Building traffic: taking your Web site to the next level--from blogs to "video magazines.".

• Author: Hromadka, Erik
• Position: MARKETING - Website overview

IT'S BEEN MORE THAN 10 years since Indiana's Internet pioneers used little more than text, a few links and the occasional photo to stake out the first wave of Web sites. Today the rush to develop cyberspace is still going in full force, but the tools include a variety of rich media and Web 2.0 services that deliver new features and increasingly use video as the preferred way to communicate.

Driving the latest round of innovation is a growing audience with high-speed Internet connections and new technology that allows audio and video files to be compressed so they are easy to download, view and send to others. The success of sites like YouTube that post user videos and encourage networking has also encouraged similar tools for business use.

Cantaloupe TV, a new venture in Fishers, is working to take advantage of those factors by encouraging companies to supplement their Web sites with "video magazines," a series of short video segments that tell stories about the people providing products and services.

Founder Jon DiGregory started the company after having worked to create expensive high-end video productions with animations and carefully scripted messages that were designed to make a big impression. Although such projects generated attention, he found they did little to assist companies in generating sales.

"Most businesses don't have the luxury of people seeing a video and rushing out to buy their product," he explains. So DiGregory decided to spread out the production costs and create a series of low-budget videos that are unscripted and just feature real people talking about their businesses. Those videos are posted to Web sites and sent to people who subscribe to the video magazine, allowing companies to communicate with customers over longer periods of time.

The video stories range from topics made for the format, such as promotion of a singer or sales training, to others that are less obvious, such as videos discussing finance, corporate recruiting and even issues like public policy. While some video magazines include only a single episode, others feature a series of videos released over six months to a year.

DiGregory says the simple approach of just having a person talking candidly on camera has generated a positive response from viewers who have grown tired of flashy commercials. "There's a big difference between commercials and what we are doing," he says. "This is not staged, with pretty actors saying scripted things. People...