Video Blogging Basics

The World Wide Web is primarily responsible for giving birth to a variety and genre of websites that span the personal to educational to corporate spectrum. Like a living organism, websites continually evolve and transform in terms of design and presentation in direct relation to current standards of available software and hardware technology.

Blogs and RSS feeds are two of the latest innovative developments in present day computing and the web life universe. The current availability of fast internet connections, faster processors, high end graphics processing units, better operating systems and computers equipped with 1GB of system memory serves as a convenient platform to raise the performance bar for a totally innovative and different kind of Internet experience.

With the introduction of the MP3 players a few years back, technology is quick to catch on with audio blogging (podcasting) – now, with most people owning the ever-present portable MP3 players not only download MP3 audio on their devices but other audio broadcasts as well. Even the current releases of cellular phones and handheld devices have the technology embedded in their firmware!

From simple text and pictures to audio and now, the newest kid in town – the use of video in blogging is slowly becoming as the new point of reference of personal and corporate product blogs.

Video blogging started out its humble beginnings when bloggers began experimenting by embedding links to their video files on blog entries. This provided subscribers to your blog’s RSS feed to be automatically notified about your new video. All they have to do to view the video is simply to click on the link (if they are online) or logon to the Internet if they are not! Voila! They can watch your video blog post!

Generally, you can use any of the several varieties of video file types such as Windows Media, QuickTime, Real Media, and MPEG; however, if you want to reach more people on both sides of the operating system divide, the most expedient method is to publish your video blog in either the FLV (Flash Video) or SWF (Shockwave Flash) file formats. These two are highly recommended because of their native cross-platform compatibility between the MAC and the PC. Regardless of the operating system, you do not need to convert your video to play them, all you have to do is click and you can watch the video automatically!

Setting up a video blog is neither difficult nor complicated; you can use the free service of Blogger.com and another free service, FeedBurner.com, to create a feed to syndicate your site.

If you plan to put full-motion video on you blog, it is best to use the FLV format. For video podcasting, you have a choice between Apple’s QuickTime Pro and Camtasia Studio 4 software to convert your video files into podcast format.

Equipment requirements are simple as well, all you need are a web cam or digital camcorder, a microphone, simple video production software, a blog and an RSS feed for syndication of your blog’s your content.

You can then start to produce your custom full motion video clips to enhance your personal blog or your product website.

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