If you need a way to make your movie available for purchase, CustomFlix is doing what they can to make it easy for you. Darren Giles, Co-Founder of CustomFlix Labs, Inc., has written an article on the process of creating a CustomFlix account, getting your movie package created and getting it listed on CustomFlix and Amazon.com. Once your movie is listed, you may have people find your work accidentally with searches, but if you hope to make any money you'll have to get the word out and drive some traffic to the sites. You can never get away from marketing.

If you are a digg.com fan you will have undoubtedly noticed that Digg has had a revamp including a new fluid design and a brand new video section. The dedicated video section allows you to view submitted videos from Google, YouTube and Metacafe in a special popup box without leaving the site.

Company Execs say the new interface should improve discovery of the most popular and top-ranked stories, company executives say. For anyone that produces any sort of video online digg.com is an excellent way to promote it and create a huge viral effect and with the new dedicated video section Digg is an even more critical marketing tool. A "front-page" promoted video on Digg usually sends video views up by at least 5000, sees the video get posted all over the internet, and can often cause a video to make it into the top videos on the site it is hosted resulting in even more traffic. This is truly viral video at work.

The Swedish broadcast statistics institute, MMS released a study that found that a quarter of Swedish Youngsters download TV shows rather than watching them on TV. This also ties in with a recent study from Australia that showed that a third of broadband users download pirated TV.

This is not good news for content owners whose piracy concerns must be on red alert by now. Such a high level of piracy is bound to have a negative effect on the industry, but at the same time the growth in piracy is a response to consumer demand which is not being recognized by the content owners. The good news is that internet piracy tends not to effect small scale video producers and in fact is often beneficial as a promotional tool to further recognition.

Web TV Hub has a summary of the top web videos from three sources: the top 10 viral videos of all time (BBC), the most significant YouTube videos according to nbc4.tv and the top ten viral videos according to vidfan. This provides a good summary of what is actually popular on the internet but to no surprise what becomes popular is very hit and miss.

If you are looking for the next viral video hit the best bet is probably to make a fat kid do something stupid. Either that or you can blow up a whale.

It is rumored that NetFlix may be planning a video download service after the company launched a film preview service where you can watch previews of movies that NetFlix thinks you might like. It uses Windows Media Player and the quality is good and like the Amazon Unbox service you need to install something first to watch the videos. This kind of feels like Netflix could be warming up ready for a video download service. If it is I somehow doubt that it will offer anything better in terms of price and DRM than the other services out there. Well at least there could be another web based video distribution channel that may hit the living room to join the lonely Xbox Live Marketplace and Akimbo.

It's pretty common for film producers to release their trailer well before a film is due to stir up some buzz around the movie and entice investors and distributors to cash in. However, a new trick is evolving where film producers are uploading their trailers to video sharing sites. The viral effect can produce thousands of trailer views which is great publicity and will definitely please those investors.

Nerdcoer for Life has done just that and the trailer has received nearly 250,000 views online and counting.

It was only yesterday that I was talking about using contextual adverts and google maps within online video as a more suitable advertising method that will provide revenue to smaller video producers. Now by using the Brightcove APIs one of Brightcove's publishing partners has developed an application that brings a "mashup of a video and time-based cue points marked in the video, synchronized dynamically to an embedded Google Map, and also to set of text links."

To see it in action click here, it is a diving video with links to information on the sea creatures as they appear on screen and also a location map with Google video. A little imagination can see how this can be used to insert relevant advertising links.

Gilbert of IPTV Envangelist had an interesting discussion with Ari Paparo of VP Rich Media (DoubleClick) at the New York Video 2.0 Group Meetup. Ari stated that basically there is more video content appearing on the web than there are advertisers, and at the same time advertisers are very concerned over where they place their ads.

His conclusion from this is that "few sites and content creators are going to benefit in the short term from pre-roll revenue from major advertisers". Getting your video onto the web is one thing, but being able to earn money from it is another. Gilbert mentions the use of in-context adverts, such as showing Google Maps with news stories, could be a better alternative that could be used with small time video creators with quality content. This sort of advertising provides little cost in production for the advertiser reducing financial risk. I personally think in-context text based or interactive advertisements will be much more effective than traditional video advertisements anyway.

The new video website Vboxx.com is offering aspiring video creators the chance to win $5000 every month for a short video piece. Entries will be judged by the site's users, Tim Fargo of Vboxx said 'Too many video contests are judged by so-called 'experts,''. There will also be an annual prize up for grabs of $50,000. It sounds like the first video contest will be free to enter but after that there will be a $20 entry fee. The first 1000 entries get a free T-Shirt.

Now there is one extra way to promote your internet video online. The online video sharing site StupidVideos.com, which focuses on dedicated to humorous, off-the-wall videos, is offering eCards in time for the Christmas season allowing you to embed videos into online greeting cards. Simply select a video and email the card to your friends (if you have any) with your own personalized message. It's a nice idea and I especially like it that there is a permanent link to the card you make.

Enjoy our special Christmas greetings card from DV Guru right here.

As if we need more video sharing sites, Zudeo and VodPod opened their virtual doors to the web as yet another avenue to share and distribute content. Zudeo is from the creators of Azureus the open source bittorrent client. The idea is to index and organize large video files including content from 20 major TV and film studios who will provide free content. And if you needed a place to distribute your large high-quality videos, this site looks like the place to do it at absolutely no cost.

VodPod goes in a different direction by allowing users to create collections of videos whether uploaded to VodPod's site or linked from another site like YouTube or MySpace. The idea is to add a level of social networking by allowing people to make their own channels of clips on any subject they want. Think of it like Flickr pools but for video. Anyway if you didn't feel like you had enough choices these two should definitely provide something useful.

via TechCrunch

Break.com wants some fresh content and they want it bad. So much so that they are willing to pay $400 for video clips and $2,000 for original short films. Okay it isn't an upload and you are paid thing, Break.com has to select your masterpiece and feature it on their homepage before they shell out the green. But you have no chance to win if you don't upload so give it a shot. You never know, maybe other great opportunities will arise even if you don't make it on the home page.

If you were wondering why I haven't posted much lately, I want you to know I completely blame ratings. See, I work for a local TV network, and we are smack dab in the middle of November sweeps. It's one of four times a year the folks at Nielsen Media Research canvas the nation and see how many people are watching each show. That data directly impacts the amount of money we can charge for commercials, so it's a pretty big deal, and generally requires some overtime at work. So to wish everyone a happy November book, I decided to post a story about a really cool commercial advertising company.

Spot Runner is an ad agency that helps local business get targeted advertising space on national cable networks. They provide this service through an intuitive, and slick web interface. Advertisers choose from a wide variety of packages, and because the company targets unsold cable ad space, clients can get commercials for a song.

Spot Runner users begin by completing a profile of their local business. They fill out information about products or services, as well as their target audience and coverage area. After that, Clients submit budget information (how much they are willing to spend) and Spot Runner provides them with a list of packages detailing which networks best fit the demographic, and how many times an ad will run.

After advertisers have settled on the details, Spot Runner actually lets them build their own commercial through the site. Clients can choose from a huge library of stock footage and pre-cut commercial "blanks." Then, via a simple web form, they provide spot runner with voice over script, on screen text, and personalized logo images. Because of the prefab nature of the ads, Spot Runner can turn around a commercial in as little as two weeks. The agency also offers some regional exclusivity, so an identical ad doesn't pop up for businesses in same area.

As a video editor, I was initially skeptical of the overall quality of a Spot Runner commercial. After poking around their site for a bit, I have to admit it's a brilliant business model. If you're skeptical, tell me what local sporting goods store wouldn't be thrilled to have THIS on the Outdoor Channel? How about this floral shop Ad? Still not convinced?

click READ below for a link to more of Spot Runner's samples.

Digital Juice is known for their royalty free animations, stock footage, and graphics but did you know they produce a monthly magazine? And you're probably thinking how interesting can a stock image magazine be? Well there are plenty of great articles including tips on using Juice in your video edits, how they make Juice Drops, as well as printing tips. The best part is they keep a complete archive online with HTML articles or download the complete issue in a PDF. Love the feeling of getting magazines in the mail? Digital Juice also offers a free mail subscription. And if you use Digital Juice fairly regularly, this magazine should be coming to your mail box.

It seems odd that the fate of the next Gen DVD format may depend on the success of a video game system, but here we are. This holiday season could be the biggest volley in the HD format war to date. The PS3 with it's built in Blu-Ray player is just weeks away, and several online retailers have completely sold through their stock of preorder HD-DVD players for Xbox 360.

I have to admit, I am of two minds about this little device. On the one hand, I think an external optical dive for a game system seems a bit clunky. On the other, I like that it doesn't force people to pay extra for a player they may not need, and gives them the option to add on down the road. Sony is counting on the success of PS3 to bolster the Blu-Ray format, while Xbox is simply trying to compete in the HD movie arena. Furthermore, I think it's ironic that people bemoan the cost of the PS3, and praise the Xbox HD drive as a value-added bonus, as this essentially equalizes the two systems' price.

For those of you who already own an Xbox 360, it seems to be a pretty good deal. Depending on how many of these things they can move between now and January, I would tend to give Microsoft a slight advantage based solely on their installed user base. In other words, they already have a huge number of machines in homes, and comparatively, a 200 dollar HD-DVD player is a steal. at $600, Sony enthusiasts simply have a bigger pill to swallow up front. Neither player has hit the market yet, and there's still a chance either company may have screwed up something pivotal, like user interface. Hopefully both worked out their movie playback kinks on their previous systems, and the success, or failure of these two new game systems will help define a clear leader in the HD format war of '06.