Earlier today I posted a link to an old video episode from a series I filmed with a few friends this past spring, hard to believe it’s the first day of fall now. Anyways, besides time flying by, the big realization I’ve had recently is this, videos on the web are best hosted in a minimal environment with relevant content surrounding them. Since our Livin’ Venti site is no longer up, you’ll have to take my word for it that it closely resembled the site below.
Two Guys on Beer is a neat web show about, you guessed it, beer! The show revolves around the two co-hosts reviewing different brews. At last check it’s not wildly popular yet, but they have done something to legitimize a mainstream format for publishing video on the web. Besides our Livin’ Venti site that is no longer live, this is the only other site I’ve seen incorporate all that is important to making a viewer friendly video website.
If you plan on developing a video show for the web, I seriously urge you to take these design tips into consideration.
Major placement of the most recent episode-
As you can obviously see from the image above, the most recent episode is smack dab in the middle of where heat maps have shown our eyes gravitate first on a website. This makes it easy for people to quickly tune in, and get hooked.
Summary of recent episode-
To the right these two brew misters do a great job offering a synopsis of their show that can be read without leaving the page, which by this time is probably running the main video.
Easily accessible archive of episodes-
If you scroll down just a tad from the screenshot above you’d see this long list of past episodes, easy to click and dive on in.
Cool thematic logo-
Not only is the logo relevant, with bottle cap imagery and all, it’s done in tones and shades of black and brown that properly represent what these guys are all about. Would you watch a show about guys and beer if the logo was bright pink?
Quick way to find out about the show and hosts-
It doesn’t take much effort to find the About TGOB tab at the top of the page, many people will end up clicking this once they finish an episode, so it’s good to make this page easy to find.
Easy to spot social media links-
On the lower right hand side of the page this graphic lets us connect via RSS, Twitter,and Facebook.
If for no other reason this is an important way to give real time notice to your audience when a new video is published on your site. It’s also a great way to solicit viewer questions for future episodes.
As I continue to launch new businesses the web video show is always on my mind, hopefully I’ll take my own advice when the big show idea hits, and I rush to the web to build my site.
Another note, all of this is easily done using the Wordpress platform, for more info on Wordpress visit: http://wordpress.org/
You can check out Two Guys on Beer at: http://twoguysonbeer.com/