- News organizations are moving away from video reporting--on TV, at least. That may sound counterintuitive, but American network TV and CNN in particular is broadcasting dramatically less video, according to analysis by the Project for Excellence in Journalism. The increase of talk TV, budget cuts and other factors are cited. Local TV news, on the other hand, is expanding and changing to include a wider range of features.
- Brush up your video reporting skills: Want to teach your team good video reporting skills? Check out aimfortheheart.com, which offers online tutorials in reporting of all kinds, with lots of resources.
- Scribe or transcribe? Video scribing's a clever way to keep viewers engaged in a field crowded with options (see the sample below). And since video doesn't help search engines find your content on its own, you might want to learn how to transcribe audio or video into text.
- Video chat comes into its own: Google+ hangouts are now integrated with YouTube for its live streaming--both are owned by Google--in aid of making video-watching more social. Up to 10 people in a Google+ hangout can watch a video simultaneously, and some users are getting creative and linking one hangout to another to include more viewers. If you're a frequent Skyper or Google+ hangout user, check out this Lifehacker article on getting better quality out of your video chat, useful for those of you who are recording interviews or joining speaker panels remotely in this way. Learning and engaging online in this way is just getting bigger and bigger; one online course at Stanford that incorporates video lessons has attracted 58,000 students around the world.
- Don't forget transparency: ConAgra surprised some bloggers by inviting them to a restaurant meal at which they were served frozen lasagna from one of the company's brands--and secretly recorded on video. No surprise here: This backfired in a big way. Consider this your back-pocket cautionary tale in case someone suggests this at your shop.
- Edit videos inside YouTube: Where's the *finally!* button when you need it? YouTube now allows you to edit videos while you're in the site--look for the "Edit Video" button either on the page where your video is posted or your "My Videos" page. You've got lots of options, including rotating, cutting and using filters provided by Picnik, the same visual editing suite that's built into Blogger. What caught my eye: In the company's statements, they noted the "unpolished" nature of many posted videos, a sign that quality matters to the site. See the video below to learn more:
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