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Live Rail: Embed Video Ads
Live Rail is a technology for embedding ads into video. It’s basically an ad server, serving up steamin’ heaps of rich content in the lower thirds of video clips.
The server side of Live Rail helps you manage, target, display and track online video advertising. So it’s a product targeted at publishers and advertisers to help them break out of the constraints of the banner ad format.
It helps to understand the jargon of video ads. Like “pre-roll” – that means that your ad runs before the content video. Or “overlay” -- where your ad is superimposed over the content video. And a “bug” – that’s what the video guys call that little logo typically found in the lower right corner of a video ad.
Live Rail supports multiple video formats, so you can deliver your ad in most any video environment. For example AdServer will transcode your video to Flash, Windows Media and Silverlight or MP4 for the iPhone. And it creates metrics so you can judge the effectiveness of your ad campaign.
Another product from Live Rail is called Junction, which the company says makes it simple to work with multiple ad partners. So a publisher can request a display ad from any ad network. And Junction also helps decide who serves the ad, and then tracks who earns a share -- all in pursuit of my favorite “m” word -- monetization.
Live Rail has been around since 2007 and is a venture-backed company based in San Francisco. I suspect that Live Rail’s designed for the big-time publishers, but it’s still a nifty technology and maybe a good business case too, as America’s eyeballs are switching from broadcast TV to online video.
Associated Content: Marketing Content for Your Web Site
Here's a great Web site called Associated Content. This site matches people who need content -- for Web sites, for articles, for any purpose -- with the creative people who can produce it. Let’s assume for the moment that you’re a writer or a photographer -- and you’re willing to write, or make a video or a slide show, or even an audio recording about a particular topic. This site puts you who has the talent and the creativity, with the people that are willing to pay for that content.
Here’s how it works. Let’s say that you know something about candle-making. There may be someone looking for content on how to make candles for their Web site or for the newsletter that they send out. You have the expertise and can either write or make a short video about it.
You can go over to the Calls for Content section to see what people are looking for. For example, one listing is for a person looking for information on how to refinish teak furniture. It might be an article, they might be looking for a short video, whatever it might be -- if you have the creativity and the knowledge, you can put together that content and Associated Content finds the buyers that are willing to pay for that information. What a great idea! Check out AssociatedContent.com.
Marketing Experiments: Tested Marketing Solutions, Free Results
If you’re a real marketing geek like me, then you’ll love MarketingExperiments.com, a site that does just as the name suggests -- it conducts marketing experiments and then shares the results.
The results of the experiments are free to all subscribers, and it’s free to be a subscriber. So don’t hesitate to sign up. You’ll find that they test and track all kinds of interesting marketing ideas, and the reports make for compelling reading. Not only that, but if you implement the suggestions in your own business, you’ll most likely make more money -- and that’s the ultimate purpose of the site.
I will say that the reports can be a little heavy going at times, but like I said, if you’re a true marketing geek you’ll love it. So check out MarketingExperiments.com
You'll find lots more marketing tips and resources from Andrew Lock in our Small Business Essential series, Lock in Your Marketing Resources.
Andrew Lock is a self-described maverick marketer and the creator and host of Help! My Business Sucks, a free, weekly Web TV show full of practical marketing tips, advice and resources to help small businesses "get more done and have more fun."
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