Channeling online video

TurnHere — “Short films. Cool places” — offers exactly that: short, online videos that give viewers an insider’s look at destinations around the world. Created by experienced filmmakers specifically for TurnHere, the website’s videos offer an alternative to travel books, with obvious benefits to consumers: they’re up-to-date, super local, highly personal, free, and they communicate the sense of a place more directly than traditional guidebooks ever could. TurnHere emphasizes the high quality of its videos, which are 2-5 minutes long and professionally edited. Filmmakers are paid USD 500-1000 if their video is featured. The 245 shorts currently on offer range from a tour of Geary Street’s art galleries in San Francisco, to a portrait of Montreal’s funky St. Henri neighbourhood, and a ‘hop’ through New York’s burlesque bars with a 7-foot blue bunny. Foodies can tour Berkeley’s ‘Gourmet Ghetto’ or follow a fishmonger down New York’s Houston Street. Videos are watched online or downloaded to iPods for on the go, on the spot tours. On the revenue side, TurnHere is offering businesses the opportunity to be filmed by local filmmakers in the same informal, story-telling style as the non-commercial films. Promotionals are broadcast and displayed both on Turn Here’s own website and through other channels such as Google Video, MSN Video, iTunes and YouTube. Opportunities? Lots of good ones here. On the travel side, look at TurnHere from a Tripadvisor or Gridskipper perspective. People come for information and inspiration, browsing destinations and deciding where to go. After which they’ll need plane tickets and hotel rooms. TurnHere and its future siblings* will become prime advertising space for travel companies, as well as for local businesses like the ones that TurnHere already targets. (*See Vidocity for an internet based daily show that’s dedicated to the best of the best in New York City.) Beyond travel, it gets even more interesting. Considering the explosive growth of online video, huge opportunities exist for companies that can guide an amorphous mass of moving images (on YouTube, Google Video, and so on) into targeted channels that will grab and hold viewers like television networks once did. Either by curating what’s already out there, or by following in TurnHere’s footsteps and tapping into generation c‘s talent to create proprietary content. Sports, children, cooking, women, cars, pets, fashion, home improvement – pick your niche (and your advertisers) and get to work!