Thursday, June 12, 2008
Initial Finalists Notified
The judging was completed earlier today; and the initial Finalists have been notified by email of details to complete the legal affidavit part of the requirements. Should any Finalist(s) be disqualified or ineligible, additional contest applicants may be notified (in order of scoring) prior to the public announcement on June 28.
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Who are the finalists?
Finalist names are not announced publicly, as the next step is a legal one. If any Finalist(s) then became ineligible, withdraws or disqualified, a new Finalist(s) would be contacted according to scoring order. The Winners of the prizes will be announced and posted by June 28, 2008.
Were entries disqualified if they were 2:59 long, but You-Tube uploaded it as 3:00 minutes?
3:00 videos were fine - that is maximum length allowed. Of disqualified videos related to time - one was over 4 minutes in length, another was over 6 minutes; and there were a few uploaded that were 3:05 or 3:08 where the submitter realized they'd likely have a problem and submitted a (shorter) duplicate (before the deadline) that would clearly meet the time requirement. There was an instance where a video was tagged by YouTube as 3:02 or 3:03 but the video actually ended (inclusive of credits) around 2:58 and there was just a dark screen those remaining seconds verus actual part of video, and in that instance the actual length of the video was within the max video time.
Did number of views and votes by the public affect the outcome of the contest?
As noted in contest rules: "Winners will be selected based on the following equally-weighted criteria: (1) relevance to the stated theme; (2) creativity; and (3) entertainment value." There wasn't a criterion inclusive of number of views, and that detail likely contributed to the number of applicants who decided to delay submitting their entries until the last day.
That's too bad, as the number of people who see the videos and understand how beautiful Maine is the better for your organization. Sounds like it would have also pushed people to upload and take part sooner, also furthering the cause for real estate in ME. Seems as though the contest was all about drawing attention to purchasing real estate in ME, so the more people that see the videos the better for that. Too bad the vote of the people viewing the videos, who are also the ones being turned onto the state of Maine were discounted. Maybe something to consider for future contests :)
This was very fun to do and I really enjoyed looking at the videos. Some were fabulous. I am wondering what the ultimate goal was -- did you want a video you could use to market Maine? I'm also curious who the judges were (I don't need names, just what their credentials or positions were, ie realtors, marketing professional, etc.) And how was the scoring done?
Also, regarding number of viewers a video on youtube gets, that's also dependent on how extensive a personal marketing campaign you did for your own video. So it doesn't really tell us much about whether the viewers were potential Maine homeowners or not.
Anyway, thanks for the opportunity. And now we have a video that we can use for family and friends!
Yes, having a public participation component to a public contest could have been a positive addition; even if it had been a separate Prize, such as a "most number of views" prize. It's an obvious detail about YouTube. And definitely believe it would have encouraged submittals to happen earlier too. Yes, it is/was the intent to have the videos create a conversation about Maine real estate.
The announced judges were all able to score the Finalists videos, even though the timing selected in the rules was terrible for a few of them (i.e., close to the Maine primary elections.) Judges included an Olympic Gold Medalist from Maine, two Maine legislative leaders, a Portland Sea Dog pitcher, and a star of our Your Piece of Maine TV ads. A preliminary panel of judges (a mix of 5 REALTORS from around state) viewed each of the 152 videos posted on the contest site on YouTube and independently selected their top 15 to narrow the videos for final judging to 30.
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