Distribute

You make shows, we distribute them. This is our favorite part! Blip's reach (the amount of people we will expose your show to) allows you to connect with hundreds of millions of people. And our reach is more diverse than any one video sharing service can come close to matching.

Our Show Player will automatically syndicate your new episodes wherever you paste its code. All videos can be automatically distributed to accounts you have on other Web sites such as blogs, iTunes (and we don't alter your iTunes videos resolution), Yahoo Video, AOL Video, MySpace, FaceBook, and Feedburner. A complete list of external sites that you can distribute to using Blip can be found at the distribution section of your dashboard. You can even upload clickable thumbnails to Flickr and back-ups to Archive.org.

If you don't distribute widely, others will distribute it for you - if you're lucky. But distributing your own show gives you control over how and where your work is shown.

Here's an example of a show in several places:

Pick-Up Lines

Descriptive and consistent file names are a good way to preserve a video's identity and ability to be searched, i.e. "LearningCenter_Interview_CalebClark2007.mov" Anything over 64 charcacters before the "." extension, will be stripped to 64 characters. Blip adds your username followed by a dash (username-) to any file you upload, so you don't need to put your username in the file name. If you upload this: "myshowname_episode4_clones.mov" It will become this: "myshow-myshow_episode4_clones.mov"

Blip's distribution tools put your descriptions in many different layouts, with different maximum word counts. There are areas for thorough, long descriptions and shorter front page descriptions. Our maximum word counts will differ from Yahoo Video's, for example. So the only way to really make sure your descriptions remain intact on other websites is to view your show wherever it's distributed. Here's a breakdown of our description categories, maximum word counts and examples:

  • Show Title. 1-3 words such as "Terra," "The Burg," and "Alive In Bagdad"
  • Show Tag Line. 2-10 words. Catchy and descriptive. Create curiosity, suspense, drama, comedy, something! Examples: "TERRA: The Nature of Our World," "Wallstrip: Where pop culture meets stock culture."
  • Show Description. < 100 words. BUT, the first 10-20 words should be able to stand on their own. Here's an example: "JETSET is a five minute weekly youth culture show featuring cool, weird, fun, geeky, underground, true-to-life, curious, quirky things and people found online and off. With a heavy focus on using this medium as a communication and community tool, JETSET is a hub focused on young adult life and interests as it relates to today's global online culture."
    • Remember that you can go back and edit any video's details after you've uploaded it. Click the "Edit" tab on an episode and you can change files, titles, descriptions, and tags.
  • Episode Title. 1-6 words. "Ewe," "The girl and grease truck," "Revenge of the Semiconductors."
  • Episode Description. < 50 words. The first few words should stand on their own. Here's an example: "TERRA, Episode 329: Ewe. Do you know where your favorite wool sweater comes from? Have you ever been to a sheep ranch? Ewe takes us on an emotional trip through the shearing process - not from the shearer's viewpoint but from a sheep's perspective. Join Charles Dye as he investigates where our wool really comes from."

Tags

Tags are keywords that describe your video to Blip, to search services such as Google, and sites such as Flickr and Archive.org. They rock! They roll! They will travel with your video like its soul. Use many descriptive words separated by commas in the tags field of every video you upload to Blip. It's a good idea to start a text file with your standard tags, and modify them depending on the content of that particular episode. Here's an example of Blip On Blip's tag template:

"blip.tv, learning center, concept, production, INSERT ANY NAMES OF PEOPLE IN VIDEO HERE, AND HERE, ETC, export, compress, distribute, rss, community, advertise, veterans speak, web show, web cast, webisode, podcast, tv production, television production, video production, video blog, video blog production, lighting, composition, edit, imovie, movie maker, caleb clark, caleb j clark, eric mortensen, how-to, faq, new york city, nyc. "

Creative Commons

Blip is proud to support Creative Commons licensing. Creative Commons is a non-profit copyright organization creating a new way for users to control the type of copyright that follows creative works. Blip enables the range of official Creative Commons choices for each upload. Each choice is explained when you select them on the Dashboard's upload page. See the CreativeCommons.org site for more info.

Distribution Tactics

The Distribution section of your Dashboard contains all the juicy details! You can also take a look at our Cross-posting FAQ. If you have a problem, we respond quickly to emails sent to "support@blip.com"

Say you've shot 50 mini-dramas of your cats fighting with the neighbor's parrot and you're short on time. We'll help you share these heartfelt moments with the rest of the world, as fast as possible! Using our Power Tools, you can upload more than one video at a time and you can also transfer videos from another service.

Our Recommended Approach

  1. Upload. Upload one or two videos to your Blip account. Fill out each episode's tags, descriptions and categories. Check for typos. Now you've got something to distribute.
  2. Show Page. Blip will give you a Show Page with a link you can give to the world. Viewers will be able to comment on each video. Start here if you do not have an existing Web site or blog. Make sure your Show Page is complete. In the Dashboard, configure all options in the "My Show Page" section. i.e. show description, cast, crew, and especially a link to your show's main site in the "blog" section.
  3. Social Networking Sites. Blip enables quick cross-posting to most major social networking Web sites such as MySpace and Facebook. If you already have that type of account, you can configure the cross-posting feature via Blip and you can use your social networking page as your main show page.
    4. You can create completely custom RSS feeds on Blip. We've also made it possible for any page on Blip to be turned into an RSS feed by inserting "/rss/filetype". Like this:

    http://username.blip.tv/rss/flash

    Or this

    http://blip.tv/?s=..."
    http://blip.tv/rss/flash/?s=..."

    Specifically:
    • "/rss/flash": Looks for Flash formats first, but includes all formats you have.
    • "/rss/itunes": Looks for anything iTunes can play, preferring iPod compatible files.
    • "/rss/ipod": Looks only videos iPods can play.
    • "/rss/mp3": Looks for .mp3 files, but includes all formats you have.
  4. Show Player. To get a quick start, click "syndicate" on your Show Page and copy and paste the Show Player code into your Web site or Blog. All new uploads to your show page will automatically appear in the Show Player. The Show Player's "guide" and "share" buttons will give viewers the tools they need to subscribe, syndicate, and see past episodes.
  5. RSS/Subscribe Info. Wherever your show is, try and put clear instructions for viewers who want to subscribe, using icons for iTunes and other services that are clickable. Look at other shows for guidance, such as Jetset's subscription page. Ask for help from the video blogging group on Yahoo.
  6. Web Site. Lots of shows want people to base their show on a Web site that is at their own domain (www.showname.com) and use their own social network. The easiest way to start this process is with a blog such as Blogger.com or WordPress.com. If you know how to make Web pages, you can start with one simple page, paste the Show Player Code in it, and use a service like Ning as your social network.
  7. Re-Distribute. Now that you've got an idea of how things work, the Distribution menu in your Dashboard has all the options for distribution. Start at the top and explore each option. Some options like Flickr will have you start an account, and some options like Yahoo Video just have a check box. Start the accounts where you need to and keep a text file with your user names, emails, and log-ins. Some services may take a little while to kick-in.
  8. Test. Test your videos at all the Web sites you distributed to, on Mac and PC computers.
  9. Produce. Make more shows!

Promotional Materials

We love promoting Blip shows, but we need your help, especially if you're gunning for sponsors and a ton of traffic. Too often we end up scouring the Web for a show's thumbnails, logos, clips, and sometimes making our own clips of your shows out of pure desperation. Yikes!

You'll need this stuff for your own promotion and Web site, anyway, so once they're ready upload these files to your Blip account. Send us a DVD via carrier pigeon (Latitude: 40°43'11.92"N. Longitude: 73°59'54.19"W). Email a link. Walk over to our offices! Teleport!!! Just do it.

Create a Google Alert using your show name to keep up with any press.
  1. Logo. Scalable as an EPS or other vector graphic file, or at least small and large versions
  2. Thumbnail Large. Generic graphic or photo with logo and show name 640 pixels wide or more.
  3. Thumbnail Small. 100 pixels wide version of the above.
  4. Trailer. 30 second video trailer of your show in very hi resolution (.mov, .mp4, .avi, .wmv). Include brand and URL in every frame if you can, as a lower third, readable water mark, etc.
  5. One-Sheet. A page or two of text with: Your show name, slogan, 20 word description, 100 word description, cast and crew, contact info, history.
  6. Press Clippings. Any URLs or any press your show has received anywhere.

Distribution Glossary

  1. Cross-Post: It's called cross-posting if you have to enter a username and password on Blip to set it up. You can cross-post to blogs, for example. Cross-posting is good for individual episodes.
  2. Cross-Upload: These tools actually send a copy of your entire video or thumbnail to a location off of Blip. We can cross-upload videos to Archive.org and stills to Flickr, for example.
  3. Permalink: Every individual video, and format it is in, has a stable Web address. You can put individual videos on your blog, social networking accounts and Web site.
  4. Subscription: You probably have heard of "RSS," or seen "Subscribe" on a Web site. You may have subscribed to a news "feed" with Yahoo Video or iTunes. While this technology is still a bit confusing to the average person, it is definitely where distribution is heading. We'll make RSS feeds for you automatically, so that Subscribers will have your shows downloaded to their computers as soon as you upload it to Blip. This Blip functionality is particularly powerful because your show will be part of the iTunes podcast directory and accesses high-resolution .mov files that you can upload to Blip.
  5. Syndication: The Show Player is said to syndicate because it auto-updates when you upload any video to Blip, no matter where the Show Player is. Get the Show Player here.
  6. Publishing: Publishing refers to the act of uploading a video file to Blip and completing all the descriptions, tags, Creative Commons licensing, and categorizing. This is a mythically time consuming process.

Links

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