adimade blog

All quiet on the Adimade front..

noreply@blogger.com (AdiMade) — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 05:51:00 +0000

So you may have noticed that things have been a little quiet on the Adimade front for a while now. Well let me explain...

After running a couple of test projects (the my planet ads & Anything-aide projects) we certainly learnt a lot about the do’s and don’ts of running UGA campaigns. It was quite an eye opening experience and we were very impressed with the variety and number entries we got having done very little in the way of marketing the new site. The learning curve was indeed steep and whilst running it took up a fair amount of our time, it really didn’t cost us that much to get the site up and running and then fund a couple of our own test projects.

Alas, after speaking to a few companies and really looking closely at the value proposition we decided that we would put Adimade on hold for a while to work on a couple of other projects that had come up. 12 months down the track we are now working on other ideas and not really thinking much about Adimade.

A friend that I hadn’t seen in a while asked me the other day how Adimade was going. I explained that for the business to really push forward it would take a lot more money and time than Nat or I had to put into it. He said “well that’s fair enough, it was worth a shot” and indeed it was. Developing, building and running Adimade (even for the short amount of time that we did) was a pretty valuable experience even if it wasn’t a very profitable one. Were we to go to a market research company and ask them to conduct a study on how many people would create content for it, how businesses would react to the idea, etc it would no doubt have cost up the same if not more. This, in my view, is the great thing about the web. For a few grand we were able to build a site, test a concept and learn a hell of a lot about how it would work. For me this worth far more than the money we spent and far more than any course we could have taken in “how to create a web 2.0 business”.

So whats the future for the site? Well for now we will leave it up there, if people want to stumble across it then the content will still be available. As far as the future for UGA goes, I can see a great deal of promise despite the fact that we are walking away from it to a certain extent. Every week I seem to see a new product launch with a website with some kind of UGC element. The model that seems to be taking hold is individual product sites rather than the a single entity like Adimade but that’s ok, as long as there is an opportunity for average people to show they can make great content and get paid for it I’m happy.

So for everyone who has contributed, thank you kindly and hopefully we will be back with a brand new hair brained scheme in the not too distant future 

My Planet Winner - Save Earth by Tshaar

noreply@blogger.com (AdiMade) — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 00:38:00 +0000

Despite everyone raving about the success of Earth Hour, we all know that the real focus was on Adimade's My Planet Ad's project that wound up this weekend. After some great entries we are happy to announce the winner for the 2008 My Planet Ad's project was "Save Earth" by Tshaar!

Comment on the video here

So congratulations to Tshaar for being voted the best video and $500AU will be on its way shortly.

We want to thank everyone who put in a video for the project and appreciate the time and effort people went to to get the message out there. We hope to run a few more charity type projects in the near future so keep your eye on this here blog for news..

Wildcuts decides to share the winnings

noreply@blogger.com (AdiMade) — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 01:22:00 +0000

After announcing the winner this week we got an email back from Wildcuts (creator of the winning entry) which we certainly did not expect. His idea? To offer $250 each to the 2 other videos that he thought deserved to share in the winnings. So I asked him to do a guest post for the blog to explain what he wanted to do..

Hey fellow adimades!

I've been invited by Nat and Jake to write some guest blog text about a certain issue....
No, no, not the low ball voting thing or the fact that someone called me a tard in one of the comments.... No, this is a place of creativity and it should be a positive experience for everybody. Not about winning and loosing but about the freedom to let creativity flow.
Now, I'm participating together with my crew in such contests since last summer (I mean the last European summer :) We did about 11 of those clips and won with 8... The price money we've won goes to a project funding pot for "our" big project - a lord of the rings style fantasy film. We are far away from shooting this as a feature film but meanwhile the pot is filled enough to do a short film this year.
Technically by voting for my films and now for my entry "Ballsarade" you all became supporters of this project (including the adimade founders who actually pay the bill :) Suporters of my work and my dream. And I thank you all for it. But more than thanks - I honor this. And I don't just want to grab the money and be off, especially not here since this is a very fresh project with a not so fluent start.

So, before this will get an old fashioned speech about social values and positive thinking I'd like to come to the point and this is: I will sponsor two runner up prices from my price money. One price for the "real" film I liked most in this competition and one for the the animation I liked most. I discussed the idea with Jake and Nat and they liked it too, so here are my winners:

$250 AU go to jgreschner for "Hyperade"
This clip has it's weaknesses, but I look beyond the surface and see a great potential. Having a story and dividing a story into scenes, reassembles those scenes again to tell the story is a difficult task.
$250 AU go to scovers for "Superawsomeade"
Slapping together something with some 3D software is easy, but this kind of animation needs skill, patience, discipline and preparation - exactly what you need to make film.

I saw more talent among the other entries, but - as every jury - I have a personal taste, so don't be too disappointed that I wont sponsor 10 more prices ;) Just make more films! As I will do and maybe one of us will shoot a big feature film some day. I hope this will be me :)

Cheers
Markus (wildcuts)

Wildcuts (among others) had noted the lack of second or third prizes in this competition to us as being something they think would help the project but I cant say we ever expected he would offer up his own prize pool make this possible. So a big thank you to Wildcuts, im sure the creators of the other 2 videos appreciate it and we wish him the best of luck in production of his short film.

And the winner of the Anything-aide project is....

noreply@blogger.com (AdiMade) — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 08:36:00 +0000

Well I know you're all anxious to know the results of Adimade's Anything-aide project so I wont drag this out for too long..

The Anything-aide project has been Adimade's first foray into the world of User Generated Advertising and we want to thank everyone for putting together some great videos. As you're no doubt aware this project didn't go as smoothly as we would have hoped but never the less it has been an invaluable learning experience and we are hard at work putting in place measures to make our next project much more video creator friendly.

So after counting up all the votes I am pleased to announce the winner as voted by their fellow video creators is....(drum roll please)

Ballsarade entered by wildcuts!

To view the video go here.

So congratulations to wildcuts for his work on the video, an early entry that has weathered the storm and come out the clear winner as voted by the other entrants (round of applause). Wildcuts walks away with a cool $2000 and the knowledge that his piers voted his video the best of the bunch.

To everyone else we want to say a big thank you for the great work, you all did a super job and we really appreciated you supporting something that hopefully will one day be a viable way for budding film makers to fund their film making ventures.

Anything-aide project now closed

noreply@blogger.com (AdiMade) — Sun, 16 Mar 2008 09:13:00 +0000

For anyone who has been following the Anything-aide project you will be well aware of the... lets call them...umm.."learning curves" we have been going though with our first beta project, but I'm happy to say that the project is now closed and we have had quite a few entries (probably more than I initially expected with is great).

We had to change the voting process mid project (something Nat and I were very relucant to do but figured it was needed to make for a fair and just project) so in the next couple of days the video creators will be receiving an email from yours truley asking for their votes on what video they think should win. Interestingly we had a few entries come in with just hours to go on the project which raised an interesting question in regards to gaming the project.

If I was going to try and game this project how would I do it?

1. If i were unaware of the change in the voting system I would enter my video with a few hours to go then spend the next few hours using an IP spoofing tool to get my 50 votes all of them 5 stars. Sure its a couple of hours work but for a couple of grand it would be worth it.

Obviously we became aware of this possibility (as did a number of the other video creators that emailed me to highlight this gaping loophole in the system) and thats part of the reason for the change in voting system.

2. If I was aware of the new voting system and already had a video in the project I would upload a few last minute videos under various aliases in the hope that I would be given multiple opportunities to rank my video the highest and hopefully win the project.

I appreciate the effort that the last minute video creators put into their submissions so I will include them in the list of videos that can be voted on by the video creators BUT to ensure we have a fair competition we have decided that these last minute entries wont get a voting ballot.

Dont get me wrong, I am by no means pointing fingers here, I just want to make sure that nothing untoward takes place in the project (god knows we have had enough "learning curves" as it is).

So WELL DONE to everyone who has put in a video for the first adimade project, I will be sending an email to the video creators in the next day or so to gather up the votes and in a weeks time (hopefully sooner if everyone gets back to be quickly) someones gonna be a $2k richer.

Cheers,

Jake.

P.S - For all the international entrants you will be happy to know that the Australian Dollar is trading up around 94c to the USD so if your in the US the prize money has actually gone up quite a bit since the start of the project.

Startup Carnival - Adimade

noreply@blogger.com (nat) — Fri, 14 Mar 2008 01:08:00 +0000

Vishal Sharma of VS Consulting Group has put together the Australian Startups Carnival. The online (web based) carnival is all about learning new ventures started/surfaced in IT, Telecoms, Green Tech, Media, Web2.0/Social Networking in last couple of years. Vishal has done a great job of getting people organised for their submissions and organising CeBIT Australia as the major sponsor!

Many people might know Vishal from his coverage of web2.0 startups in 2006 for Readwriteweb which has been almost the definitive guide for Australian Web 2.0 companies.

Today, Adimade was featured on the Startups Carnival site that went through a bit of a Q&A. So it is definitely a bit long winded thanks to my good self (Damn those opinions!). If you want to check it out you can visit by clicking the link here : Adimade on Startups Carnival.

A big thanks to Vishal for putting this all together. It's great to have people who are continually going out of their way to build and help maintain the new business community in Australia, particularly in the Web 2.0 space.

Just for the record, a few of my fav companies featured on the Startup Carnival are:

Vquence: Vquence's business is in Social and Online Video aggregation and metrics.

Greenairfares.com - is a site which sells airfares along with a carbon offset, based on the details of the flight.

Me2mobile self-service portal that allows ordinary users to produce interactive mobile applications.

Change to Anthing-aide judging

noreply@blogger.com (AdiMade) — Sun, 09 Mar 2008 07:22:00 +0000

They say you learn from your mistakes and for the past few weeks we have learned a hell of a lot about what we are trying to do with adimade.

When Nat and I decided to raided our bank accounts to kick off adimade with a $2000 "user votes" project we never really envisioned that people would go to such an effort to sabotage other videos on the site. It turns out that people will go to great lengths to win a couple of grand (or more to the point help their friends win a couple of grand). In the month and a bit that the Anything-Aide project has been running we have seen a surprising amount of people voting 1 star for what we see as perfectly good video entries. Having spoken to most of the video creators that have entered the project I get the impression that they are not to blame for this but rather friends/family/etc thinking they are helping by low-voting everyone else's videos.

Anyway, after a few emails back and forth with the video creators we have decided to change the judging system for the winning video. Hows its gonna work is like this; Each video creator who has made a clip for the anything-aide project will be asked to rank the top 10 videos they like the best from 1-10 (excluding their own of course). We will tally up the results and the highest scoring video will be awarded the prize money. Basically this means that the winning video will be decided by their piers rather than by the current system.

It sucks that we have to change the rules mid project and under any other circumstances we wouldn't have done this but after speaking with all the video creators the general consensus was that something had to be done to make the project fairer.

So thats the state of play..

Cheers,

Jake.

The problem with comments

noreply@blogger.com (AdiMade) — Sun, 02 Mar 2008 12:54:00 +0000

We have received a few emails lately from people a little concerned by whats being said in the comments and I hate to say this but I have to agree. I can understand there are going to be some people who watch a video on the site and don't like it, but what we are seeing is beyond a joke.

When we decided to have the "no login required to comment" system it was because we thought it would be nice for the video creator to see that someone from work/school/family/etc had gone to check out their video. These are the people who are unlikely to create an account for a site just to comment so we thought "lets leave it open so video creators can get some kudos from passers by". Thats now starting to look like a bad move and we are considering what we can do to fix this free for all mud slinging that seems to be going on in the comments. If anyone has any brilliant suggestions for how we can keep the comments open enough for passers by but control the haters then send me an email at jake@adimade.com id LOVE to hear your suggestion.

For those of you who have videos in the projects and have been nice enough to offer words of praise to your competitors, thank you. Adimade was setup with people like your good selves in mind.

And just quickly, for all the conspiracy theorists out there that think we have disabled the CAPTCHA for the comments.. its actually broken, we are trying to fix it at the moment.

Cheers,

Jake.

The voting problem

noreply@blogger.com (AdiMade) — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 11:52:00 +0000

In the past few weeks I have been talking via email to a few of the video creators and something each of them has raised is the voting. It seems that there are a few video creators that have taken to gaming the system and low-ball voting on all of the other competitors videos. This is a little disapointing as I would like to think that members are a supportive bunch, but when there is money involved then for some this goes out the window.

So we are learning a lot about what to do for the forth comming projects and I hope everyone will be happy to hear that all new projects from now on will be decided partly on votes and partly on a panel of judges. The idea being that the highest rated videos will make it into the finalists group and from there the judging panel will decide who takes away the cash rewards. we are also planning on changing the voting system slightly but will have to wait and see if the new system will be ready in time for the next projects.

So if you're one of the people who are low-balling other people videos, stop it. If you are one of the people that have had their video low-balled then rest assured we are aware of the problem and will make sure you wont be disadvantaged..

Hope that clears a few things up..

Cheers,

Jake.

ONLIVE VIDEO WATCHERS ARE DIVERSE

noreply@blogger.com (nat) — Fri, 22 Feb 2008 00:45:00 +0000

Based on a study by, Media Contacts, they have attempted to segment the online video audience. The four findings are listed below. See Media week article here.

On Demanders – this group is 30 percent more likely to a heavy video users. This 18- to 34-year-old skewing group gravitates to DVRs and video on demand, and are 89 percent more likely to pay for content to avoid ads than the typical user.

Sight & Sounders – this group skews toward the 55 and over demographic, and are mostly unimpressed with video content and video ads. Nearly half have been watching online video for less than a year, and most prefer TV.

Television Devotees – this female-skewing segment frequently use the Web to catch up on TV – and are fans of the broadcast and cable networks Web offerings. They appear to accept online video ads.

Content Explorers - they are platform agnostic, and will watch pretty much anything on the Web – from long-form drama to short, user-generated clips. Perhaps surprisingly, this group skews toward 35-54, higher income category.

Where does the video creator / watcher fit into these categories. Granted creators make up a fraction of users on sites like YouTube, it is a growing area in both quantity and quality. Where do you fit in these categories?

Peace.

Nat

Australian Celebrity YouTuber!

noreply@blogger.com (nat) — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 10:37:00 +0000

Don't think Australian, other than Blunty3000, can rack up the Youtube views into the hundreds of thousands??? Well this article appeared in The Age today, about Hugh Atkin, who is an Australian YouTube Video creator. His stuff is downright clever, satirical and darn funny. His videos constantly get thousands of views.

His Clinton and Cruise Video and the Rudd Chinese Democracy clips are amoung his most popular, but for mine, it would have to be the recent Corey Delaney's Other Party.

From The Age...
"His latest offering, an online video called Clinton And Cruise - On The Campaign Trail, has featured on The New York Times and Guardian websites and has been watched by almost 100,000 people."

Now he is getting paid to produce videos for ABC's Unleashed website. Its seems now well and truly that great producers of Youtube and User Generated Videos can use this as a genuine platform for launching their video/film directing/producing careers.

Getting the ball rolling..

noreply@blogger.com (AdiMade) — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 05:50:00 +0000

It's been WAY too long since I last posted here so hows about a quick wrapup of whats been going on.. yes?

- so far the site hasnt fallen over (which is great news) although there have been a few glitches thanks to the inconsistency between firefox and IE.. I now understand why web dev people complain so much about standardisation.

- We have got a great response from all our facebook friends that we spammed (if you wernt one of them then your welcome to add me to facebook so you get it next time) as everyone seemed to have good things to say about the idea and the site.

- I have been doing my best to get in contact with everyone that uploads a video and I have to say a big thankyou to Beau for his feedback. I asked him for any comments or suggestions he had for the site and was stoked when he came back with some great suggestions. We will be sure to post the planned updates here soon.

- We had a bit of a bun fight starting over a video that may or may not have used some copyrighted music.. great news is that I just got a recut version of the ad with public domain music so that will be going up very soon.

a HUGE thankyou to the people that have uploaded videos already, I have been impressed with the efforts people have gone to, its great to see. Any for anyone who doesnt have their vid in yet be sure to get moving :)

Cheers,

Jake

Adimade Now Listed on Vidopp

noreply@blogger.com (nat) — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 05:57:00 +0000

Just a quick update to say Adimade's AnythingAde project is listed on Vidopp.com (click on picture to see listing). So a quick shout out to Douglas over at VidOpp! SHOUT! VidOpp is a collection of all the video competitions on the web in one place for video talent to find quickly and easily. They are a great site, and anyone interested in Video Competitions should definately bookmark them or subscribe to the VidOpp News feed.

The great thing about VidOpp is that they have listed 192 video contests with cash prizes were featured on the site in 2007, with prizes totaling $1,095,425! check out full article hear.

I forgot to mention... WE LAUNCHED!!

noreply@blogger.com (AdiMade) — Thu, 31 Jan 2008 11:05:00 +0000

So in all the commotion of getting the site ready for last nights launch I/we totally forgot about the blog updates.. So lets recap shall we?

Last night Paul (the guy who did all the leg work on building the site for us) was given the A-OK to take the bubble wrap off the site (when i say bubble wrap I mean the password protection) and we went live! Despite having more than enough opportunity prior to this auspicious occasion, I decided that i was not happy with a few of the images and made some last minute changes (I know changing a live site is so freaken dangerous but what can I say, i like to live on the edge).

Today the marketing began in earnest with the inevitable SPAMing of everyone on facebook to let them know we have a new site and to spread the word. Nat has also been busy making friends with people on you tube trying to drum up some video creator interest and we already have an entry which is great!

So after 6 months or so down the track the real work is now starting and there is definitely a sense of excitement in the air.

Gearing up to launch..

noreply@blogger.com (AdiMade) — Mon, 14 Jan 2008 05:31:00 +0000

So the site is now pretty much finished and whilst there are a few things that we would like to redo that's stuff that will need to take place in round 2 of development. Its a new year and a fresh start and all the other cliches that i cant think of just now but are certainly relevant to new beginnings.

Its a strange thing, the closer we get to opening the site up to the public the more exciting and more daunting the whole process becomes. The great thing about starting an Internet business (so I'm told) is the low cost of entry meaning that you can "try" a new business venture without having to mortgage your house to get started. This is all well and good but it still feels like we have a lot invested in this little idea of ours even if the actual cash we have laid down is relatively low.

So from here on in its going to be lots of work for the smallest of gains until the ball gets up enough steam to start rolling.

Cheers,

Jake

AdiMade in Swedish?

noreply@blogger.com (AdiMade) — Thu, 22 Nov 2007 02:46:00 +0000

I wont bother trying to explain exactly how this piece of audio came about (its a long story) but never the less here is a brief explanation of what AdiMade is all about in Swedish (yes that's right I said Swedish). Now due to my linguistic laziness I never quite got round to learning to speak the Nordic language so I can't vouch for the accuracy of what your about to hear, but I definitely heard the words "youtube" and "ads" so I figure its there abouts..

Swedish translation of "how AdiMade works"..

I realise from a "brand management" point of view its a bit of a gamble putting up audio that you don't understand on the official blog, but what can I say I'm a risk taker!

Cheers,

Jake-imade

The all important first post..

noreply@blogger.com (AdiMade) — Sat, 17 Nov 2007 10:38:00 +0000

If the old saying is true and a picture is indeed worth a thousand words, this first post to the AdiMade blog is going to be worth 0.00245 pictures (give or take a few contractions).

I wanted to get something up here to kick things off and in the wise words of Edward Kavalee "sizzle it up" so here is a brief explanation of why this page exists on the interweb.

About 12 months ago, 2 guys were sitting in a back yard in suburban Melbourne, Australia discussing the shortfalls of television advertising. They came up with what they thought to be a brilliant idea, set to work on it only to realise the limitations were many and opportunities slim. All was not lost on the two as spawning from this research came a vision of a simple solution to the failings of TV advertising. Unaware of it at the time, AdiMade was born.

Fast forward to today and we are now in the final stages of testing our new site (thanks to the Smine Design crew) and hope to launch by the end of the year (in beta of course).

"So what is the AdiMade blog?" I hear you asking. It's a peak behind the curtain of a small internet startup. We will be using this space to track our progress, write about what we are doing and generally throw open the doors of our little business and let people see (and comment on of course) what we are up to.

So if you've started an online business, thinking of doing so or are just interested to see what others are going though in their quest for success, you might enjoy taking a ride with us to see where it all ends up..

Cheers,

Jake.

P.S - this page will be riddled with spelling and gramatical mistakes (look there is one already) if that bothers you I suggest you close your eyes now.