We have taken a big step today in terms of attracting increased attention and awareness for Spidvid by issuing a press release which has been already picked up across the Web.

You can read the story “Leaving Hollywood, Welcome to Hollyweb” from any of these sources: MarketWire, AOL Money, Canadian Business, Sys-Con Media, Alpha Trade Finance, Earth Times, Euro Investor, and PR Inside are a few sites already that have featured our story.

Our goals are to get attention, build awareness for what Spidvid is all about, and to get a couple hundred individuals in the video production space to sign up and become part of our early private beta community.

If you are a video creator, actor, director, writer, story teller, or music artist we invite you to visit our site, click the “Sign Up” link, and provide us with your email address to receive an invite to phase 1 of our private beta roll out.

Jeremy Campbell News new media, new media model, next-gen media, online video, open ecosystem, press release, private beta, production teams, social media, spidvid, team collaboration, video creation, web 2.0, web video, www.spidvid.com

We have put together a very quick rough demo of how video production professionals get value out of Spidvid.

Learn how to get an account, bid on production projects, join teams, where uploaded videos go, share credit and compensations with each member, and other various spid-bits.

Important things for professionals to know:

- During our private beta, all video content produced by collaborative teams is uploaded to UnleashVideo. When we roll out our public beta early next year 2010, we fully intend to have a broader distribution network including the likes of YouTube, and other large audience video sharing sites.

- First phase beta invites will be sent out later on this month (November 2009).

- Allocation of compensations for revenue sharing with team members is done by creators, and so is the uploading of all video content. In the future we want to make these processes more collaborative between all key members.

- Video advertising may not occur until we reach public beta, so don’t expect to earn and share cash right away with your team members.

- Suggestions for new features is very much welcomed. Just contact us with your ideas and feedback, and we will include them in our public beta.

We are very excited about working closely with the first few hundred members of our beta community. There’s a long journey to travel before we fully produce the new media ecosystem we envision, but look forward to all of the challenges and opportunities that lie ahead.

Jeremy Campbell News, demo video actors, collaboration, collaborative team, directors, new media, new media model, next-gen media, online video, private beta, producers, production teams, professionals, social media, story tellers, video creation, video production, video projects, web 2.0, web video, writers

Our goal for Spidvid is to not only create the first social network focused on collaborative video production, but to also spark and be part of important conversations that relate to the core mission behind our social platform.

Next week we are launching Spidcast (Spidvid + Podcast = Spidcast) which will feature conversations on how individuals connect together to form their own production teams, new video collaboration technologies, tools and resources which can be used to improve the production process, and future prospects for this industry.

This will be a weekly show which can be streamed and listened to directly on Spidcast.com, or can be downloaded through the Apple iTunes store.

Our very first episode will feature a successful movie producer, and I will be on to share the vision for Spidvid and Spidcast. Spidcast will be hosted and produced by Michael London who has many years of experience in radio broadcasting, and most recently podcasting. We are very happy to have him join our team, and fully believe that he will do a remarkable job for Spidcast long-term.

I hope that you tune in next week to Spidcast episode #1, and find value in what you hear. If you have any show ideas, questions, or feedback we would love to hear from you. If you have an interest in being a future guest on the show then be sure to get in touch.

Cheers to Spidcast, and to new beginnings.

Jeremy Campbell News audio, educational, fun, guests, informational, next-gen media, podcast show, spidcast, video collaboration, video production, weekly

Online social networking sites are excellent for communicating with friends (like on Facebook), having conversations and sharing media with people who are interested in the same things you are (like on Twitter), and connecting with professionals in your industry (like on LinkedIn).

Traditional social networks have many great benefits to offer, but for the most part don’t focus on offering exciting opportunities such as team building to achieve common collaborative goals. I believe that the next evolution in social networking is to empower individuals to accomplish tasks and projects, and to reward the deserving individuals for the content that gets created as a result.

So another way to think of Spidvid is as a social network with the purpose of allowing individuals to form teams, collaborate to create and produce quality video content, and credit those who invest their time and talent into the content.

Jeremy Campbell Illustrations collaborative team, connecting, ecosystem, empowering, new media model, next-gen media, online video, production teams, social movement, video creation, web 2.0, web video

I saw an interesting interview a couple of weeks ago that featured an online video company CEO. What he said in the video was that video production studios are pretty much just banks which happen to invest in creating video content.

Here’s what I believe video production studios are:

1. Investors in creating, distributing, and marketing video content.

2. Connectors of individuals to form teams capable of undertaking their projects.

3. Buildings that have sets so videos can be shot.

4. Buyers of equipment (i.e. cameras), tools, props, and software.

Here’s how I believe collaborative video production teams can successfully operate:

1. Socially connect on Spidvid which empowers individuals to self-organize and form their own custom teams. Leadership is important to accomplishing this, so each project starts with the video creator.

2. A lot of individuals in the production industry have access to inexpensive but powerful tools. HD cameras for example can now be purchased for a few hundred dollars, and software technology such as Final Cut Pro also falls into this category. What once used to be considered barriers to entry for these people, are now commodity products available to pretty much anyone with an interest in using them.

3. Thanks to green screens, a simple set can now consist of a small sized living room located inside a house.

4. Funding is the largest obstacle in this model, but some very good quality content has been produced using shoe-string budgets, or in some cases for a cost of zero dollars. Financial options are available including corporate sponsorships, small investments coming from the creator and/or rest of the team, and community crowd-sourced funding where a few hundred or thousand people each donate say $1 each.

The big point that I’m trying to outline is that the traditional video production studio model is not as defensible as it once was. For further reading please check out our ebook manifesto entitled “Hollywood Is Doomed – The Rise of Collaborative Creation Teams”.

Jeremy Campbell News collaborative teams, empowering, new media, next-gen media, production model, production teams, video creation, video projects