User Generated Testimonial Videos - Technology Evangelist

One of the latest trends in user generated video content to hit the scenes at last week's Video on the Net Conference was user generated testimonials. The idea being that video is hard to beat when it comes to generating authentic reviews.

Two companies going after this market from different angles are RealityAdz and Qoof.

Steve Harmon from RealityAdz made a presentation where he explained that consumers are sick of hearing typical corporate spin churned out by PR firms and would love to hear the stories of real customers who have experience with the products or services they're shopping for. As an example, he showed ad from Hughes Network Systems for their satellite Internet service where actors giving glowing testimonials about how fast and reliable the service is compared to the dial-up connections people in rural communities continue to rely on in many areas of the country. That was followed by this RealityAdz review of the service by a Hughes customer who taped the response time of Hughes' service while complaining about the speeds.

The point being that the actual consumer testimonial is more more credible, although it's a few million impressions behind the Hughes produced and distributed spots at this point.

RealityAdz appears to be trying to become the clearinghouse for videotaped consumer complaints.

Qoof appears to be going after the exact opposite end of the consumer reviews spectrum by collecting reviews of products consumers love. Users tape themselves praising products they love and upload them to Qoof. Once loaded, the videos are tagged with an Amazon affiliate link, so people clicking through from the video to Amazon.com and purchasing the product (or, for that matter, purchasing anything on Amazon after clicking through) will generate revenue for the Qoof user to the tune of ~5% depending on product category and sales volumes.

The Qoof booth was taping product demos during the VON conference. Here's one they did with me for the Canon SD800 camera.

Qoof'd reviews can be shared via email or embedded into other sites. Look for an upcoming interview with Qoof on Technology Evangelist over the next few days.

People have used YouTube for this purpose in the past, including to complain about the JetBlue runway fiasco in February 2007. Is this a market that needs stand-alone sites like RealityAdz or Qoof, or will this become a sub-section of YouTube?

What do you think? Do video testimonials bring more credibility than written reviews? Have you ever sought out video reviews or created one?

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