The folk over at America’s Test Kitchen, seen both on broadcast television, the web and YouTube, are a dedicated lot. They test foods, methods, products again…and again…and again…and again in order to come to the best conclusions, cooking methods, product reviews and more. I recently watched a segment on the best zip-top bags and found it immensely useful. I would never have the patience or time to do their exhaustive testing and thank them greatly for doing it for me…and all their viewers. There is a wide variety of info on their YouTube Channel and their web site including recipes, equipment reviews, taste tests and more! Check them out today!

From the America’s Test Kitchen YouTube Channel…

America’s Test Kitchen is a real 2,500 square foot test kitchen located just outside of Boston that is home to more than three dozen full-time cooks and product testers. Our mission is simple: to develop the absolute best recipes for all of your favorite foods. To do this, we test each recipe 30, 40, sometimes as many as 70 times, until we arrive at the combination of ingredients, technique, temperature, cooking time, and equipment that yields the best, most-foolproof recipe.

What are some of your favorite Subscriptions? Share them here in the comments!

Previously highlighted on Subscribed:

Subscribed is a Careers in New Media series highlighting the Podcasts, YouTube Channels and Blogs that I follow on a daily basis. Check out this entry, and past entries, for some great New Media Content — Douglas

Noted: 8 Ways YouTube Will Be Changing How You Create Videos via Read Write Web

July 1, 2014 by Douglas E. Welch

8 Ways YouTube Will Be Changing How You Create Videos via Read Write Web

YouTube may face some challenges as it moves toward the mainstream, but it isn’t standing still on the technological side. Here are eight new tools for video creators YouTube execs Matthew Glotzbach and Oliver Heckmann—the site’s director of product management and VP of engineering, respectively—previewed at the unofficial YouTube convention VidCon last week.

A few are available now, but most are are still coming attractions. Keep your eyes peeled, YouTubers.

“Noted” items are particularly good finds from my daily reading which I share via all my social media accounts.

Find more Noted items here

Noted: YouTube is upgrading to 60fps, adding a tip jar for donations and much more via Engadget

June 29, 2014 by Douglas E. Welch

YouTube is upgrading to 60fps, adding a tip jar for donations and much more via Engadget

YouTube is about to get a whole lot better, with a slew of new features freshly announced at this year’s VidCon. Google’s video wing will soon get support for clips running at 48-and-60 frames-per-second, which should be perfect for video game footage that you’ve captured an uploaded from your PlayStation 4 or Xbox One in addition to those 1080p60 game trailers that are quickly becoming the norm. You’ll have to make sure 1080p resolution is selected to get the benefit of the higher frame-rate, naturally, and we’ve embedded a sample after the break. Customizable and, as the YouTube Creators blog post tells it, prettier-looking annotation cards as well as some new tools that your fans can use are en route, too. What are those? Well, viewers will soon be able to drop you a few bucks here and there so you don’t have to rely on ad revenue alone.

“Noted” items are particularly good finds from my daily reading which I share via all my social media accounts.

Find more Noted items here

Capture the great work you do – End of the Day for June 28, 2014

June 28, 2014 by Douglas E. Welch

Originally published as part of the End of the Day series for My Word with Douglas E. Welch

Today we attended a great Meetup on robotics at the same place (NTMA Training Center in Santa Fe Springs) where Joseph competed in his school BattleBots tournaments. Organizer, Richard Loehnig, brought in experienced roboticist, Dr. Jason Bardis — creator of several BattleBots for hobby and the BattleBots television show, including Dr. Inferno, Jr. It was a great talk that covered Dr. Bardis’ experience with robots from his initial hobbyist forays to helps build the robot arms for the Curiosity Mars Rover and more.

It was a great talk, but something else struck me as even more important. NTMA, Richard and Brad took great pains to stream the talk and record it for future viewing. This was a perfect example of what we should all be doing when organize, host or create great content. We had about 40 people in the room with us today, but there is a potential audience of thousands on the Internet, where this video can live on forever. Why would you NOT capture such great content? Every time I see that happen I consider it such a great waste of information and also a waste of the presenters and organizers time. It may be a one time event, but video can continue to work towards your goals 24/7 for the foreseeable future.

NTMA robotics meetup

Brad recording and streaming today’s robotics presentation

You don’t have to go all out, like the NTMA folks did today. I counted at least 4 video cameras as well as the live stream and a high quality audio recording. If you have nothing else, use your iPhone, your iPad, your Android tablet whatever you have at hand. If you are doing video, find a way to prop up the device, so the video is as smooth as possible. For me, though, capturing the content is far more important than professional quality video. Yes, make it as easy to watch and hear as possible, but first, capture it!

For myself, I have a variety of ways of capturing content when I am out and about. I have my iPhone, of course, Rosanne’s iPad, an HD camcorder with external mice and a tripod, a still camera that also takes video, Joseph’s iPhone and even an ancient iRiver IFP audio recorder that I can press into service, if needed. I am sure you have plenty of devices in your own kit that could also be used — if you only took the time to do it.

If you are hosting an event, record it so you can share it on your own web site and social media channels and also offer it up to your speaker for their own usage. If you are speaking or presenting, always come prepared to record yourself so that you gave content to use later. In many cases, you can offer this back to your organizer so they have something to share, even if they didn’t think of recording it themselves. Set a good example and capture everything you do. Encourage others to do it, too. I know there is a lot of content I would have liked to see, if only the speaker, the musician, the presenter, the performer would have taken the time to capture it.

You can join NTMA for future robotics Meetup by joining their Meetup group at the SoCal Combat Robotics Meetup site.

Watch the entire live stream recording using the embedded video below or directly from the RobotRevo Twitch.TV Channel

Watch live video from RobotRevo on TwitchTV

Previously on End of the Day:

New Media Gear 23: Zoom iQ5B Condenser Microphone

June 27, 2014 by Douglas E. Welch

New Media Gear 23: Zoom iQ5B Condenser Microphone

I have used iPod and iPhone connected microphones before, so when I saw the Zoom iQ5 mentioned in MacLife magazine, I thought I would do a little more research into it. I hadn’t paid much attention when it was first released, as I didn’t have the iPhone necessary to use it. With the release of new iPhones this year, though, I will probably be upgrading.

Any quality device that can help reduce the amount of “stuff” you have to carry around is always worth look — and listen. Reviews on Amazon are good overall, although some list alternatives that they preferred. If I was doing a lot of field work, or finding myself grabbing interviews on the fly, I might consider something like this, although I need to upgrade my iPhone first as this requires the new Lightning connector.

You can find out more about the Zoom iQ5 using these links:

* A portion of each sale from Amazon.com directly supports our blogs

Previously on New Media Gear:

Noted: Micromuff wind guard via Kevin Kelly

June 26, 2014 by Douglas E. Welch

Micromuff Wind Guard via Kevin Kelly

I have made something similar by rubber banding the wind guard from my Zoom H2 over the built-in mic on my camcorder, so I know it is possible for something like this to work. Wind can still get under the guard unless you hold it just right and that could be an issue here, too. When it does work, though, it works really well, cutting out the wind noise even on a moving power boat. — Douglas

I use a small camera (Cisco Flip) to take video. It’s great for what I do, except small amounts of wind cause a lot of noise.

That’s where Micromuff helps. You have a small Velcro patch that glues to your camera, and a wind muff that attaches to the Velcro. I’ve been using MicroMuff Original for about six months, and it’s brilliant. I can hear people talking, not wind blowing.

“Noted” items are particularly good finds from my daily reading which I share via all my social media accounts.

Find more Noted items here

Noted: Easily Take Studio Quality Smartphone Video with the iStabilizer via iPhone Hacks

June 23, 2014 by Douglas E. Welch

Easily Take Studio Quality Smartphone Video with the iStabilizer via iPhone Hacks

There’s a lot going on out in the world. If you blink, you might miss it. That’s why the iStabilizer is so great. It helps you see everything that happens, capturing occurrences from all degrees and angles like your own personal extra set of eyes. To get shots that you could only imagine otherwise, you need the iStabilizer–and you can get it on sale right now from the iPhone Hacks Deals Hub.

“Noted” items are particularly good finds from my daily reading which I share via all my social media accounts.

Find more Noted items here

Noted: Keep Your Mobile Device In Place Every Time When Taking Memorable Photo And Videos via Lifehack

June 7, 2014 by Douglas E. Welch

Keep Your Mobile Device In Place Every Time When Taking Memorable Photo And Videos via Lifehack

Taking pictures with a smartphone can be a daunting task. Trembling hands can instantly ruin a memorable shot. The problem is, perfect shots only happen once. Let the moment slip and you’ll be regretting it for the rest of your life. With the Shoulderpod, you can be sure to capture all of life’s greatest moments. The mighty stand is compact and fits effortlessly in the palm of your hand.

“Noted” items are particularly good finds from my daily reading which I share via all my social media accounts.

Find more Noted items here

Noted: YouTube announces proposed new crowdfunding program – fans to get the chance to chip in to their favorite channels from Red Ferret

June 2, 2014 by Douglas E. Welch

YouTube announces proposed new crowdfunding program – fans to get the chance to chip in to their favorite channels from Red Ferret

The YouTube phenomenon continues on and on, with no signs of stopping, with around 1 billion viewers now visiting the site every single month. That’s a lot of eyeballs, and it’s clearly exercising the attention of Google a lot nowadays, judging by the number of new initiatives which are arriving on the scene for the video makers and their fans.

One such set of proposals has just been announced by Google, which has the capacity to add an interesting twist to the whole synergy between fans and video makers. The company has just announced that it’s working on ways to add some form of crowdfunding feature to the service, so fans can elect to give cash to their favorite channels to encourage more of their most popular content to be produced.

“Noted” items are particularly good finds from my daily reading which I share via all my social media accounts.

Find more Noted items here

Subscribed 49: The Earth Minute

May 2, 2014 by Douglas E. Welch

The Earth Minute

“Explore, experience, reflect on the Earth’s diversity. Take a minute to change your view of the world.“

This blog (The Earth Minute) and YouTube Channel from my friends, Keri Dearborn and Michael Lawshe is all about giving you a minute of some special spot on this planet. Keri is a naturalist and Michael is a professional audio editor, so together they are starting to create some special moments. Among there first photo and video montages are whales off the coast of Alaska, Bewick’s Wrens building a nest and Green Tree Ants from Queensland, Australia. I am looking forward to more Earth Minutes from them in the coming weeks. We are going on a trip to Santa Cruz Island tomorrow to see the Channel Island Fox (our second trip), so I am sure that there will be scenes from the island on the channel soon.

Keri also writes the Animalbytes blog where you can find even more information on our planet and everything that lives here.

Subscribe to The Earth Minute on YouTube

What are some of your favorite Subscriptions? Share them here in the comments!

Previously highlighted on Subscribed:

New Media 101: Have something interesting to say from “New Media Question Time”

May 1, 2014 by Douglas E. Welch

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 0:36 — 20.5MB) | Embed

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | RSS

Part of the New Media 101 series…

A quick clip from this 30 minute presentation — New Media Question Time for UCLA Voiceover Class.

Watch the entire presentation

Transcript:

Well, first and foremost, you have to have something interesting to say. People want to hear what you have to say. They want to hear what you are an expert on — what knowledge you have that they need. You need to be able to talk clearly and to be able to put together ideas in proper sentences and present them to your audience. People will forgive a lot. They’ll forgive ums and ahs and stuttering and other things if the content is really, really good. If the content isn’t good, though, they won’t sit around to watch your podcast or listen to your podcast for very long.

Previously on New Media 101/Blogging 101:

More information on Douglas E. Welch and Careers in New Media:

All of you out there listening and reading in dark! – End of the Day for April 14, 2014

April 14, 2014 by Douglas E. Welch

(Originally from My Word with Douglas E. Welch)

Blogging can be a solitary pursuit sometimes. You create the posts, the podcasts, the videos and then you wait to hear something back. Sure, you see page views, views on the videos and such, but it is the comments and shares that really give you a feeling that there is a person on the other end of this tenuous digital connection. I can tell you from personal experience that most bloggers would live to hear from you. Share your experiences. Share your opinions. Just give a quick thumbs up — or thumbs down — if you feel like it. Interaction helps us to keep going, keep writing and keep sharing.

Thankfully, every so often, I get a great letter from a blog reader or — as in the most recent case — a podcast listener. He wrote to say how he just made a big change in his career and part of the reason he was able to do it was that he heard my voice in his head urging him on.I am always floored by such letters, as I don’t get a lot of feedback on the work I do. It is always amazing to hear that it directly helped someone make their life better. That is exactly the result I am trying to achieve with all the work I do and it is great to get a little validation.

Recording my Career Opportunities Podcast — Click to see a time-lapse.

While we should all carry our own sense of internal validation inside of is, a little but of external validation can feel very good and is, I think, very important to your overall mental health. Hammering away at a big project, only to be met with silence is disheartening at beast and can even cause some people to stop trying anything. The truth is, if you feel in a certain way, have certain doubts, want to make certain changes, I can almost guarantee there are others out there that feel the same way. Even if t hey don’t write, post on Facebook or give you a call, you can reasonably assume that they are out there. While this knowledge isn’t really a replacement for hearing feedback from people, it can be a salve that gets you through this project and on to the next.

How much external validation do you need in your life and work? Have you ever stopped doing something because no one else seemed to be interested — or at least said they were? Have you send a little validation to your favorite writers, bloggers, YouTuber’s, TV writers, actors, etc? If not, why not? Hearing from you could very well make their day and spur them on to even greater things. You never know!

Previously on End of the Day:

New Media 101: A Reason for Podcasting from “New Media Question Time”

April 10, 2014 by Douglas E. Welch

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 0:44 — 25.3MB) | Embed

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | RSS

Part of the New Media 101 series…

A quick clip from this 30 minute presentation — New Media Question Time for UCLA Voiceover Class.

Watch the entire presentation

Transcript:

There is a benefit of podcasting that works for us all — and that is that it gives us control over our product. It allows us to speak directly to our audience and so I believe anyone can benefit from that. Anybody — regardless of their career, their job, their art, whatever they are trying to do — can use podcasting to talk directly to their audience.

We all have an audience. It doesn’t matter what we do. We can be a plumber. We still have an audience. We still have customers we are trying to reach, people we are trying to effect, policies we are trying to change.

Anyone can and should start podcasting to benefit their career.

Previously on New Media 101/Blogging 101:

More information on Douglas E. Welch and Careers in New Media:

Capture your “content” and share it! Please! – End of the Day for March 30, 2014

March 30, 2014 by Douglas E. Welch

(Originally from End of the Day on My Word with Douglas E. Welch)

After an extremely busy day yesterday, we were all pretty tired this morning and got off to a rather slow start. Thankfully nothing required us to get up an moving — until we discovered that a friend was holding a boo reading and signing at Diesel Books in Malibu. Being that he is a very good friend of ours and I need little excuse to go to Malibu on such a beautiful day — we cleaned ourselves up and headed down.

As I usually do, I took along my cameras — both still and video — and figured I could capture a bit of the reading to share here on the blog and YouTube. I do this because I don’t believe in throwing away “content” that other people might enjoy. If I am going to enjoy an experience then it is a good possibility that others will, too. They might not be able to come to the event otherwise due scheduling or, more likely, because they live at great distance form where the event is happening. Why not share the fun when it takes relatively little work to do so?

You’ll be seeing the results of today’s event in a few days, but as always, it makes me wonder why more people — especially creative people — and businesses — especially bookstores — don’t make more of an effort to share their events in whatever way possible. For me, taking few pictures, grabbing some video — even with a smartphone — is far preferable to doing nothing. Events, once passed, are lost if you don’t do something to capture them. More importantly, everyone NEEDS to be capturing their content because this is the media you will use in selling the current book, song, movie, etc and also the media you will use to sell your NEXT book, song, movie, etc. If you don’t capture this content, you are crippling yourself, your sales, your promotion and possibly even your career.

It is so easy to capture and share content these days. We really don’t have an excuse for NOT capturing it. OUr smartphones take 1080 HD video and record CD quality sound. Our point-and-shoot cameras take pictures far better than anything in the past. It is the “will” that is lacking. Most of us have still not realized the deep importance in capturing our content. We don’t make it an automatic part of our life and work. We let things happen and then let them go without ever realizing the value these events carry for our future.

People often ask me why I go through the effort of capturing content for other people. First, I gain value from the content by sharing it online, on my blog and YouTube. The subject the event also gains value from increased exposure and the chance that an audience will stumble upon their book, music, etc and find they that they like it. Third, I also do it as a way of showing (and hopefully) convincing others of the value of capturing their content. It is “Real World Example” of how to capture it, how to package it and how (and why) to share it. By providing a good example, I hope to bring others along with me on this New Media journey.

The next time you are involved in a creative project, an event, a fundraiser, whatever — please, please, please at least consider capturing the content surrounding the event. Share your photos via Facebook, Flickr, Twitter and others. Upload the video to YouTube and share it on social media. Send links to the content to everyone involved and ask them to share it with their friends, family and business contacts. I think you will greatly — and pleasantly — surprised by the results.

Previously on End of the Day:

Video: Blogging 101: Don’t throw away your content

March 27, 2014 by Douglas E. Welch

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:53 — 67.9MB) | Embed

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Part of the Blogging 101 series…

A quick tip from this 53 minute presentation — Blogging and Content Creation at the San Fernando Valley WordPress Group.

Watch the entire presentation

Previously on Blogging 101:

Music: “Rocket” by Kevin MacLeod (http://incompetech.com) under Creative Commons License.

Video: Blogging and Content Creation with Douglas E. Welch – San Fernando Valley WordPress Group

March 20, 2014 by Douglas E. Welch

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 53:27 — 847.5MB) | Embed

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | RSS

Douglas E. Welch, writer of Careers in New Media and several other blogs, presents on Blogging and Content Creation to the San Fernando Valley WordPress Group (54 mins)

This talk contains the following topics:

Why you should be blogging for yourself, your career and your business?
Where do you find content for your blogs, podcasts and social media?
Capture the content that already exists in your life and work
Let people “behind the scenes”
Create “series” to make it easier to develop content
Read voraciously!
Share your content everywhere

Music: “Rocket” by Kevin MacLeod (http://incompetech.com) under Creative Commons License.

Follow New Media Tips on Twitter at http://twitter.com/newmediatips
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Photo: Podcasting Interview from 2006 with Dan Klass from The Bitterest Pill

March 19, 2014 by Douglas E. Welch

I am backing up a lot of older photos to Google+ and came across this photo from 2006. G+ Auto Awesome turned it into an animated GIF.

Back on My 20, 2006, myself and Dan Klass, fellow LA Podcaster and producer and star of The Bitterest Pill were interviewed by the Red Fence Project web site. It has taken a while, but it is great to see this 12 minute video that resulted. We talk about podcasting and the LA Podcasters, and have a little fun while we are at it.

Watch the entire interview here — “Podcasters” from Red Fence

Event: Douglas speaking on Content Creation, Professional Blogging and the Eco-Sphere of WordPress – Tuesday, March 18, 2014, Tarzana, CA

March 3, 2014 by Douglas E. Welch

I’ll be speaking on Content Creation and Blogging at the next San Fernando Valley WordPress Meetup. Come and join me and Glen Bennett, who will be speaking on “The Ecosystem of WordPress” and how it can work for you.

Event: Content Creation, Professional Blogging and the Eco-Sphere of WordPress

Date: Tuesday, March 18, 2014 7:00 PM

Location: Tarzana Recreation Center, 5655 Vanalden Ave, . Tarzana, CA (map)

FREE

RSVP using Meetup.com

Description:

Creating content is an ongoing demand for any website, in particular a WordPress site. Yet doing so, keeping it fresh and keeping it consistent can be a tough challenge.

We have a professional blogger, Douglas Welch, with over 10 years of writing experience that will be sharing his work flow and many years of accumulated “how to” information. With plenty of opportunity to ask questions and interact we hope that this will provide just the knowledge and inspiration to make your WordPress site sing.

Then we will have a presentation from Glenn Bennett on the ecosystem of WordPress, bet you didn’t know that they had one! An ecosystem is a community of living and non-living things that work together. In the WordPress world there is a vast network of resources to be tapped and to link into. Find out more about what exists and how to use this ecosystem to really take of with your own WordPress site(s).

Bring your blogging questions! I always make a point of allowing plenty of time for Q&A every time I speak, so this is your chance to get your most burning blogging questions answered.

Video: New Media Question Time for UCLA Voiceover Class

February 25, 2014 by Douglas E. Welch

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 30:47 — 402.9MB) | Embed

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | RSS

Douglas answers questions from students in Janet Wilcox’s online Voiceover class at UCLA Extension. (http://uclaextension.edu). I talk about the why you should start podcasting, how to market yourself and some of the equipment involved.

Music: “Rocket” by Kevin MacLeod (http://incompetech.com) under Creative Commons License.

Follow New Media Tips on Twitter at http://twitter.com/newmediatips
Like New Media Interchange on Facebook at http://tinyurl.com/newmediacareer
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Audio: Douglas appears on the Bigg Success Podcast: Creating Video Content: Overcoming Objections

February 5, 2014 by Douglas E. Welch

I sat down with George and Mary-Lynn over at Bigg Success recently and we talked about Overcoming business owners objections to creating video content.

Video content has become an important tool for reaching a wider audience, yet most professionals and small business people don’t use this form of media. Today, we’ll take on some of the biggest objections for not doing it with new media guru, Douglas Welch.

A complete transcript is available on the Bigg Success web site and you can listen to the podcast using the audio player below.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (7.5MB) | Embed

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | RSS

Listen to Bigg Success: Creating Video Content: Overcoming Objections

There is a lot of great content over on Bigg Success, so be sure to check out their site.

Careers in New Media

Helping to Build New Careers in New Media

Category Archives: Podcasting

Subscribed 51: America’s Test Kitchen

Noted: 8 Ways YouTube Will Be Changing How You Create Videos via Read Write Web

Noted: YouTube is upgrading to 60fps, adding a tip jar for donations and much more via Engadget

Capture the great work you do – End of the Day for June 28, 2014

New Media Gear 23: Zoom iQ5B Condenser Microphone

Noted: Micromuff wind guard via Kevin Kelly

Noted: Easily Take Studio Quality Smartphone Video with the iStabilizer via iPhone Hacks

Noted: Keep Your Mobile Device In Place Every Time When Taking Memorable Photo And Videos via Lifehack

Noted: YouTube announces proposed new crowdfunding program – fans to get the chance to chip in to their favorite channels from Red Ferret

Subscribed 49: The Earth Minute

New Media 101: Have something interesting to say from “New Media Question Time”

All of you out there listening and reading in dark! – End of the Day for April 14, 2014

Video: Blogging 101: Don’t throw away your content

Photo: Podcasting Interview from 2006 with Dan Klass from The Bitterest Pill

Video: New Media Question Time for UCLA Voiceover Class

Audio: Douglas appears on the Bigg Success Podcast: Creating Video Content: Overcoming Objections