Interview with John Love, CEO of SpotMixer. He tells us how the idea for SpotMixer (the B2B service they recently launched) wasborn because they noticed that many small businesses were using their consumer service to create internet video ads.

Interview conducted at the EADP Conference in Barcelona, 2008.

Introducing the first local video player solution featuring Call Tracking, Click-to-Call, Save and Share features with local mapping and subtitling.

Barcelona, Spain—May 8, 2008—Today at the EADP Conference on Managing Directories in Barcelona, Spain, AgendiZe, the premier provider of call-to-action services, and Videoagency, the next generation video production company, announce their partnership to introduce the first local video player solution (LVPS) for small businesses. Now SMBs can present targeted, local video advertisements to their customers with convenient, built-in Call Tracking, Click-to-Call, Save and Share, and local mapping features.

“We decided to partner with AgendiZe because their Call-to-Action suite connects users with the widest array of social services, click-to-call, and local mapping features, and they offer deep experience working with the IYP industry,” said Thomas Owadenko, CEO Videoagency.tv. “By combining our next-generation video production network with their Call-to-Action services, we can present SMBs with a powerful local video player solution where consumers can not only watch local ads, but take immediate action when they see them.”

Videoagency’s local video player solution (LVPS) is powered by Videoagency’s next generation video network. Video content can be created by tapping into Videoagency’s global network of more than 4,000 filmmakers and can then be optimized and distributed across the web, utilizing Videoagency’s video search engine optimization (VSEO) tool to maximize the visibility of video content to search engines. Subtitles are also provided in partnership with Ply Media, and allow SMBs to target a much larger audience affordably.

Videoagency’s LVPS incorporates AgendiZe’s comprehensive Call-to-Action suite, making local video ads actionable for any SMB. Users that view local video ads can click-to-call the business or click-to-save and share business information or maps on Facebook, AIM, SMS, MySpace, del.icio.us, blogs, email and more than 100 services and devices. AgendiZe’s Call-to-Action capabilities make it easy for users to visit or contact local businesses, or spread the word virally to their friends—all while they are watching local ads powered by Videoagency’s LVPS. AgendiZe also provides unified reporting and tracking across all services, so SMBs can easily analyze their customer interaction and calls received.

“The challenge that most SMBs face with online video advertising is getting the customer to physically complete the last mile to visit their location in person or to pick up the phone and call them,” said Alexandre Rambaud, founder and CEO of AgendiZe. “Videoagency’s LVPS is the only local video solution that’s powered by AgendiZe’s Call-to-Action suite, which makes it easy and intuitive for a user to simply click-to-call, send a map to themselves or share the business’s info with their friends.”

The AgendiZe Call-to-Action Platform currently powers over 20 of the world’s leading online classifieds and directories, including Yellow Book USA, Yellow Pages Canada, QDQ Media and Editus, extending the reach and duration of any advertisers’ online content by making it possible for users to extract information from the Web and save it to different devices or share it with friends and colleagues. More than one million local advertisers use AgendiZe call-to-action services worldwide.

About AgendiZe (http://www.agendize.com)
The AgendiZe Call-to-Action Platform enhances any online marketing, advertising and e-commerce effort by engaging the social consumer. AgendiZe offers a complete suite of Call Tracking, Click-to-Call, Click to Chat, Click-to-Save and Click-to-Share solutions that integrates with more than 100 popular chat, mobile messaging, calendar, social bookmarking, email and enterprise communications services on a wide variety of personal communications devices. Founded in 2003 and privately held, AgendiZe has offices in Troyes, France and San Francisco, CA. For more information visit: http://www.agendize.com

About Videoagency (http://www.videoagency.tv)
Videoagency produces quality internet videos in high volumes and at low cost. With the largest filmmaker network in Europe, Videoagency can send a professional to any business easily, and their powerful production workflow tool allows them to manage hundreds of video shoots simultaneously. In 2007, Videoagency produced over 600 hotel videos in ten European cities in under two months, demonstrating the efficiency of their process and network. Videoagency’s production service is now available as a white label product to companies who need to offer video solutions directly to their clients. For more information, please visit http://www.videoagency.tv

For additional information, please contact: press@agendize.com and/or info@videoagency.tv

Internet Yellow Pages (IYPs) are really moving fast to get videos onto their websites because they see it as major component of their growth (turnover but moreover also profit).

Over the past six months, all major US players launched a video offering: Yellowpages (US & Canada), Superpages, Citysearch… In Europe, the Italian IYP Pagine Gialle has also added videos to their client offering.

But for IYPs this huge opportunity also has some challenges…

First opportunity: With videos, they can offer website visitors an engaging and personal connection with their advertisers. Video positively influences users’ buying decisions because it gives them extra transparency and reassurance about the business they are about to buy a product/service from. Since an IYPs main goal (like any other media’s goal) is to deliver its clients with more sales leads, it makes sense to offer them videos.

Look at this video about a cool hair salon…

It gives me (the internet visitor) an invaluable insight into the business, more so than any text content could. They say that an image is worth a thousand words, but a video like this one really goes beyond that. It makes me want to find the same kind of hairdresser here in Paris!
Second opportunity: IYPs can offer their clients the possibility to insert the video on their own websites too. This makes the video a branding tool for the IYPs but also a valuable SEO tool, as it will provide them with many backlinks if all their clients embed their player on their websites. This is exactly what YellowPages.com are doing:

Third opportunity : $$$$$! Videos is a wonderful upselling tool and its benefits/value can be easily conveyed to the client (”you will be the star of the show”).In the meantime from the production side it represents big challenges:How do you roll-out a unique offer with a universal price across all territories? And how can you assure the same level of engaging content in all videos? (not all SMB owners are as cool and hip as the hairdresser in the above video). To solve this problem, most of the US IYPs are using TurnHere’s services. Why? Because TurnHere developed a unique network of filmmakers and manages all the production backend for them.

Again, TurnHere is definitely the kind of nexgen production company…and I think their sales orders are going to go up very fast!

If you want to know more about TurnHere check my last post (link)

Last but not least who owns the rights ? The IYPs, their advertisers? This is a key question because if, as an advertiser, I want to use my video as a marketing tool and display it everywhere, I have to control it or else pay for a video on every media I want to advertise on.

This is an exciting and unique moment in this ‘emerging’ market, as many rules are not yet defined…