Don’t know what it is about that squat building on Dunlevy, but lots of cool stuff comes out of there. Yesterday I told you about Tagga’s taggamobs for BlogWorld Expo, now I bring you: Mini-meme—MINI meme – The Ultimate in branded turnkey video contests.

Chatting with Nadia yesterday I got the scoop on Memelabs’ award-winning video contest software/service and how it had become so popular they decided to spin off what could be called “Memelabs Lite”.

First, I had to understand what Memelabs was all about before I could grok Mini-meme.

In a few words, Memelabs powers video-based contests for clients. Like a contest from the GAP for people to record how they contribute to society by volunteering.

People record the video, it’s submitted, and people vote. Then there is a winner.

What has made it simple is the backend that powers it all, but what has kept more people from using it is that until now every contest had a custom look at feel—something that is out of the reach of non-profits and small businesses.

Seeing the opportunity with smaller clients Mini-meme was developed to make the process easier and less hands on for the Memelabs folks.

What’s different? Self serve and templates. Instead of a completely custom look and feel you get a choice of templates, adding your logo, and choosing a colour scheme. Instead of Memelabs doing all the management of the contest, you do.

Nadia said the hour that Mini-meme clients are given for training is plenty. They made the backend management portion smoother, cleaner, and streamlined (I’d liken it to the difference between WP and Drupal).

Since people tend to be natural hams, especially when there is something to be won, I think this could become a fun, maybe even compelling, way to build some buzz.

Contact the folks at Memelabs through the Mini-meme site to get more info on it.

See also: Techvibes and Memelabs