Overlay.TV
Earlier this week, I was given a personal walk through of the all new Overlay.TV and I was quite impressed. We’ve seen this concept in video tried before. To sum it up, as you watch a video any item in it could be tagged so that you could click on it and get more information and even buy that product. Not sure why this has never taken off before, but I’m thinking this time it might.
What makes Overlay.TV different is that anyone can tag any video. It does not touch the original uploaded file. It can pull a video from most of the major video services (Brightcove is one I asked about which is coming) or from an uploaded movie file on your own server and then people can place overlays on the video highlighting products and services.
In the demo we pulled in a video of a trumpet player from YouTube and tagged his t-shirt to go to Amazon to buy a similar one. Anyone can take any video and place overlays on it. The process is quick, easy and powerful. The options on if the overlay is just a simple hot sport or actually a mini pop up is up to the user. Adding product information is done via a bookmarklet that allows for one click copy and past of descriptions, prices and other needed information from any web site.
I can see some big potential for this from lots of different angles. Brands (especially retail ones) will be adding overlays to their viral videos. Bands can link out to their CDs and equipment sponsors. Fans can take anything they are in love with and create their own overlays and then embed it all on their blogs and Facebook profiles.
Some people might freak since this could be viewed as changing a video, but it is not. It is just putting a screen over the video and allowing for people to link items in it. I’m interested to see the community nature of this and also how companies can leverage it on their own sites. I’m also interested to see if this gets popular if performance will degrade and if items won’t seamlessly sync up.
Take a moment and check it out when you have a moment. To get a feel for what I’m talking about they’ve made this throw back infomercial as well:
[…] CC Chapman brought this to my attention. Watch the video, it’s pretty hilarious. For those of you in a hurry, I’ll sum up: Overlay.tv is a video player that lets you tag any video anywhere on the web with clickable commentary. From Managing The Gray: In the demo we pulled in a video of a trumpet player from YouTube and tagged his t-shirt to go to Amazon to buy a similar one. Anyone can take any video and place overlays on it. The process is quick, easy and powerful. […]
OH MY, you needed a diamond saw blade to cut through all that sexual tension. Seriously, I was waiting for Jack Horner to pop in with his endorsement. From the business side of things that was awesome. What does a start-up have to lose? Their promo could have been so obvious and to the point (read LAME), but they’ve got a sense of humor and it shows. Now how do I get in the next video?
I met with the Marketing guy from Overlay.TV this week and was given a first hand demo and had a lot of my questions answered. As a High Definition video production company involved with content created media, we were keen to incorporate either product placement or branded content with an immediate purchase or follow though link and I fee this is ideal for just that.
This appeals to any product or service business online looking at a creative way to get more business or sales, great for retail, fashion, music, video and ad or pr agencies to.
http://www.hd-productions.biz
Just an FYI:
Robert Scoble showed a live stream of his conversation with Asterpix.
You can watch it here:
http://qik.com/video/30871
Asterpix makes your videos interactive. You can see it here:
http://www.asterpix.com/
The Overlay.Tv demos had the information appear automatically. Asterpix information allows the viewer to scroll over a “hot spot” to see information.
Looks like Overlay.Tv is a marketing tool. While Asterpix is an informational tool.
Interesting use of technology. Again, just wanted to share.
[…] Overlay.TV […]
[…] CC Chapman brought this to my attention. Watch the video, it’s pretty hilarious. For those of you in a hurry, I’ll sum up: Overlay.tv is a video player that lets you tag any video anywhere on the web with clickable commentary. read more Written by Admin in: In the News | Share/Save a2a_linkname=”Caleb Booker”; a2a_linkurl=”http://blog.overlay.tv/2008/02/14/caleb-booker-tag-streaming-video-with-overlaytv/”; […]