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• Just released: Social Media Self Preservation Audio Book – Buy directly via download at http://store.payloadz.com/go/?id=993358
• [Tip] Telling a story using New Media can change the world. What story do you want to tell? No go do it!
• Product: TASCAM iXZ Mic / Instrument input for iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch -  http://dlvr.it/19Glgq
• [Tip] All the gadgets in the world can’t hold a candle to good content. Start with great content, then consider adding bells and whistles.
• [Tip] Looking for podcast/voiceover microphone? Look into the Samson C01U USB mic – http://amzn.to/wWfFy7
• [Tip] Video Lighting Technique: Turn a Hard Light into A Soft Light from Izzy Videos http://dlvr.it/1B9SDG
• [Tip] Interested in Podcasting/New Media. Check out Podcasters Community Group on Facebook – http://on.fb.me/uVgnOG
• [Tip] Don’t like what you see on TV these days? Create what you would like to see. There are others who will like it, too — your audience!
• [Tip] Interested in producing your own podcast novels? Check out Podiobooks at http://podiobooks.com. Put your writing to work for you!
• [?] What types of shows interest you most? Could they be produced by independent productions and not network television?

New Media Tips from February 2012 is a post from Careers in New Media and Podcasting

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Take a moment to visit his site, Izzy Video. There is a huge amount of information there to help you improve the quality of your videos.

Learn how to turn a hard light into a soft light. Also, learn how to tell the difference between a hard light and a soft light. Check out the full article to read all the details about how to do that.

Tip: Video Lighting Technique: Turn a Hard Light into A Soft Light from Izzy Videos is a post from Careers in New Media and Podcasting

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Why is Video Hard? Five Shots and Patterns

[…]

“One of the most famous, and useful of these, is Michael Rosenblum’s “five shot” method that he developed training journalists from the NY Times to the BBC. It’s actually something he’s preached since the late 1990s, and those who are fortunate enough to learn it get an insight into shooting better video, immediately.

I’ve successfully used this in the classroom to teach visual literacy, because it hones in immediately on what’s important. The five shot method always prescribes these, shot in this exact order (my handout here):

1. A closeup on the hands of a subject – showing WHAT is happening
2. A closeup on the face – WHO is doing it
3. A wide shot – WHERE its happening
4. An over the shoulder shot (OTS) – linking together the previous three concepts
5. An unusual, or side/low shot – providing story-specific context”

Read the entire article

Elsewhere: Why is Video Hard? Five Shots and Patterns is a post from Careers in New Media and Podcasting

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How to get the most out of your iPhone as a reporting tool

Elsewhere Online: How to get the most out of your iPhone as a reporting tool is a post from Careers in New Media and Podcasting

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Event: Super Happy Vlog House – This Saturday – Ojai, CA is a post from Careers in New Media and Podcasting

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WordPress is one of the most popular blogging platforms in the world today, whether you are using the free hosting of WordPress.com or running a self-hosted blog on your own web site.

Along with all the power the WordPress carries, though, is a responsibility to keep your blog as secure as possible. There are many exploits (and exploiters) out there that would like to turn your WordPress into a spam-infested Google magnet.

There is an easy way to keep your blog trouble free, though. You need to regularly check for updates to both the WordPress program itself AND any plugins that you might be using on your site. Updates often contain fixes for known errors or bugs that can be exploited by the nasty people of the Internet. Keeping everything updated doesn’t guarantee that your blog won’t be attacked, but it closes the most basic holes in your security.

So, in the interest of keep your blog on the straight and narrow — I am proposing that every Wednesday become WordPress Wednesday. Let’s make this alliterative weekday and use it as reminder to check our WordPress software, our plugins and even comments that we may have missed along the way.

So, how do you keep your blog updated?

First, if you are hosting your blog at WordPress.com, congratulations! You are updated automatically by the WordPress.com staffers. You could still use WordPress Wednesday as an opportunity to check your comments for spam or if they need to be moderated, but most of the work is done for you.

If you are using a self-hosted install of WordPress, here are a few actions to take each WordPress Wednesday.

1. Log into your blog Dashboard
   
2. Look for WordPress Update notes (usually on a yellow background) announcing a new update of the WordPress software itself
   
3. Look for update markers on your Plugins menu item.
   
   • These numbers in a black circle tell you how many plugins need to be updated.
     
   • Click the plugins link to see a list of all plugins
   
   
4. Follow the steps provided to automatically upgrade either the WordPress software or the plugins.
   
5. Look for the same type of update count listed next to the Comments area
   
6. Accept or reject comments that need to moderated or marked as spam.
   

With just a few minutes of time each WordPress Wednesday, you can keep your WordPress blog clean and speedy.

Need more WordPress help? Ask your questions in the comments!

It’s WordPress Wednesday – Commit to keeping your blog up-to-date is a post from Careers in New Media and Podcasting

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[Tip] Make it WordPress Wednesday every week – Log into your dashboard, upgrade software, upgrade plugins, etc. is a post from Careers in New Media and Podcasting

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[Tip] Before following people on Twitter fill out your profile info. Help people to follow you back, not ignore you! is a post from Careers in New Media and Podcasting

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# 3 Joby GP1 Gorillapod Flexible Tripod

Whether you are taking stills or video, a tripod always makes your work look better. These portable tripods by Joby give you amazing flexibility, both literally and creatively. With adjustable, bendable legs, you can use the tripod on a table or the ground as you normally would, or wrap the legs around a sign post or tree limb to make use of whatever your environment provides.

These tripods are a great complement to the Flip UtraHD video camera highlighted earlier, but also work with any camera with a standard tripod mount. Those with larger Digital SLR cameras will want to go for the beefier version — Joby GP3 Gorillapod SLR-Zoom Flexible Tripod for Digital SLR Cameras

All Gift Guide Recommendations:

• # 2 Flip UltraHD Video Camera
• # 1 Zoom H1 Handy Portable Digital Recorder

New Media Gift Guide # 3: Joby GP1 Gorillapod Flexible Tripod is a post from Careers in New Media and Podcasting

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The Flip UltraHD adds 2 hours of recording time, a removable battery and image stabilization.

Check out all the Flip models and I think you will find one that is right for you!

Flip Video Cameras – 3 Current Models is a post from Careers in New Media and Podcasting

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As with any new trend, meme, idea, service, product, whatever — there will always be those who think themselves experts in exactly how it should be done. You must post 1.4 Twitter messages each day, each being only 120 characters (to allow for Retweets and blog 2, 500-word blog posts each day, each with a call to action and comments specifically written to your target niche., etc, etc, etc.

Talk about sucking the life out of something!

My own advice, which you are — of course — free to ignore, is to “DO” New Media in whatever way seems fit, in whatever method seems fun or useful, on whatever time frame fits your schedule, directed at whatever audience you care to address. JUST DO IT!

Following too much advice can be more damaging than following too little. Each new pundit, each new expert hones and grinds New Media in their image. They take all that was new and exciting about New Media and turn it into yet another widget that can be commoditized and sold. They reduce the power of these new tools down to a lowest common denominator that seeks to serve everyone, but only seeks to serve them with mediocrity.

What good is it if you simply get better and better and doing what everyone else is doing? If you use New Media tools like everyone else in the crowd you become just one more anonymous figure within that crowd. New Media gives us the ability to stand out from the crowd, find our audience and make a difference in the world. Why squander it being the same as everyone else?

Every new idea goes through this phase? Goth was cool and edgy, now it can be bought in the mall. Punk music was loud and downright dangerous, now its commoditized just like Top 40 pop. Blogging used to be cool and cutting edge, now many do it with the same energy and excitement as a burned out accountant might bring.

Start with yourself when you develop your New Media projects. Sure, you can find some interesting ideas among the pundits, but when the advice starts to make everything look the same you would do better to think about how you can make your work different. Different is where new things happen. Different is where big success lies. Different is what keeps you from being swallowed by the big ocean of mediocrity.

What do YOU want out of New Media? How are YOU going to achieve it? What are YOU going to do? After all, if you are just going to do the same as everyone else — why do it at all?

Ignore ALL New Media advice — maybe even this is a post from Careers in New Media and Podcasting

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If you are looking for a quick way to dress up a blog post, give it a try.

<DIV style="float:right;font-size:144px; margin:10px 10px 10px 10px;"><br /> ?<br /> </DIV>

…yields…

Tip: Using typographical elements as graphics in blog posts is a post from Careers in New Media and Podcasting

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While attending an online course today via streaming video, I was struck with a problem that I hadn’t really thought about before. In classes where there is a large amount of prep work — installing several software packages, checking connections, trying a sample project — the first session can be quite daunting. Students are eager to dive into the topic and start working with the tools or information. If, instead, they are presented with an hour or more of setup, you are likely to lose them before you ever get started. I know for myself, today’s class seemed interminable. In fact, they may have lost me for the rest of the class. I will probably give it one more try, but if it isn’t significantly better, I will probably abandon the class in favor of more self-directed learning through others sources.

Of course, this got me thinking about how you can avoid problems like this, where the setup takes up an entire class session before the students can experience something “cool.” One way I would have approached it would to have had an online forum/discussion group setup a week or more before the live class, where students could work through the installation and troubleshooting of all the necessary software and materials. There could have been group leaders online to answer questions and help everyone prepare, so this information wouldn’t need to be covered during the first live class. The instructor could make the assumption that everyone was ready to go and could dive into the most interesting part of the information. This would provide a much more exciting and energetic start to any class.

The next separate, yet related issue, is that of instructor demeanor. Whether this was caused by being forced to address the setup issues in the first class, over-familiarity with their subject or general personality, the instructor of this online class showed no excitement about his topic. One can guess he is an expert in his field, but without any sense of passion about the topic it made the class a very hard slog. For me, when teaching in any environment, a certain amount of passion is expected, desired and, for me, required. If I can’t get excited about the topic, how do I ever hope to excite the students interest? How do I hope to help them (or push them) through the rough parts of the class, if I can’t make the topic interesting and applicable to them. How can I hope to enjoy teaching the topic if I am bored with it. A little excitement, a little fun, a little look into the cool stuff to come would have been very welcome.

Of course, classes are about information transfer — teaching students something — but without a certain amount of fun and passion involved they can become less useful than simply reading the material out of a book or web site. If you are going to “teach” a course, you need to add value to the information, not simply read it out. Your video needs to add value to the information in order to justify someone taking time out of their day to show up in a particular place at a particular time.

How do you add value with your audio or video projects? What passion to you bring to the screen? You would be well advised to think about these issues before you start. Share your thoughts using the Comments link.

Online Video classes need energy, passion and added value is a post from Careers in New Media and Podcasting

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They have music in a variety of styles and moods and a quick listen found several tracks I will use in upcoming productions. All that is asked in return is an optional $5 donation and/or credit in your project when completed.

Check it out!

I originally found out about this music from Lifehacker via Jazz Up Your Next YouTube Video with Royalty-Free Music From Incompetech [Music].

Elsewhere Online: Jazz Up Your Next YouTube Video with Royalty-Free Music From Incompetech [Music] is a post from Careers in New Media and Podcasting

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First, let me say that I haven’t had a large problem with Facebook privacy settings for two important reasons.

1. I joined Facebook after it had opened up for everyone, not just limited groups of high school and college students so I never developed an assumption of privacy there.

2. As with any social media, I consider anything and everything I post there to be public by default, so changes in Facebook’s privacy policy didn’t really effect me or the way I used the service.

For most people, you want (and perhaps, need) to be on Facebook for one very important reason…it is where the people are. In shear numbers, Facebook far outweighs any other social network and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future. Removing yourself from that mass of people will limit the effectiveness of any social media campaign, both person and professional, that you might care to create. You need to connect with the quorum of people that exist on Facebook to spread your message as far as possible. Deleting your Facebook account might make your feel better, but your online relationships and business will suffer.

Will Facebook always be the big event in town? No. History has shown that companies ebb and flow over the years and sometime, somewhere, someone will create a new and better service and will do to Facebook, what it did to Myspace (and others). Until then, we all need to “dance with those that brought us.”

That said, if you want to continue to have private conversations via Facebook, you need to look elsewhere. Facebook has shown every indication that they will be “public by default.” Even if you manage your Facebook Privacy Settings perfectly, you will be exposing your “private” updates to any number of people. Look towards closed email lists or other services which promise closed communications and leave Facebook for your public-facing activities. Remember, though, that even then information can leak out of these so-called “private” realms very easily. A forwarded email, a Twitter message, a casual mention by a fellow group member over the phone show you just how fragile privacy can be. In some cases, the only way to truly private about something is to be the only person who knows about it.

You need to engage on Facebook, publicly, if you want spread your message and thoughts to the widest audience possible. Move your private conversations elsewhere. Facebook isn’t going back so you need to do what is best for you.

Question: Should I stay on Facebook? is a post from Careers in New Media and Podcasting

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The first show I am highlighting is FilmRiot from Revision3. The production quality is quite high and the content is very good. There is a bit of silliness in each episode, but in reviewing several episodes I found some really good hints, tips and tricks you can put to use today. Embedded below is a recent episode entitled “Turn Your Tripod Into a Dolly or Jib!: Learn how to use your tripod as a dolly or jib, then learn about using different camera techniques to enhance your story.” These are simple hints, but for those of us working on small budgets and with heavy time constraints, they can quickly bump up the quality of our projects.

You can subscribe to FilmRiot and download previous episodes from the FilmRiot site.

Show recommendation: FilmRiot from Revision3 is a post from Careers in New Media and Podcasting

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• Q: How do I set up a WordPress or WordPress.com blog to use a static page as the opening screen instead of a list of blog posts?
• A: I first turned to the WordPress Codex to give me some guidance on this. You can read more in this here – Creating a static front page.

  Basically, you create the WordPress Page you would like to act as the front page for the site. Put your home page content here. Then, create another page and name it Blog, Posts, or whatever else makes sense to you. You need not add anything to this page, as it is only a placeholder to contain the usual posts you would see in a more typical WordPress blog.

  Next, from the WordPress Dashboard, select Settings, Reading. Under the first option on that page (Front page displays) select the radio button next to “A static page”. Then in the popup menus immediately below that, under Front Page, select the page you created to act as the new front page. Under the Posts page, select the second page you created named Blog, Posts, etc. Scroll to the bottom of the page and click the blue “Save Changes” button.

  Now when people visit your blog, they will see the static page you defined. You will need to include a link to the Posts page in the sidebar or header in order to allow people to access your blog posts.
  

Do you have a question? Why not drop me a line? Use the Comments link above, send email to me@douglasewelch.com or call the voice mail line at 818-804-5049

Question: How do I set up a WordPress blog with a static page as the home page? is a post from Careers in New Media and Podcasting

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The first is this time lapse video of a “flight” on the London Eye. It seemed to me that presenting clips from the slow moving ride, or posting the entire ride in real time wouldn’t really give the feeling that I was looking for.

To capture this footage, we immediately placed our Flip Mino HD on a table top tripod on the floor of the capsule. You may notice that there was at least one time when we adjusted the few, but for the most part the video was just captured as we enjoyed the view. The movement of the boats and cars offers a nice contrast to the slow movement of the Eye itself.

In order second video, we did the opposite. Instead of speeding up time, we slowed it down…at least figuratively. Using the concept of a “long picture” I took 3 views of Stonehenge, again using the tripod, but rather than moving around like most videos would, these are 2 static shots.

I believe this gives a great feeling of what it would be like to be sitting there on the grass with us. The audio was captured from a group who were chanting nearby and I thought this added an important element, too.

You can see more examples of these “long picture” videos in this Places UK: Cardiff Bay and Water in Millard Canyon.

Videos don’t have to be like every other video on the Internet. Experiment with movement, stillness, profiles, interviews and any other videos that you can imagine. You never know what you might discover.

Video: Different methods of presentation – 2 vacation videos is a post from Careers in New Media and Podcasting

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Time to prepare

First, you need to give yourself some time. I often receive requests and questions about live streaming the day before, or the day of, and event. If you haven’t been streaming your events before, this is usually not enough time to do more than the most basic of video streams. This doesn’t usually have anything to do with technology, but more to do with logistics.

Depending on what you are trying to accomplish you might simply have a laptop and webcam which is pointed at a stage or a speaker. Even then, though, you will need to have some basic knowledge of the different types of live video streaming services out there and what they can do. Ideally, you will want to do a “sound check” earlier in the day or even the day before your event to make sure you don’t have any issues with the local network, web cam and service. You will need to set up your account with the streaming service and learn how you can embed and link to your stream during your event.

Time to promote

This points to another issue with time, too. If you want to attract an audience to your live video stream, you need to give them plenty of notice. They will need to place the event in their calendars and plan around it just as they would if they were attending in person. This is one of the limitations of live streams, of course, you still need to be in a particular place at a particular time, even if that place is only on your own sofa.

Ideally, you want to promote your event 2-3 weeks ahead. Then you will also want to remind people 1 week before the event, 1 day before the event and finally, right before the event starts. You will want to embed the player for the live stream on your blog and/or web site so people can easily find it and even stumble across it if they have forgotten about the event.

Adding complexity

Live video streaming from one location is the simplest to set up, but often show hosts and producers what to take live callers, or even live video calls, during their event. While it is possible to do this in a number of ways, be aware that the complexity of your production will increase dramatically.

You will probably want, if not need, additional computers, higher speed Internet connections and more people to handle the technology…at least initially. Once you get things up and running, you might be able to produce your show by yourself, but allow yourself some “helping hands” at the beginning.

Saving it for later

You will also want to make arrangement to capture the video from your event for those who weren’t able to watch it live. The fact is, the size of this audience is often much larger than the audience watching live. You can deliver this video via YouTube or other video sharing site, embed it on your web site or blog or even sell it on DVD to those who might want to own a physical copy.

Do you want to learn more about live video streaming and how to get it working for your event? Add your comments here or email me at me@douglasewelch.com to set up a phone or in-person consult.

Remember, allow yourself plenty of time before your first event so you aren’t struggling with the technology while also trying to organize your event.

What do you need to live video stream your event? is a post from Careers in New Media and Podcasting

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Recently, both Foursquare and Google Places (originally Google Local) have opened up a new selection of services for business owners. You can now “claim” your business, your store, your venue and control the information that is shared via Foursquare check-ins, Google Search and Google Maps. Location is destined to be the next big thing, so organizing your own piece of location “real estate” could pay big benefits in the future.

How to claim your Googles Places listing?

• Visit http://places.google.com and login with your Google Account
• Click Add Listing
• Enter in your business information
• Google will perform a search looking for an existing business in your location
• Select your business and Click “Claim Listing” or, if your business was not found, select “Add Listing”
• Complete the questionnaire regarding location, hours and more and click “Submit”
• You will then be asked to verify your listing by phone or mail. I used the automated mail system to verify my listing in about 2 minutes.
• Now your Google Places listing will include  the label “Owner-verified listing”
• If you perform this verification first, you can use your Google Places page to verify your Foursquare venue in the next step

How to become a manager of a Foursquare Venue

• Visit http://foursquare.com
• Search for your business or venue
• If found, click the link “Are you the manager of this business?”
• Step through the 2 steps, using your Google Places URL, Yelp URL and others to verify your “ownership” of the Foursquare venue.
• As of yet, my Foursquare registration has not been confirmed or denied, but they also don’t list a timeline for confirmation of that registration.

Any questions? Drop a comment using the link above and I will offer whatever information I can.

Claim your business online with Foursquare and Google Places is a post from Careers in New Media and Podcasting

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