video on Demand

Okay, so video on demand, for less than $5, is fabulous.  But there are some drawbacks.

• CJ wanted to watch The Tigger movie again, as kids are wont to do.  We tried to watch the movie a second time within the 24 hour timeframe but we ran out of time.  For kid movies, rentals are the way to go because we can watch a movie several times before returning it.
• We thought about purchasing The Tigger movie after watching it, but didn’t want to pay the full purchase price, after having rented it.  It would be great if the companies would give me a credit for my rental.  I’m dreaming, I know, but a girl can hope, right?
• For a mom with a young kid, 24 hours is sometimes not enough to watch a full-length movie.  It took us 3 days to watch Casino Royale a couple of months ago.
• I love the extras available on DVD and at this point, you can’t get them on the downloads, whether you purchase or rent.

BTW, the Apple site has tons of great information on the Apple TV and the video of demand service, while the Sony site had nothing that I could easily find. So, Sony, if you want to market this new service, make it easy to get information on your site!  Even the news section of the PlayStation site had nothing on the video on demand service; a search on the overall Sony site was fruitless, as well.  Egads, another terrible site search!

Will I use these new services?  Absolutely, particularly on rainy or snowy days, or when I’m just too lazy to go out.  But for movies I want to watch a few times, I’m still headed to my local video store.