Recently Laura (pingVision's President) mentioned a screencast tool she thought might be helpful in developing video content.

Screencasting is a terrific way to engage in online demonstrations, allowing for a more engaging experience than using still shots. I have used tools like SnapZ Pro, which work quite nicely, but most tools require that you capture your screen actions, your audio, and/or your video seperately and then edit them together using something like iMovie, Adobe Premiere, Final Cut, or Avid.

Vara Software has developed a tool called ScreenFlow that melds all capture and editing into a simple-to-use software package. ScreenFlow not only captures your screen, video, and audio but during editing allows you to zoom, pan, and highlight portions of your screen in a fairly intuitive way.

Greg Knaddison took this little video of part of our crew prior to a new staff photo being shot.

I'm starting to get videos from our trip to the UK up on line. The first few are available. As I find videos I like particularly, I'll post them here.

The first is of a very very cool street performer. If you like it and want to digg it, I have it set up HERE.

I AM THRILLED.  In the old version of REVVER you could look at the click throughs vs the views of your videos.  You could use this tool to identify if a video had been hijacked by a someone syndicating your content for nefarious click-through reasons.

When Classic was shut down, those tools were gone.  Today, REVVER released a new accounting system that shows the number of views, complete views, click throughs, revenues, and more.

I discovered today that the videos in my current account have generated about 30,200 views since September of last year.  That is 5033 views per month or 167 views per day.  I'm a little floored by that and really wish that this blog generated that kind of traffic!

Today I received an email from the Joost Team to join the beta. They have created an OSX client but it has to be operated on an Intel based Mac.

Joost promises a combination of the TV experience and social networking. For example, live chat is available while you watch the content. It apparently uses a peer to peer scheme to stream content directly over a broadband connection using H.264.MPEG-4 AVC.

Installing the application was a snap. It was a quick download. It unzipped quickly. I pulled it into the Applications folder. Clicked twice on it and it launched immediately.

The creators of Kazaa and Skype have announced a partnership to create a Internet TV service called Joost.

Viacom had forced YouTube to remove all of its copyright content from the YouTube.  It has announced that it will deliver content from its various interests like MTV, VH1 and Paramount.

Joost has announced a beta program to test the Interface.  They have also announced that while it currently is Windows only, 250 Intel MacOS testers are in the process of working through a Mac version.

I've been asked many times what Web 2.0 is.

• collaboration
• communication
• connection
• sharing
• editing
• linking

None of these really explain it.  This does.

Watch the whole thing.

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I have been working on a site for the Colorado Council on the Arts providing Folk Life resources for classroom use.  Originally the project was to be a little static site--no more than 20 pages--that would have served the purpose that they needed.  However, in the last few weeks I have been working to "Drupalise" the site.

Using Drupal, I am enabling the content owners to be able to simply edit content on the site using TinyMCE once the site is set up and properly configured.  In addition, if they ultimately decide that the content ought to have a life of its own, they will be able to use forums and blogs in core to really engage teachers and students in the classroom.  If they want to add content in the future, it will be relatively simple.

A couple of weeks ago I finished updating TourWest for work. WESTAF uses its own CultureGrants Online(tm) Basic software to administer the program. I helped develop both the first version of this software many years ago and then, to rebuild it from the ground up about two years ago. It continues to be refined.

CultureGrants Online(tm) Basic has all the general tools a grants adminstrator needs to accept applications, process them, create panel books, run a panel with scoring, fund, and communicate with applicants. It also has some basic reporting tools.

What Revver Did Pt 2

Revver released a new version of its web system today. There are elements that I really like in it. It now has a dashboard for every video making it easy to get links, lift embed code, or use a combination of social networking links.

The look is a bit cleaner than the previous version, they have released a new logo, and the upload page is a bit easier to use (though I really liked the desktop upload tool in the beta).

Currently it looks like the accounting features are a little fritzy, but I'm sure that that will be cleared up soon.

Not only did they release a new version of the site, but they also paid me! To celebrate, I uploaded four new videos from Vancouver.

Thanks Revver!

What Revver Did Pt 2