I recently had the opportunity to interview Scot Wingo, who is on the Board of Directors for Shop.org as well as the Founder and CEO for global e-commerce platform provider, ChannelAdvisor. In the interview, Scot shares his insights on how the retail industry can utilize video commerce to strategically improve product conversion.

Despite this year’s record e-commerce consumer spending on Black Friday, creative online video ads and other video marketing content appear to have been widely underutilized. Nevertheless, I’ve managed to put together a list of what I’ve found to be the most notable Black Friday videos online, along with some holiday marketing tips on what retailers and e-commerce brands can do to utilize online video marketing for the rest of the holiday shopping season.

The online video platform and sharing site Vimeo has been touting their new PRO version as a simple and extremely affordable video solution for business. But is it advantageous for retailers and eCommerce professionals? Read my own review and interview with Vimeo’s own staff, and find out if it may be right for you or not!

Part two of two-part series on transmedia and the changing landscape of media, including the evolving role of online video. You can read part one here.

In my previous post, Are You Ready for the Transmedia Revolution?, we looked at the foundational elements of transmedia, a communication strategy that is quickly becoming the standard for storytellers of every kind.

As we discussed, with transmedia’s multi-platform outreach approach, people can engage with your story on a deeper level than any single platform allows, opening the door to a more immersive, collaborative experience. That’s because transmedia takes…

Part one of two-part series on transmedia and the changing landscape of media, including the changing role of online video.

Transmedia has become one of the hottest buzzwords in the entertainment and advertising world, gradually reshaping the way we engage with stories of all kinds.

Once a collection of siloed channels with their own unique agendas, media formats like paper books, DVD movies, websites, and online video are now evolving and blending together, with end users increasingly making less distinction between the media types and platforms that are now woven into our daily media routine.

This fundamental shift in consumption…

I believe that web video is going to play a key role in the future of commerce.  If you’re reading this, you probably do, too.

Like many believers in the power of video to sell, I pay close attention to video’s ability to enhance marketing & merch efforts, whether they be SEO, conversion, mobile, or social.  These areas are critical for any video commerce program given the constraints of today’s e-commerce industry.

The problem for retail executives – and the video commerce industry as a whole – is that focusing on the areas where video increments performance of existing channels…

The annual cable convention hosted by the National Cable & Telecommunications Association (NCTA) has traditionally been a glossy event where past and present moguls from the Vanity Fair 100 list rub shoulders and compare their respective company’s most recent mega-media conquests.

But faced with disruptive new technologies and competition from online video and streaming services, the mood at Cable Show 2011, held earlier this month in Chicago, was far less certain—despite the show’s “Let’s Not Panic Here, Folks” theme.

This was certainly evident during an opening day panel discussion when executives from three of the biggest U.S. cable…

I suppose that the title is about as obvious as saying water is wet but sometimes pointing out the obvious can get you to think a little differently to make some profitable changes.  For many products, descriptions can be pretty straight forward but for others such as wine, descriptions become a bit more subjective.

Here was a description I found for a Tenuta Biserno Insoglio Del Cinghiale:

Medium crimson hue. Intensely brambly aromas of raspberry and pencil shavings. Lovely mouth-feel frames juicy flavors of strawberry and earth; perfect balance. Clean, tart finish.”

I love wine and despite growing up in…

There’s an ongoing discussion in the publishing business about the value of book trailers; the short, promotional videos often produced as part of the marketing campaign to support a book’s big release.

Even if you’re a big reader, it’s possible that you’ve never seen a book trailer before. Unlike their better-known cousins from Hollywood, there are no established forums or venues dedicated to the viewing and discussion of book trailers. No packed movie houses, no IMDB, Rotten Tomatoes or Apple trailer sites for books, no DVD releases to target a receptive viewing audience. Not in the book biz—at least not…

First a bit of good news: Despite a spate of pre-wedding worry, the Internet didn’t collapse under the weight of Friday’s royal wedding.

But the mega-ballyhooed nuptials of Prince William and Kate Middleton did draw an impressive online viewing audience, with live streams available from most of the major media organizations, Livestream, Hulu and many other sites. The Royal Channel on YouTube, the official channel of the British Monarchy, was an enormously popular choice for online viewers, for both live and rebroadcast streams.

Exact stream numbers are difficult to pinpoint given the number of…