As you watch the videos, look at how they are done and think up some videos yourself. Most of the top viral videos of 2009 were not high production value and could have been created by anyone for almost nothing.

1. Inspired Bicycles’ Danny MacAskill

2. United Breaks Guitars

After United Airlines broke his guitar, Dave Carroll took to YouTube to air his grievance via music video. Suffice it to say, United paid for his broken guitar. This is a fantastic example of how viral video can be used to prevent companies from screwing you over.

3. JK Wedding Dance

Companies like ad.ly are beginning to pick up steam and the controversy surrounding Twitter advertising is picking up steam as well.

Shivsingh over at Social Media Today wrote an interesting piece looking at the opportunities and risks with Twitter advertising.

One of the biggest warnings I hear from those opposed to Twitter ads is that users simply will not accept them. Allowing ads on your Twitter feed could cause a revolt and unfollowing on a mass scale.

I happen to believe the whole issue is a little overhyped. The fact is, if it’s possible to monetize something — people will monetize it. As long as the tweets are clearly marked as ads and not intrusive, I don’t really see a problem with it.

Services like ad.ly only send out one ad tweet per day on your feed and it’s an ad of your choice.

Will some of your followers get pissed off and leave? Probably one or two, but I think the vast majority will learn to live with it as they have for everything else on the web.

(image via Million Clues)

I remember when I first got into video I spent more time worrying about the production value and the equipment than the substance of the message. That was a mistake.

Don’t worry about the production value — worry about the message. It’s cool if your video is a little rough around the edges, that’s the whole point. Don’t be afraid to shoot video on the fly and upload it right away.

Anyway, enough of my bloviating.

Here’s a clip of Kevin Nalty talking about this very topic. If you don’t know Nalty, he’s a video marketing genius and you should listen to him. He’s being interviewed by New Media Minute host Daisy Whitney.

(hat tip ReelSeo)

Tom thinks we’re moving towards a situation where artists will simply give away their records and focus on making money from touring, merchandizing, endorsements, etc.

I completely agree with Tom on this. Some musicians are still stuck in the old mind set and the old ways of doing business.

Most artists don’t make much off record sales anymore, because you can simply download music for free off the web. As a result, artists like 50 Cent routinely post new tracks on the web for free.

50 Cent makes millions of dollars from touring, merchandise, shoe endorsements, video games, movies, commercials, books, etc.

As an artist, you should want to spread your art to as many people as possible by every means possible. Suing fans because they illegally download your music is incredibly short-sighted and stupid.

Don’t keep doing something the same way just because it has always been done that way. Break free and think of new ways of doing business. In business, if you cannot adapt — you’re dead.

(hat tip Techdirt)

If anyone can successfully monetize news content, it’s Murdoch. People are so used to getting free content, I’m really interested to see if people are still willing to pay for it. If he keeps it at around $6.95 a month he could probably pull it off, but we’ll see.

(hat tip Sky News) — Better read it while it’s free.

Affiliate marketing can be a very profitable business if you know what you’re doing. As with most things in life however, the money doesn’t come easy. One of the most time consuming aspects of affiliate marketing, PPC marketing, and Internet marketing in general is checking your stats. You have to log in to each affiliate and PPC program to see how many clicks you’re getting, how many conversions you have (or don’t have), which banners or text links are converting (and which are not), etc.

Even if you create a spreadsheet to aide in tracking, it’s still a massive time suck. I really hate working with spreadsheets and crunching numbers. I’m an Internet geek not a damn accountant. That said, you have no choice but to do these things if you ever hope to make any money.

It’s Friday and I realize bringing all this up is a major party foul and mojo killer, but a program I discovered this week is nothing short of a Godsend and could have life-changing implications for all of us in the Internet marketing game.

It’s called StatsJunky and it’s so good it will bring a tear to your eye.

StatsJunky is a desktop application that tracks ALL your affiliate and PPC stats across multiple networks on one easy to read dashboard.

That means you can wake-up in the morning still hung-over from night before, and quickly check your StatsJunky dash to see how much money you got — or don’t got.

Seriously though, you can look at detailed break-downs of profits/losses to see what’s working and what isn’t. One of the coolest features is the keyword level profit/loss tracking. StatsJunky lets you drill down to the keyword level so you see exactly which words are making you money.

Having easy access to that kind of information gives you the ability to make adjustments to your campaigns on the fly which can make a huge difference for your bottom line.

Dozens of PPC programs are integrated into StatsJunky and hundreds of affiliate programs, with new ones being added all the time. If by chance your favorite program doesn’t appear in StatsJunky, all you have to do is email them a request and they’ll add it for you.

I don’t usually get overly excited about new programs or apps, but this one is different. Anything that can help streamline my business and make me more efficient and productive I’m a big fan of. StatsJunky is a young product and already a damn good one. I don’t think it’s hyperbole to suggest it could very soon become the industry standard for Internet marketers everywhere.

Here’s a clip of StatsJunky in action:

Visit StatsJunky.com to download a 7-day free trial!

(hat tip Blogging Pro)