Elf Yourself Meets Jib Jab

Nearly two years ago we blogged about the ElfYourself.com, created by OfficeMax.  Nearly 40,000 people were uploading their faces to Elf Themselves.  Last year, we blogged about Jib Jab Media entering the fray of personalized video with their “Sendables” product.  It’s no surprise to me that Jib Jab and ElfYourself.com have teamed up for this year’s Elf greeting.  Though I don’t know any terms of the deal, this is like peanut butter meets jelly, it’s like Yahoo meets Microsoft, it’s like Boy meets Girl.  

Interestingly, for only $4.95 (read:  monetization model, hurray!), you can download the video for safe keeping.  This benefits OfficeMax by promoting their brand alongside Jib Jab, who has fast become the leader in personalized media and creates a money stream for Jib Jab.  

For years I’ve been a proponent of personalized media.  Using simple embedded personalized video from YouTube will become the standard for web sites in the future.  This year, First Round Capital posted a lovely holiday greeting card featuring a YouTube video.  

People no longer want to read even two paragraphs.  But they will look at a 2 minute video to find if what they’re looking for exists.  Why?  Because if done properly, they’re entertained while looking for something useful.  Video blogging (vlogging) and customized video players, like those from KickApps, are becoming the norm.  

We also blogged about the potential for “mass market video editing” as a business idea.  This is already beginning to happen and it will accelerate.  Lilipip Studios has begun breaking the mystique of creating specialized marketing animation (commercials?).   Companies like Lilipip could become leaders in commoditizing the price of that existing service much like LogoWorks, whom we mentioned last year, took the mystery and high price tags out of creating logos.  

Enough ranting, here’s my 2009 personalized ElfYourself (only good until January 15, 2009).