Common Craft Blog
Twitter.com Now With Less Common Craft
By leelefever on July 29, 2009 - 10:41pm
Well, it was a good run. Twitter recently redesigned their home page and the link to the Common Craft video "Twitter in Plain English" has been removed. Here's the story of how it got there:
Back in February of 2008, I shared the video with Twitter co-founder Biz Stone. After making a handshake deal, the video appeared via a "watch a video" link from Twitter.com.
Twitter decided to use the dotSUB player for the displaying the video, which enabled the video to be watched with subtitles in many languages. The video has since been translated into 69 languages. As of today, about 1.5 years later, that video has been viewed over 8.7 million times via the dotSUB linked from Twitter.com.
The Twitter folks put a link along with the video to CommonCraft.com, which sent a lot of people in our direction.
Now that the page has been redesigned, the link to the video and to Common Craft are no more. But we're not sad. We're so honored to have been a part of helping educate people about Twitter - a simple idea that's very hard to explain. In the end, Twitter helped raise the visibility of our work and the work of explainers in general. We heard many, many times "We want a video like you did for Twitter." Thanks to Biz, Ev and the Twitter team for giving Common Craft the opportunity to a part of an amazing trajectory. We'll never forget it.
While the video isn't linked via on Twitter.com, it's obviously alive and well on CommonCraft.com. We recently published Twitter Search in Plain English as a follow on.
Yes it was indeed a great run for all of us
Lee
Thanks for blogging about this. In addition to the 8.7 million views, a stat that is not widely understood is that this video was embedded on over 9,600 different websites, we estimate about 80% of which are in languages other than English.
And indeed it drove a large amount of traffic to dotSUB, as well as helped us grow as Twitter exploded.
Hopefully we can collaborate on other projects like this in the future.
Michael Smolens
Your Videos Make the World a Better Place
First off Thank You! I have shown your Twitter and LinkedIn video to many folks in the past and has done a much better job of explaining these tools than I could.
Second, your ability to convey a technical message is unparalleled. Reminds of the Xplane illustrations from "The Industry Standard" during the dotcom days when I lived in the bay area.
I will continue to look for great videos from you and your team.
Mike D. Merrill
Chief Bacon Maker and Marketing Strategist
Bacon Marketing
twitter @mikedmerrill
http://www.mikemerrill.com
http://www.darrenbarefoot.com
As it happens, I've been meaning to talk to you about the Twitter video. We show it all the time when we give talks or workshops, and it's great. Lately, though, a couple of people have pointed out that it shows Twitter as it was, as opposed to how people use it now. They're right, in that the tool is less and less about simply broadcasting what you're doing, which is naturally the emphasis of the video.
I know you're on to other topics, but I was going to request a Twitter 2.0 video.
Twitter has changed a lot
Twitter has changed a lot since that video was created. What if you did an updated version that takes into account everything that's new?
They might want to keep another good video on their site.
RE: Twitter has changed a lot
Agree with what Michael Kozakewich had to say. A new video that covers the new ways twitter is being utilized would be a great idea. Twitter has evolved and so must the video. If you guys don't decide to do another video there is no shame in having a video that successful. 8.7 million times is nothing to scoff at.
San Diego Drum Lessons
Your Twitter in Plain
Your Twitter in Plain English somehow helped me realize that I need to get Twitter. Twitter already did change a bit from time to time, but your explanation about this awesome social media web application is timeless because it focused mostly about the use of it as a social networking tool. Here's a post I did featuring your video http://sideshow76.blogspot.com/2009/05/twitter-in-plain-english-subtitled.html
Twitter Video
@ Tim, Michael, Darren, I think you certainly make a valid point. People use Twitter differently now compared to when the video was made. Further, I think there could be a good opportunity to make an updated video. I can't say it's on our short list, having just published Twitter Search recently, but I do see it as a possibility.
Twitter Changes
It's true that without your given details, we could not understand how to use Twitter easier along with its multiple changes. Videos are one of the most reasonable ways to engage the visitors that's why keeping the updates of videos is in the craft though thanks for sharing the video's success during the stay.
http://www.bobinoz.com/blog/
Twitter video un-twitterlike!
Great video - but outdated. So untwitter-like! Clearly, twitter has come a long way. It is used as so much more than a social networking tool now. The CNN video featuring JetBlue & more just touched on the business uses. Hope to see something soon.
Twitter at its best..
I think twitter videos are very engaging and we can learn loads from it because of the versatility of that site. It has became the life and soul of these modern internet days!
David from Medical Assistant Jobs