Fun Times with San Francisco Filmmakers

We couldn’t be happier with the way our San Francisco Filmmaker Party turned out! Over 40 TurnHere filmmakers from the Bay Area joined the TurnHere gang at the Rickshaw Stop on Friday evening for drinks including the delicious 'Turn On' cocktail whipped up by Maggie just for the event.

For a few hours, filmmakers and staffers mingled watched some of our filmmakers' personal projects, put on fake TurnHere tattoos and danced to our very own Sam Jack (aka DJ Lumba) mix. Many thanks to everybody at the Rickshaw Stop and Colin, Mabel, Sam, Summre and Chrissy for the featured videos.

We're working hard to bring the party to the rest of the country soon. In the meantime, you can check out some more pictures on our TurnHere Filmmaker Facebook Group.

Get onboard: TurnHeretravel.tv is taking off!

Our new online video network, TurnHereTravel.tv just went live this morning! The site follows the steps of our pioneering book-centric video network, BookVideos.tv. It allows travelers looking for accommodations, destinations or adventures to get an inside view before making travel plans. A variety of our hotel and hospitality partners’ videos are featured on the site. In addition, we teamed up with the Hawaii Visitors and Convention Bureau to help adventurers, manta ray divers, surfers and food lovers get a closer view of the Aloha Islands.

From our Press Release on the launch:

TurnHereTravel.tv offers TurnHere’s travel and hospitality clients a unique distribution opportunity to broaden their audience, allowing them to showcase their business on a travel-oriented portal with an engaged niche audience. The site builds upon TurnHere’s broad distribution platform – offering customers syndication across leading Web sites including Google, Yahoo!, MSN, Travelocity, TripAdvisor and TurnHere’s branded YouTube channel. TurnHere customers also benefit from the company’s global network of more than 3,200 filmmakers who shoot authentic, narrative-style videos that capture the spirit and personality of each travel destination.

“After the initial success of our content distribution efforts including a GoHawaii video blog and YouTube channel, we’re excited to tap into this additional distribution opportunity,” said Kara Imai, the senior director of online marketing of the Hawaii Visitors & Convention Bureau. “Being a founding partner of TurnHereTravel.tv enables us to reach a broader audience and engage potential visitors through the powerful medium of online video. The “learn more” and social networking functionality for viewers provides added impact and further boosts our marketing efforts.”

Log on to TurnHereTravel.tv to access the newest Hawaii videos, along with hotel, resort and destination videos.

Read the full press release here.

InterContinental Hotels and TurnHere Team Up Again

We are very excited to announce that we're expanding our relationship with InterContinental Hotels & Resorts. Following the success of the 153 short films we produced for the brand’s worldwide hotels and resorts, InterContinental is working with TurnHere to extend the reach of InterContinental Concierge videos  by producing shorter snapshots of the original films and distributing them to various lifestyle and travel sites.

In addition to the signature concierge tours each property will highlight local shopping, entertainment and tourist attractions to give potential guests a more comprehensive overview of the property and surrounding area.

From our press release announcing the new initiatives:

“While the initial agreement was successful in enhancing the overall experience of our guests, the next phase of our initiative with TurnHere will focus on syndicating the content beyond InterContinental Web properties to extend the brand, reaching relevant and untapped audiences across the Web,” said Vanessa Healey, global director of tactical marketing, InterContinental Hotels & Resorts. “By distributing the videos to portals and niche travel sites, our goal is to reach prospective consumers earlier in the decision making process, while they are actively engaged in planning their travel needs."

“InterContinental was one of the early adopters of online video, embracing its enormous potential to engage customers with quality content and raise awareness around its properties and the surrounding neighborhoods,” said Morgan Brown, director of marketing, TurnHere. “The company is a huge believer in online video’s ability to impact potential customers and as a result, is broadening its marketing initiatives to include more diverse distribution channels.”

This new partnership is truly a testament to the flexibility of video. These new clips are created out of the original footage shot at each of the locations.  The smaller, more specific video packages make the content perfect for travel sites looking to highlight destination features for their visitors.  It goes to show that video should never be considered a "one-and-done" production.

Read the full press release here.

TurnHere's Publishing Seminar Wrap

The 2008 version of the TurnHere Publishing Seminar: Innovations in Digital Marketing is in the books.  Thanks to all of you who attended and made the event a big success. 

The event was held at the Hearst tower; the only diagrid (triangular framing pattern) eco-friendly building in Manhattan with a 3-story water sculpture and smart button-less elevators. It was an incredible setting and perfectly suited for our all-star panelists. The panel included Sara Nelson (Publishers Weekly), Mike Skagerlind (Barnes & Noble.com) and Tom Turvey (Google), and was moderated by TurnHere’s CEO and Founder, Brad Inman.

While our attendees enjoyed a gourmet lunch and the breathtaking view from the 44^th floor; Brad (our CEO and Founder) kicked off the seminar by unvieling the new bookvideos.tv Web site, giving attendees a sneak-peak a few days prior to its official launch.  Sara, Mike, Tom and Brad then proceeded to engage in a lively and informative discussion about how video can be used as an innovative, emotionally-engaging and powerful marketing tool in the publishing business.

Many thanks to our speakers, the Hearst crew and to everyone that contributed to the success of this event. If you couldn't make it and are now worried that you missed out, don’t worry, Naje, one of our top NYC filmmakers, was there and captured the entire event.  We’ll post the video soon.

Photo courtesy of Sara Nelson.  Read her coverage of the event here.

In the meantime, check Sara Nelson’s blog to read more about the conference. See you next year!

It's Alive! TurnHere launches the v2 of Bookvideos.tv

We are thrilled to announce that our new Bookvideos.tv site went live yesterday! Since its launch in November 2007, Bookvideos.tv has captured the attention of readers but we felt a little makeover couldn't hurt (or actually a huge makeover). The new version of the site offers a ton of new features; all the social tools you can think of, like Digg and Facebook posting, embedding and sharing options for the video, and publishers can create a customized page for each author, promote their leading books and link them to major online retailers.

From our press release on the launch:

Bookvideos.tv, which initially offered book and author videos exclusively from Simon & Schuster, now includes a range of leading publishers, delivering the most comprehensive book-centric content on the Web. The new site allows authors to have customized, individual pages on the network as well as to convey important book release and author-news items on their homepage. Bookvideos.tv also offers viewers more polished viewing, browsing and searching capabilities, expanded e-commerce functionality, and more engaging social networking features to promote sharing and discussion.

"Joining the Bookvideos.tv network was a natural extension of our marketing efforts and a unique way for us to reach more readers online," said Darcy Cohan, director of publicity, Chronicle Books. "Combining high-quality, narrative video with social media and e-commerce capabilities on a uniquely branded site is a compelling way for us to deliver more value-added content to our readers and build customer loyalty."

We'd love your feedback on the new features and how we can continue to improve the site.  Thanks to all the readers, viewers and folks who gave us feedback to help v2 a reality.

We highlighted one of the newer videos we've done - this one from the book The Garden of Last Days, by Andre Dubus III. 

TurnHere and Beet.TV partner to bring new media news from around the world

TurnHere and Beet.TV have partnered up to bring more new media news from around the world to Beet.TV viewers via spot-news segments shot by the TurnHere filmmaker network.  Beet.TV is a leading new media news blog and will use this new partnership to double the number of video segments produced each month.  TurnHere's global network will allow Beet.TV to shoot in far-flung places such as Toyko, Tel Aviv and London as well as cover more industry events across the country.

Here's TurnHere's CEO Brad Inman talking with Beet.TV founder Andy Plesser about the deal.

TurnHere is excited about this opportunity to work with Beet.TV to extend Beet.TV's innovative coverage of the movers and shakers in the new media space.

Read more from the press release:

Under terms of the agreement, TurnHere will create original video news content for Beet.TV on location in the United States, Europe and Asia. TurnHere will provide on-the-ground video production support to Beet.TV, enabling it to gather interviews and report news stories with digital influencers around the world. TurnHere’s distributed filmmaker network streamlines the production and distribution of news content around the world and decreases the costs typically associated with traditional broadcast film crews by spearheading a new form of online news reporting and content delivery.

The collaboration will double the video content on Beet.TV to approximately 60 segments per month. Beet.TV, a leading video blog and producer of technology and media news video, will tap into TurnHere’s global network of more than 3,500 independent filmmakers to shoot the original video news segments.

“Our relationship with TurnHere adds great value to our operation as it allows us to quickly scale the scope and depth of our online video content,” said Andy Plesser, founder and CEO, Beet Media LLC. “TurnHere’s proven approach to online video production and distribution will provide considerable value to our offering and help us widen the amount of informative video that we can deliver to viewers.”

Restaurants and Online Video are the Perfect Combination

Restaurants and other convivial establishments (bars, clubs, etc.) can all make great use of online video to help drive new business from online advertising.  That our partner Citysearch features video profiles on hundreds of local restaurants is a testament to its effectiveness for owners who want to reach the growing online audience searching for the best restaurants in their local area.

As more people go online to find out where to spend their entertainment dollars the restaurants that do the best job of informing the online audience and telling a compelling, authentic story about their establishment will be the most successful in converting online browsers in to in-restaurant customers. 

Nation's Restaurant News recently covered TurnHere's success in creating online video for restaurants in an article titled "Indies, chains broaden reach to guests with online videos".  You'll need a subscription to view the full article.  Here is the opening line:

A growing number of operators are producing short videos for the Internet in an effort to attract the throngs of potential customers surfing the Web for news and entertainment. 

We believe nothing makes a restaurant standout than by providing the online viewer the opportunity to get a sense of the restaurant in action with video of the food, atmosphere and staff that makes the restaurant a great place to eat.

Below is a video we shot for ChikaLicious Dessert Bar in New York.  This unique dessert-only restaurant leverages videos to show the incredible experience of coming to their location just for dessert. How can video help your restaurant showcase its unique attributes?