No tech savviness required
If you know how to copy and paste links, you’re equipped to make a YouTube video interactive. Have you seen videos that have links in them and wished you could do the same? Enter Viewbix.com, a free service that allows users to add tweets, RSS feeds, links, lists, photos and more information to a simple YouTube video, a brilliant tool for people looking to take advantage of the skyrocketing popularity of web video.
The video above demonstrates how easy it is to set up an interactive video, and since the video was created, Viewbix has added quite a few services to their offering. You can now also add a button to any video that directs people to other YouTube videos or playlists, sign people up for a newsletter with an iContact button, you can add coupons, SlideShare presentations, music, maps, stocks and soon, you’ll be able to add documents and testimonials.
After viewing a video, consumers can share the video on their social networks with a unique link that keeps all buttons and sharing in tact. This is a major benefit because it is increasingly common for people to read a news story or blog post that has your video, and they’ll simply copy the YouTube URL and share the video rather than your blog post, defeating part of the purpose of originating the video. Viewbix generates a link that shares the video including all of the buttons you’ve added.
Our criticism is that it isn’t exactly the most aesthetically pleasing interactivity on the market, it’s not hard coded into the video (as seen in the last 30 seconds of this video), but at least all buttons nest on the side and are low impact.
For now, it is all free, but the company plans to start charging either on a monthly basis or a per-app basis starting December 1st, 2011, so users get to try the entire product out for free until then.
4 sample Viewbix videos:
Marti Trewe reports on business and technology news, chasing his passion for helping entrepreneurs and small businesses to stay well informed in the fast paced 140-character world. Marti rarely sleeps and thrives on reader news tips, especially about startups and big moves in leadership.
