Those mad tinkerers over at YouTube keep tinkering away, although the new features recently announced are actually pretty useful.  The YouTube Blog announced some changes to their player that will be in effect in the next few weeks that give users the ability to look ahead in a video to find the part that they want to see, or give them a preview of what is to come, or find a spot where the video was previously stopped.  By running your cursor over the timeline, a thumbnail is generated to show what you’re about to see.  For long videos, you can even scrub the timeline to get a series of thumbnails.  Sweet! YouTube’s New Look Ahead Features The most basic one will be that you will be able to place your cursor anywhere on the timeline and see a thumbnail of that part of the video, as seen here: But there are even more dynamic look ahead features, and they can be seen right now on the free crowdsourced movie Life in a Day .  One feature allows you to place your cursor over the timeline, and a bar representing 90 seconds pops up over the timeline.  You can navigate that entire bar for thumbnails.  Take a look: And even better, if you scrub the timeline on Life in a Day , it will give you a series of thumbnails so you can have a wide variety to choose from.  Here’s how it looks: So overall, these are some pretty useful features, and it looks like YouTube thought a lot about the different kinds of searching you might want to attempt. If you’d like to try out the new features, they are on select videos right now.  I was able to do it on Life in a Day and the Star Wars Uncut crowdsourced film .  The new features aren’t on most videos right now, but it appears to be something that will be a normal, everyday feature very soon

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YouTube Introduces Handy “Look Ahead” Features To Player

There are all kinds of common excuses a video marketer might hear from an individual or business that is reluctant to jump into online video.

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For The Camera Shy: You Don’t Need To Be On Camera To Make A Great Video

Super Bowl commercials unsurprisingly dominate February’s Global Ads Chart. Over half of last month’s top 20 were launched during the so-called ‘greatest show on Earth’ or as part of the pre-match build-up.

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The Most Shared Online Video Ads For February 2012

Mark Robertson, the Founder of ReelSEO, and I will be speaking about “Next Gen YouTube Marketing” at SES New York on Mar. 21, 2012. We also spoke about “Next Gen YouTube Marketing” at SES Chicago on Nov.

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Setting the Pace In Next Gen YouTube Marketing

Every month, YouTube’s “On the Rise” program finds a handful of channels that are beginning to see real jumps in views and subscribers and the like, puts them together as nominees, and then people vote on them to come up with a winner.  February’s winner is Mary Doodles (actual name Mary Gutfleisch), who actually has a connection to a top YouTube channel, Epic Rap Battles, making props and costumes for that show.  Mary Doodles is in the time-lapse art genre of channels.  She makes fun and entertaining paintings in an easily digestible set of videos, and her channel is seeing growth because of it. A Look At Mary Doodles, YouTube’s February On The Rise Winner For those of you not quite sure what makes a good video, content wise, examine this Halloween video.  We’re not only seeing an artist draw an excellent picture that, in its finished state, would get your imagination going, we’re seeing how that picture is made…and a story, told in poetry, gives us layers of that story a piece at a time.  This is excellent: Click here to watch this video

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Mary Doodles Is YouTube’s February On The Rise Winner, Here’s Why

Seems like I’m writing about Japan a lot lately.  Ridley and Tony Scott’s production company Scott Free, which was behind last year’s crowdsourced Life In A Day , is teaming with Fuji Television to bring Japan In A Day .  The film is being made in memory of last year’s earthquake and tsunami that hit Japan on March 11.  Fuji will donate 200 cameras to different parts of the country that were most affected, and they will end up selecting all of the best footage to be included in the movie.  Best of all, any money made on the film will be donated to the victims of the disaster. Japan In A Day To Show Life After Tragedy On March 11 of last year, one of the 5 most powerful earthquakes ever recorded, with a magnitude of 9.0, hit Eastern Japan, the force of which then brought tsunami waves that reached more than 100 feet in height and caused nuclear power plant meltdowns.  That was a triple-whammy, and it killed more than 15,000 people, many were injured, many were lost, and hundreds of thousands of buildings were destroyed. Here are some important people in getting this project off the ground talking about their inspiration for the new film: Click here to watch this video

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Life In A Day Sequel To Spend A Day In Japan

Let’s take a step back for a moment from the George Lucas hate-a-thon and take a look at Star Wars , the brand, for a moment.  Star Wars is bigger than you or I can imagine.  It’s so big that it has created other universes outside of the original movies and books.  One of the first huge, huge hits on YouTube was that Star Wars kid swinging a pole around in his garage , and it had the most minute connection to Star Wars .  Some of Family Guy ‘s highest rated episodes are those Star Wars parodies.  And recently, a channel called Belated Media is on their way to their first viral hit using Star Wars as fodder.

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When In Doubt, Leverage Star Wars For Online Video

When I was a kid, baseball was my favorite sport… to watch, play, or follow. I wasn’t very good at it, but I played it for more than 10 years.

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Stop Swinging For The Fences When You Only Need A Single

There’s a reason most businesses put an FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) page on their website: because it’s useful information. Customers, by their very nature, have questions.

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Turn Your Customers’ Frequently Asked Questions Into Video Concepts

Last week we saw the top 2 movies from the previous week switch places and take the top spots from the new releases, as the Ghost Rider sequel failed to emulate any of the success of its predecessor.  Still, it made over $20 million and was cheaper to make than the original, so this isn’t necessarily a sign that we’ve seen the last terrible 3D Nicolas Cage movie.  This week we see My Damn Channel’s David Wain return behind the camera for Wanderlust , a new Tyler Perry movie, a weird, very-awful-looking Amanda Seyfried abduction thriller, and real Navy SEALs make a movie with Act of Valor . Wanderlust: David Wain Is A Funny Dude David Wain has probably made something you like, even though he himself isn’t world-renowned famous.  Back in the 90′s, he was one of the many behind the short-lived comedy show The State .  In 2001, he co-wrote and directed the cult comedy classic Wet Hot American Summer , and he co-wrote and directed the hit Role Models .  He’s written episodes of Adult Swim’s Children’s Hospital .  On the internet, he’s behind My Damn Channel and Wainy Days .

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How Will Hollywood’s Online Video Marketing Efforts Impact Box Office?