This is social media marketing at it’s best! The Old Spice guy records a get well video for Kevin Rose creator of Digg.com, Revision3 and host of Diggnation.

This is brilliance in action.  A funny video directed at an unlikely person with a large social network.  Old Spice gets their brand to geeks everywhere.  (And it’s funny too.  This won’t work unless people want to talk about it.)  Old Spice has made scores of personalized message videos to invade other demographics too.  Check them all out in their YouTube channel.

There’s one directed at Alyssa Milano.

After her reaction, Old Spice Guy recorded and posted a response video.

Then Kevin Rose sees the video directed at him and replies on Twitter.  Then Old Spice Guy records and uploads another video to continue the conversation.

Then another video for Alyssa Milano.

This is how it’s done, people!  Old Spice is schooling us all on social media marketing!  Pay attention!

Check out the related videos that are presented after watching an acoustic version of Do You Wanna Date My Avatar? on YouTube.

The big budget movie “Avatar” gets the top three spots. Why? The official music video version of Do You Wanna Date My Avatar? has almost the exact same title and also has WAY more views than any of the other three, yet it gets bumped to fourth position. The movie “Avatar” only matches one word in the title of the current video but it gets the top three spots. I sense something fishy. Are small independent producers getting pushed down in the rankings in favor of companies like 20th Century Fox? It looks like it to me.

Choose your own adventure!  Chad, Matt and Rob are chased around the office and into a garbage can. Should you get in?

I’ve only watched a few episodes so far.  I’m not sure how interesting this particular story is going to be but, wow, imagine the educational possibilities.

Years ago I worked on a series of choose your adventure type educational videos for kids.  They were supposed be on laser disc so you could make decisions with the remote but they ended up non-interactive on VHS.  Schools just didn’t have the equipment to play laser discs.  Easy access to YouTube makes this kind of thing much more viable.

It’s been two weeks since YouTube went widescreen. In my travels around the “internets” I’ve come across quite a few embedded YouTube videos that use the new 16×9 player.  I didn’t expect to see so many so soon.  It’s quite refreshing.  I’m surprised at how much of a difference it seems to make.  The new player gives a refined first impression I guess, so you start off the video on a positive note rather than, “Hey look, another YouTube video.  I wonder if it’s crap.”

It’s good to see YouTube finally modernizing their player and their site.  I’ve heard that stereo audio and real HD resolutions are coming but I haven’t confirmed it.  Can’t seem to find the recommended video specs in the YouTube help pages either.  I know I’ve seen this page before and I’m sure the specs have changed with the new player.  Anybody know what the new specs are?

When I heard that YouTube videos were going to be available on AppleTV I didn’t think much of it. YouTube videos look bad enough on my computer screen, why would I want to watch them on my big TV? I also heard that only select videos would be available so, who cares…

Well, I ran the software update on my AppleTV the other day and the new YouTube interface is fantastic.

You don’t have to download the videos. You stream them directly from the internet. Browsing is very similar to the YouTube site but you can do it right on the TV with the Apple remote. The video actually looks OK. My understanding is that YouTube is re-encoding all the videos on the site from flash to H.264 so the AppleTV can play them. That sounds like a huge-crazy-insane job to me but hey, it’s Google, they’re the guys who think driving all over the world in black vans to take pictures of every single street is doable.

You can search via an on screen “keyboard” with the remote. I hate this type of interface (I call it “Ouija board“) but it’s better than having no search at all. You can also log in with your YouTube user name and access your favorites. This is all a really impressive first step. It’s what TV of the future is going to be.

Check out this episode of Don McAllister’s video podcast Screencasts Online for a video tour of the YouTube/AppleTV interface.