Audio & Video
For both audio and video you cannot do better than visit Mike Stewart‘s blog. You will also find him at www.internetaudioguy.com/ and www.internetvideoguy.com. The domain names pretty much say it all. Sensible and cost effective advice.
I’ve just come from the latest World Internet Summit in London and bought Mike’s package of software. Having recognised that audio and video is the way the world is going, Mike is producing the software to make it as easy as possible for internet marketers to bridge the gap between the camera and recorders that generate the content and the tools, particularly WordPress blogs, that us marketers are increasingly using to communicate with our audience. They really are simple – just as I like it.
Audio : http://audacity.sourceforge.net/
If you need sound effects : www.grsites.com/sounds
Embedding Audio
Try www.stevepavlina.com/audio or for a WP blog: http://www.1pixelout.net/code/audio-player-wordpress-plugin/
Using Video As A List Building Tool
An excellent way to build your list is to give away something really useful. And that is exactly what Joel Therien at Kiosk hosting is doing with his Easy Video Producer.
One click video production can’t get any easier and you can get the service for free – and give it away for free.
Of course, there is always a price for ‘free’ and that comes in some limitation on how many videos you can run concurrently and the fact that your videos will carry some advertising. But for free – who’s complaining?
Making Your Own Videos
Camtasia is the accepted market leader for recording and editing your own screen capture videos. However, at several hundred dollars it does not come cheap.
If you only need to record short videos – which are usually best for the short attention span of the modern audience or for just making short tutorial videos to illustrate a particular point then Jing from www.jingproject.com is free and provides not only video free up to 5 minutes but also a neat screen capture tool.
Other than teaching and broadcasting these tools are also very useful for communicating problems to Help desks because the image or video is hosted by TechSmith, the parent company of Jing and all you have to send is the hyperlink and not the full image or video. So you don’t clog your email system with enormous image files and the recipient can simply download the image or stream the video from Techsmith whenever they wish.
A similar free video capture service is at http://www.screentoaster.com/. ScreenToaster is a free web-based screen recorder designed to capture screen activity in real-time to rapidly create and share tutorials, demos, training, lectures and more.
- To watch videos : Just click on a video to launch the player.
- To record videos : Click on “Start recording” or “Record”, start recording using the shortcuts or via the recorder.
You can add audio and an embed webcam while you are recording. When finished, add subtitles, choose your thumbnail, describe and tag your video so other users can easily find your screencasts.
