Our Product is Explanation
All posts for “video”
It's true. Two years ago today, we posted our very first video, RSS in Plain English. We had no idea what we were doing, or how that video would transform our lives.
We had a tripod, camera and a whiteboard, and that was about. The video was lit with bedroom lamps and I was speaking directly into the microphone on the camera as I moved around the pieces of paper. The video was edited with Windows Movie Maker. It was inspired by a blog post from 2004 with the title "RSS Described in Plain... Continue Reading
Thanks to the folks at CNN Money for contacting us and asking permission to use our video (with attribution) in the segment below:
Embedded video from CNNMoney.com Video
For the first time in Common Craft's evolution, one of our videos "Twitter in Plain English" is being used in the mainstream media. For the most part, we're excited to have our work in front of millions. However, it brings up some questions and we're curious what you think. A few facts:
The video "Twitter in Plain English" is 100% Common Craft's property and is licensed with a Creative Commons non-commercial, no-derivatives license.
Our names and a link to our web site appear at the end of... Continue Reading
Video: Truly Uncut - A Complete Common Craft Video Shoot
Posted by: leelefever on March 9, 2009- 5:00pm
Categories: music, stopmotion, technology, uncut, video
This video captures the raw footage from the shooting of "Computer Hardware in Plain English. Video shoots like this usually take 4-6 hours.
Music: Thanks to Deff Syndicate for licensing the song "Hip-Hop-1" with a Creative Commons Attribution license.
Online Videos, Testimonials and Conversion Rates
Posted by: leelefever on February 19, 2009- 4:00pm
Categories: business, marketing, statistics, video
It's too easy to just put up a web page and hope for the best. I can certainly attest to this practice for most of Common Craft's existence. However, as we've moved into ecommerce and built some traffic, I've become much more data oriented and learned more about things like "conversions" and "A/B testing."
Many web-based businesses have the same goal: drive traffic to your web site and then convert that traffic into some desired action. This is called conversion - converting traffic to... Continue Reading
A year ago today, I was writing the script for the video "Twitter in Plain English." A year later, the video has over 2.6 million views, thanks to a bit of collaboration between a handful of companies. Here's how:
We decided to make "Twitter in Plain English" for the same reason we made "RSS in Plain English " - it was a concept with huge potential that needed a better explanation. We wanted people to understand a resource that we value.
Twitter, Inc. didn't hire us to create the video and... Continue Reading
This video by Rex the Dog made me smile and want to do something similar for Common Craft.
Bubblicious from Rex The Dog on Vimeo.
Via: Drawn Blog.
WordPress.tv: Your Visual Resource for All Things WordPress
Posted by: leelefever on January 16, 2009- 4:00pm
Categories: blogging, Explanation, video, wordpress
Michael Pick of Automattic was one of our Explainers to Watch in 2009 and he's already delivered. WordPress.tv is a new platform for learning about Wordpress via videos and screencasts. The intro on the site does a good job of making the case:
This is exciting to see and something I think other companies will be doing in the future. If we consumers are lucky, companies will stop depending on crappy instruction manuals and make videos instead.
The biggest barrier? People to make... Continue Reading
The Explainist blog pointed me to this awesome video that tracks the evolution of the web from the very beginning.
History of the Internet from PICOL on Vimeo.
I'm inspired by some of the iconography, which is one of the goals of PICOL. From the PICOL web site :
PICOL is an project for providing free and open icons for electronic devices. The aim is to find a common pictorial language for electronic communication.
Bonus video: The Drawn! blog pointed me to these neat little... Continue Reading
Client Video: Ford Sync in Plain English
Posted by: leelefever on November 2, 2008- 4:00pm
Categories: clientproduction, ourwork, paperworks, plainenglish, video
We were hired by Ford Motor Company and Social Media Group to produce this video about Sync - a Microsoft technology that uses voice activation to control cell phones and mp3 players. In learning about the technology, we became fans of Sync, especially now that you can get a ticket in Washington State for holding a phone while driving.