Aimee Carlson has one of those 21st Century dream jobs: getting paid to surf the web and watch videos. It’s up there with video game tester or ice cream taster. Carlson is the US Creative Director for Dailymotion.com, an international viral video site that has built up a community of budding filmmakers, animators, and content creators from around the globe. Aimee took a break from staring at the screen to… stare at the screen and share her thoughts, and favorite videos!

What’s your day like at Dailymotion? How do you decide what to feature on the site?
The day usually begins and ends with me slapping on my headphones to dive into all of the recently uploaded videos from our Official Users and Motionmakers. I program videos across 18 channels organized by interest (Music, Sports, Film & TV etc) and change the homepage every day. I keep an RSS of profiles I can feature videos from - and it’s an extremely diverse list. I get to choose videos from huge media companies like MTV Networks, to online-exclusive content from Next New Networks, For Your Imagination, Vuguru, or MyDamnChannel, music videos from record labels of all sizes, and user generated content from our Motionmaker program. The homepage is purely editorial, so I’m picking content that would appeal to a broad range of interests, with an emphasis on video that is of extremely good quality and exceptionally creative.

Because of Dailymotion’s commitment to respecting copyright laws, we feature only videos from our Official Users and our Motionmakers. Our Official Users are professional content providers, and their online presence is usually not the only part of their business. Record labels, magazines, marketing companies, TV studios, and sports organizations are all included in the Official User program. Motionmakers are what make our site unique. These are users who are uploading professional-quality videos, but don’t have the backing of larger organizations. Their primary goal is usually exposure - and they represent all of the artists, musicians, filmmakers, reporters, and athletes who are raising the bar for what we think of when we think about Consumer Generated Media.

What have been some of the your favorite user submitted videos lately?
We recently ran an animation contest on the site and got some extraordinary submissions. We worked closely with Loren Bouchard, the animator behind Adult Swim shows “Lucy Daughter of the Devil” and “Home Movies” - Loren created the call-for-upload video, and judged the contest. The prize was a development deal with Loren. The winner of the contest was a young animator named Daniel Cardenas, and his winning submission remains one of my favorite videos on the site - ever.

We also have some excellent licensed music videos from indie labels both in the US and other countries that I think we help our users discover through programming:

This Motionmaker is inspired by the French music site La Blogotheque. His other videos are Athens, GA versions of La Blogotheque’s take-away shows; but he also made this beautiful music video:

This is a Motionmaker who made an innovative cover of “Umbrella” - and filmed it in a way to showcase that he plays every instrument he uses in the song:

This video was recorded using MacBook webcams:

A French Britney Spears parody band called The Spears made an amazing video about Britney’s downfall. It’s hilarious and charming. And it’s a great illustration of what’s so unique about Dailymotion. We originated in Paris, and have a huge international audience - but it’s really a global community of creative web producers. A video like this works in the US because it’s about an icon like Britney. But we also have wonderful films from international Motionmakers that have no language in them, so they play wonderfully to an international audience. And it’s nice to be able to promote their work and introduce them to an American audience:

Remi Gaillard is a French performance artist whose videos work anywhere - this video is a classic.

We have localized homepages in the US, France, UK, Germany, Poland, Spain, Italy, Russia, Belgium, a catchall International page and are adding more localizations. With that in mind, just as I can feature cool videos from our other countries, I get to suggest features for each of the other homepages. Again, videos without any dialog are universal and work great. It’s nice to be able to write to a Motionmaker to tell them - not only is your video blowing up in the US, but you now have fans in these other countries - and wild untranslated comments to go with it!

What are some of the ways people use the site besides entertainment? Are businesses using it as a promotional tool?
Absolutely. Online marketing is huge, and sometimes some really excellent videos come out of it - in fact, most of the big virals in recent weeks have been a result of online marketing, like the Levi’s pants jumping video. The best promotional videos are either really random, high-production videos that look like viral videos, but are in fact, the online equivalent of a Superbowl commercial - or, when marketers distribute full, compelling clips of TV shows or Films or great music videos. Entertainment is entertainment - if a marketer provides a hot trailer or a really great clip, I may put it on the homepage.

Do you feel breaking the site down into channels makes it easier for users to find specific content?
We try to move users around Dailymotion to point them to relevant content through the channel programming. Currently, our homepage features 18 channels with one featured video per channel. When you click on each channel, you get a featured history - so we’re presenting our past recommendations to the user as well. We have some developments underway to expand on the channel experience. Unfortunately, I can’t get into too many specifics - but I’m very excited about the idea that if you come to Dailymotion to see, for example, great Arts videos, I’ll be able to point you to a diverse offering of high quality videos across any number of possible subgenres within Arts. Each channel has the potential to become a destination rather than limiting our entry point to the homepage.

What’s the most common feedback you get from users?
I’ve learned that our Motionmakers are primarily interested in exposure, and ultimately of course, money! But I feel that everyone knows that web video has made a lot of stars, but not so much money for individuals. I also think it’s very interesting that currently, most web video creators are using internet exposure to ‘move up’ to traditional media. It makes sense from an ‘internet as star-making’ perspective - what with representatives from every major agency scouting on the web, and network development deals for series like Quarterlife (and if you haven’t seen Independent Comedy Network’s spoof: 2/8 Life)

The concept of verticals from Film & TV to the web and back is very easy for consumers to wrap their heads around - at least until the money starts to really shake out for web video. And I think it will - in fact, it already is.

The challenge is, what incentives do we provide to our Motionmakers while the dollars catch up? We’re trying to help them get that exposure through participating in established showcases like the Viral Film Festival and organizing our own. We’re doing a screening of comedy videos this month and inviting influencers in the comedy, web video, and film/tv worlds to check out our Motionmakers’ work. Future Motionmaker events will follow for the arts and music. And the contests we run on the site focus on meaningful mentorships as well as traditional prizing. In addition to the animation contest I mentioned earlier, we ran a very successful sketch comedy competition with producer Jim Biederman of Kids in the Hall and The Whitest Kids U Know, and the winners, a NYC based sketch group called the Dregs, won a development deal with Jim.

How do you combat the flow of content that is copyrighted? What is your policy?
We are probably the most progressive company in setting copyright protection policies and technologies. We have implemented audio filters and video fingerprinting from the leading technology providers. We are also signatories - along with Viacom, Disney and others - of the Copyright Principles that outline how to best protect copyrighted content on the Web.

What has been the reaction to the 18+ channel you have?
If Dailymotion is offering a wide range of channels to cater to a number of interests, the Flirt and Sexy channels are just another way to organize that content. We have a family filter in place to protect users who aren’t interested in that experience - it’s similar to a cable system where you have a wide variety of content, with channel blocking for family-safe viewing.

Where do you see consumer generated media heading in the next five years… or maybe even just five months!?
We’re emphasizing premium content though our Official User and Motionmaker programs as well as programming because we feel there is a clear distinction between user generated personal videos and user generated entertainment from professionals and semi-professionals. Individual entertainers will be become even more important as they continue to create more content specifically for the web.