If you want a good tutorial and an in progress case study on creating viral web videos, than check out today’s New York Times’ article on political YouTube Ads. The article is about Ladd Ehlinger’s work on creating successful (aka viral) YouTube political ads. It particularly follows Ehlinger’s creation of an ad for Republican candidate Sean Bielat of Massachusetts. After reading the article there were four take-aways I gained on how to have a video go viral. With the November elections around the corner we will have to see if having a viral YouTube video makes any difference in winning! ~Paul

1. Creating Buzz Around the Buzz
I think the major ingredient Ehlinger capitalizes on is the political hot-spots that are going on right now. It’s not necessary to completely create your own buzz. It seems the videos that do the best are those which focus on current interest (think Obama Girl in 2008).

A friend of mine sent over the below music video by 3 Doors Down. He told me that the video adequately portrayed his frustration about trying to rank a brand new domain on a difficult keyword. When I watched it I couldn’t believe how well the video symbolized the SEO struggle. So, I added my own commentary to the video. If you get any other ideas to add to the video let me know.

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It might be a little strong of language to refer to Matt as a god, but he truly is amazing with what he has done with wordpress. I actually meet Matt last year at a WordCamp in Utah. The event was really good and it was also nice to rub shoulders with Matt. He really is a down to earth bloke who loves what he does. Not to mention he has a stellar piece of software.

Any one who knows me, knows that I am a wordpress geek. Plugin, themes, blogs, anything wordpress I study and analyze just about anything I can, and I do it just about every day. Pathetic…possibly, but a good career as well. Anyway, I found the below interview of Matt on WordPressOfTheDay.com and thought I would share it. I really like the cinematography done by SpeakingEvents.com (the company interviewing Matt), and I feel it gives a good insight to what wordpress really is all about. I particularly like the part that he talks about why wordpress is free. You can almost see pain in eyes as he talks about putting ads on wordpress (he is talking about wordpress.com). It’s funny and inspiring all at the same time.

I am always a sucker for swag, particularly cool swag. So, when Affiliate.com offered to send me their cool shirt I couldn’t resist. However, the condition of receiving this great swag was that I did a post on how I wear the shirt. Well, we received the shirt and I realized as cool as the shirt was, it looks far better on someone else—my 10 month old daughter.

Meet Chloe

Every since I was a kid and first heard about subliminal advertising I have been fascinated about whether it works or not. In college I read a study about a Canadian TV network running subliminal advertising and then informing their viewers at the end of the program. They asked people to call in and tell them what they thought was being advertised to them—less than one percent got it right.

I believe if done correctly subliminal advertising could work. This video makes me believe that I just might be right.