OK Go, one of my favorite bands, is holding a dance contest, utilizing YouTube in a very interesting way. Judging by the two times I’ve seen them in Ann Arbor at the Blind Pig, the band has a fairly young (and rabid) fan following (late teens/early twenties). If you’re not familiar with OK Go, they’re known for their crazy on-stage dances, that parody the highly choreographed dances performed by boy bands of the late 90s (e.g. NSYNC, Backstreet Boys). The dance contest asks fans to submit a video of themselves performing an OK Go dance. The winner will be flown to an OK Go concert and get to perform the dance with the band.
The interesting part of the contest isn’t the actual prize or premise of the contest but the way that the band is processing the entries. The participants are asked to submit their videos to YouTube . . . for everyone to see. Along with capitalizing on YouTube’s large audience, this move really shows that OK Go understands its fan base. Not only would the band’s fans submit these videos, they’ll also want to watch other fans’ submissions.
You can view all of the submissions here. Of the videos I’ve seen, I think this one is the most polished but this one has some Napoleon Dynamite qualities.
[link via Very Big Blog]
Hah! Where’s my dance team? I need to get a video done and we have all the moves down already!
Maybe you can have a distributed video?