#cavilling

Videos are an effective way to get a message to our customers and yet they are still in use. With the explosion of Web 2.0 videos can be supported by most Web sites, and they can be hosted cheaply too. A vlog is short for video blog. It is a blog that uses video as the primary content that is technically it is linked to within a videoblog post. A Vlog is accompanied by supporting text, image and additional metadata to provide a context for the video. Vlog which blogs are updated regularly, generally contains personal reflections, comments and often take advantage of RSS for syndication to other sites and aggregator software (RSS reader). Why use videos? If the sound has more impact than text, image takes all. Graphics has an edge in terms of conversions involved. It leads to more personalization thus greater customer involvement. Some examples of corporate videos: o Showing a demo of a product o A presentation of the services o The President giving a speech o An explanation of the procedure o Shows the different uses of a product o fun videos o Create interaction O peer-to-peer knowledge sharing and acquisition was earlier videos used sparingly because of bandwidth considerations and the increase in load time. In addition, content was needed for optimization. But with the introduction of video Sitemap Protocol optimization of the video was made possible. Moreover, now available dedicated servers media to take care of vlogging and podcasting Requirements: o A microphone is compatible with your PC o A webcam that lets you record video and save it to your hard drive. OR o A video camera o video editing software How does it work? 1st Get a microphone: To record a video, you must have a microphone that is compatible with your computer. 2nd Get a webcam. You need a webcam that lets you record video and save it on your computer's hard drive. 3rd Take time to prepare your video log content: Take time to think about what to say or do during your vlog. 4th Record your Vlog: Turn on the microphone, turn on your webcam and start recording. Save the file when finished. 5th Upload your video log file to YouTube or Google Video: 6th Get embed code of your uploaded file vlog. Alternatively, if your server supports this type of media, upload it to your website. 7th Copy the embed code: When you upload your video log file to YouTube or Google Video, copy the embed code and have it ready. 8th Create a new blog post: Give it a relevant title and add content to include your video log. 9th Paste the embed code for your video log file to your new blog posts. Using the embedding code you previously copied to your uploaded video log file, paste the information into the code of your new blog posts. 10th Publish your new blog posts. Select the publish button in your blogging application to send your new blog post with your video log of the live online. Deciding on a video host: Check the following check out the other videos on the site. Are the high quality and good taste, or a bit vulgar and inappropriate? Select a site you feel comfortable about. Check the file size limits: Web video hosting sites have different limits in the size of the video files they allow you to upload. Generally, you must compress your video before uploading so that it meets the requirements file size of the video hosting site. If you must compress it too much, your video does not look so good by the time it is played on the Web. Storage Capacity Offered: Is there a limit to how many videos you can upload to your account, or how much storage you can use? Upload Format: What video formats accepts this page? Most web video hosting sites accept multiple video formats, including QuickTime, Windows Media, MPEG, etc. You can even find websites that allow you to upload directly from your camcorder or mobile phone. If this is important to you, ensure that the web video hosting company you choose to offer these features. Display Format: What format do videos on the site play in? Flash is the standard for most web video hosting sites, as it is installed on most computers and play quickly and easily. But some websites offer other video formats, if you want to share your video on a website that uses Flash, such as iTunes. Compression Quality: Web video hosting sites will compress your video before publication. Some sites do this better than others. Video Downloads: Due to copyright issues, allows many web video hosting sites that are not users to download copies of the videos on the site. There are a few places, however, such as Google Video, which allows users to save copies of videos to their desktop or portable video player. Editing functions: Many web video hosting sites now offer editing features. JumpCut offers extensive on-line non-linear editing and other sites allow you to remix your video and add titles, narration or photographs. Audience: Different sites have different audiences. If your video is focused on a niche topic, choose a web video hosting service that serves this niche, or YouTube. Video Sharing: Most web video hosting services allow you to embed your video in blogs, personal homepages, and on sites like Facebook and MySpace. Video Player: Some sites will include advertising next to the video player, or will place a watermark of their logo on some of your video. It can be good, but it does not look professional if you send the video to customers and it has a large "YouTube" logo on it. Tip o Decide on the purpose of your video. If it is to attract traffic to your site, is worth it. Otherwise, you can go into the third part hosting. as http://www.youtube.com. o Use keyword rich titles for your videos. o Adding a video sitemap on your site. Sign into Google webmaster to create a Video Sitemap o get your video transcribed. Either use an automatic transcriber or use an affordable cheap seller transcription service. o Keep the length of the video about 5 minutes, that's for bandwidth considerations, and to keep it effective. o Adding a call to action. o Test your video log after publication to ensure that it functions smoothly. o Some popular Download-First video formats are AVI, MPEG1, MPEG2 and MPEG4. Here are some popular streaming video formats: WMV (Windows Media Video), QT (QuickTime), and RealVideo (RM). Video Editing Software O iMovie: iMovie comes free with new Macs. iMovie offers many options for editing video and audio, and add photos, music and narration to your movies. o Movie Maker: movie maker is Window's free video editing software, which comes installed on new PCs. Use it to create and share high quality o Avid Free DV Avid Free DV is a free video editing program, and it works with both Macs and PCs. There is a smaller version of Avid's professional programs, and provides users with limited video and audio editing functions. o Jump Cut: A line-item, Jump Cut free video editing software allows you to trim video and add sound, images, effects and titles right on the web. o Virtual Dub: Virtual Dub offers simple editing capabilities. You can not get too creative with the software, but you can use it to make simple, clean edits of your video. Virtual Dub will only work with Windows. Places to host your video log o Free Vlog o Internet Archive Some video sharing sites o YouTube: YouTube is the largest and most famous, and it offers many features if you want to share your video and get it seen by a large audience. O Revver: Revver is a revenue sharing and video sharing site. Ads embedded in the end of the video producers can earn real money. O Google Video: Google bought YouTube, but still has its own video sharing and search tools. O Blip.tv: Blip.tv use to start your own online TV programs. O Jump Cut: Yahoo's entry into the world of social video sharing, Jump Cut offers an elegant online video editing tool, like all the bells and whistles to upload and share your videos. O Yahoo! Video: Yahoo Video has all the features found on other major video-sharing sites. It also allows you to upload a transcript of your video, making it easier to find in web searches. O My Space: If you have a My Space page, you have a forum to easily share your videos on the web. O Eggs Video: Upload your video, share it and possibly make money on it.