The Oxbow World Longboard Tour came to town last week, And Webconsuls was there to cover the show. Surf legends and 44 of the worlds top longboard surfers were treated to hot and glassy surf for the entire contest. This year the event was located on the historic Surf Beach at San Onofre, the heart of Aloha on the US mainland. The winner, Bonga Perkins, was kind enough to sit down and answer all of the tough questions for our littlest interviewer. For more from the Oxbow World Tour 2008 San Onofre Championships please visit, LBChampionship.com. Video By Ella G. McClure, Questions By Ella G. McClure
For help with getting your live event on the internet, Via Blogs, Youtube, Twitter, and other social media venues please contact us here at Webconsuls.
I may be stating the obvious here, but I don't think so. YouTube is not just a video sharing website as described in Wikipedia. YouTube is a video search engine built with Web 2.0 social functions.
YouTube has a search function and YouTube is being searched by people to find entertainment as well as information. How you title, tag and list your video helps you place for different search terms. YouTube's Web 2.0 functions make it natural and easy to share your video with your social sites and the star rating encourages quick feedback from viewers.
As a searcher I have actually started to go directly to YouTube to find information. I have found this very helpful in the "how to" department. A query for just "how to" on YouTube returns millions of results. The number and variety of "how to's" will amaze you. I especially like the list of related videos offered up with each result allowing me to browse related topics I may not have thought to search on.
Just looking at the search numbers at YouTube will convince you of the wide variety of viewers turning to YouTube as people once turned solely to web search. If you haven't tried YouTube as a search engine I would highly recommend bookmarking this one or entering it as the home page for one of your internet browsers so it is ready to go when you are ready to search.
YouTube is definitely where the conversation is taking place. If you weren't around for the CNN-YouTube Presidential Debates take a look at this Wikipedia article on how YouTube was used to collect questions for the candidates in the CNN televised debates.
Take a look at YouTube for "how to's" related to your niche or specialty. Are there places to become part of the conversation. Do you have a "how to" to add or comment on?
Music is a universal language, it has no boundaries - no limits. When we find ourself in trouble or heartache the only thing that can make us happy is music. I live for music and my music lives through me, it is how I communicate with myself and others.
In the past the only way people could experience their music is with their ears, the only bands with music videos were big and commercialized. Digital Video Cameras and YouTube have allowed musicians to share their music across the spectrum. Everyone with a computer or an IPhone have the ability to watch and listen to your art. Flip cameras are a dream come true when it comes to sharing the experience of music. You can record a video and instantly upload it from your camera to a computer and spread it across the universe via YouTube and Google Video. The band that I am in has taken full advantage of Flip Cameras to help us share our music with the world. The image quality, as well as sound, is amazing!
Anybody who has a message, musical or not, has the ability to share it now. Flip cameras help musicians as well as businesses spread their word online like never before. Here are a couple examples of Flip videos:
You can write great text for your website and the search engines will crawl your site. Hopefully the search engines will like your text, consider it new and unique, but the bottom line is when the human being clicks on your site they usually look at the photos or videos first. Why is this? To my way of thinking it is human nature. We are looking for a connection and our brains focus first on photos and videos. It is a quicker connection. Viewing a photo about a product or service is sometimes easier than taking the time to read. The photo to the left was taken on 9/5/08 at 7:00AM. By 10:00AM the flower had closed, never to reopen again. I could write an essay about this cactus, but the image tells you all you need to know. One moment in time!
Let's face it, we use photos and videos throughout our daily life. When tragedy strikes some of the first items that people will try to save are their photos and videos. The photos and videos help to validate one's heritage and existence. This phenomenon might explain why those of us who grew up being filmed by our parents using a Bell & Howell 8mm now spend an excessive amount of time and money to have these old films converted to DVDs. And so it is when you use photos and videos on your website. The site and the services/products become tangible.
For almost ten years Webconsuls has worked with their clients to provide original photos that can tell the story. Furthermore, we sometimes were given videos or slide shows to work with; however, this medium was in its infancy stage on the internet. Enter Google videos and YouTube.
In a recent article from Site Pro News, Randy Zlobec states, "On YouTube alone (which accounts for more than ninety-eight percent of the videos viewed via Google), more than eighty-two million people watched over four billion videos last year. That makes YouTube both the top video sharing site and the top video search engine. YouTube receives as much as thirteen hours of new user-submitted video every minute, and more than fifty percent of the people watching videos online share links with other people. So, getting a good YouTube ranking could be an important way to bring people to your site."
If you are interested in having Webconsuls create a video for your site, remember this can be accomplished by using still photos. We invite you to look at two samples: Saco River Canoe & Kayak's Fall Color on the Saco River (this video also provides closed captions) or Cottonwood de Tucson's Equine Therapy for Addiction Recovery (this video includes original music specifically written for the video).
Check back next week for a short discussion on editing!
The Internet today offers several avenues for exposure beyond traditional Search Engine Optimization. Working in concert with a firm that has expertise in these avenues can increase visibility, search engine rankings, and business. These avenues are often considered part of Social Marketing.
One is to use the Internet to publish articles. You write the article and your web development company publishes it on a myriad of Internet sites. Well written and interesting articles can not only get wide circulation, but enhance your reputation as well.
A second way is to use blogs. The web development company would set up the blog and you regularly add content. Done correctly, the blog pages that you add would get wide and fast circulation.
You might consider adding video content to your site. Relatively inexpensive equipment is available to take acceptable videos. You may already have suitable equipment. Well done videos are interesting content which can be publicized them on the Internet. There is also much less competition for videos. For one client's main keyword there were over 750,000 pages indexed by Google, and less that 175 videos.
Webconsuls, LLC We are a web site development company with expertise and experience in designing and building web sites, in Search Engine Optimization, and in Social Marketing.
There is a world out there, more of a world. With the push of a button, a million possibilities await you; this Utopia is smaller than a note card, and lives inside your pocket. The new IPhone is the cutting edge of technology, the Alpha y Omega; there are many instruments that try to compete and at the surface appear to be similar, but with a little investigation you find something quite unique.
Your music, photos, and email accessible with a touch-screen, is only the tip of the iceberg; real time GPS and any kind of application you could think of, with more to come. The question is not what your IPhone can do? Rather, what can your IPhone not do? Having the ability to manage your social media real time makes social media more universal. Millions of web sites have and are making their pages IPhone friendly; companies have become aware of the implications and the potential of this virtual treasure chest. Wake up on time, plan your day, work from anywhere, and do all of this while listening to your favorite tunes! On a daily basis I find something new and exciting regarding the capabilities of this hand held computer. I am experiencing the joy of this product, like no other gadget I have ever had; at times the excitement can be too much to handle.
I can still remember: my first desktop, my first laptop, my first Discman, and my first IPod. The desktops were bulky and slow and were inefficient; speed got better, but what about size? Laptops made up for the size problem, and for a time satisfied your needs; but you could never fit your laptop into a pocket. Discmans made sound mobile, but they skipped and you had to carry all your cds with you wherever you went. IPods held all the music you wanted and could fit into a pocket, but in a pocket already containing: car keys, cell phones, palm pilots, and whatever else one carries with them daily. Was all the clutter convenient?
It seems like so long ago that I started this technological ride into the future. I felt like I was on the brink of something amazing taking place; with every year that passed, the horizon became closer. The anticipation of a new gadget that would make my computer more universal, faster, and a little better was what I dreamed about. The release of the IPod was the pinnacle of technology when it came to media; first with music and recording, and then with video. I was satisfied beyond belief with IPod, and wondered where Apple could go next with this device? A phone? An IPhone?
With the advent of the IPhone it became very clear that the sky was the limit. You could now manage your whole life with this masterpiece; from organizing your media, all the way to managing your business, work and play had truly become One. Isnt that what life is about? The freedom to accomplish your needs from wherever you exist at any given moment; especially in this fast paced world, a world where every second counts, when he who arrives first gets the prize. The plot has been set, the characters are in their right places; I welcome you to the climax, enjoy!
A while back, I read a very interesting book that compared life to a train ride or a series of train rides.
Life is like a train ride it read. We get on, we ride, we get off. We get back on and ride some more. There are accidents and there are delays. At certain stops there are surprises. Some of these will translate into great moments of joy, some will result in profound sorrow.
When we are born we first board the train, we meet people whom we think will be with us for the entire journey. Those people are our parents.
Sadly this is far from the truth, Our parents are with us for as long as we absolutely need them. They too have journeys they must complete . We live on with the memories of their love, affection, friendship, guidance and their ever presence.
There are others who board the train who eventually become very important to us in turn. Those people are our brothers, sisters, friends and acquaintances whom we will learn to love and cherish.
Some people consider their journey like a jaunty tour. They will just go merrily along. Others will encounter many upsets, tears, losses on their journey. Others still, will linger on to offer a helping hand to anyone in need.
Some people on the train will leave an everlasting impression when they get off. Some will get on and get off the train so quickly, they will scarcely leave a sign that they ever traveled along with you or ever crossed your path...
We will sometimes be upset that some passengers whom we love, will choose to sit in another compartment and leave us to travel on our own. Then again, there is nothing that says we cant seek them out anyway. Nevertheless, once sought out and found, we may not even be able to sit next to them because that seat will already be taken.
That's okay everyone's journey will be filled with hopes, dreams, challenges, setbacks and goodbyes.
We must strive to make the best of it no matter what...
We must constantly strive to understand out travel companions and look for the best in everyone.
Remember that at any moment during our journey, any one of our travel companions can have a weak moment and be in need of our help.
We too may vacillate, or hesitate every trip hopefully we can count on someone being there to be supportive and understanding.
The bigger mystery of our journey is that we don't know when our last stop will come. Neither do we know when our travel companions will make their last stop Not even those sitting in the seat next to us.
I know I will be sad to make my final stop. My separation from all those friends and acquaintances I made during the train ride will be painful. Leaving all those I am close to will be a sad thing. But then again, I am certain that one day I will get to the main station only to meet up with everyone else. They will all be carrying baggage…most of which they did not have when the first got on the train.
I will be glad to see them again, I will also be glad to have contributed to their baggage... and to have enriched their lives, just as much as they will have contributed to my baggage and enriched my life.
We are all on this train ride together. Above all, we should all try to strive to make the ride as pleasant and memorable as we can right up until we can make the final stop and the leave the train for the last time...
Surfwise Sneak Preview Tonight, May 7th on HD.net, at 6 PM PT, with an encore at 9 PM PT.
Surfwise follows the odyssey of 85-year-old, legendary surfer Dr. Dorian "Doc" Paskowitz, his wife Juliette, and their nine children - all of whom were home-schooled on the beaches of Southern California, Hawaii, Mexico and Israel; they surfed every day of their lives, and were forced to adhere to a strict diet and lifestyle of animals in the wild, by their passionate and demanding, health-conscious father.
Set to "I have a fast connection. Always play higher-quality video when it's available."
And click save.
Above is a short video we put together for Saco River Canoe & Kayak Adventures trips in New Hampshire & Maine's White Mountains, notice how much better the higher quality version looks?
Dallas Taylor the drummer for Crosby Stills Nash & Young was kind enough to have Webconsuls come visit and take some video with our new "Flip" video camera. 6 min, 1 take, Dallas is a true professional.
Whether your YouTube video has 10 views or 10,000,000, people always want to know the same thing: who's watching this? Where do viewers come from? How did they find my video?
Finally, Youtube has some answers. Today there are releasing YouTube Insight, a free tool that enables anyone with a YouTube account to view detailed statistics about the videos that they have uploaded. For example, uploaders can see how often their videos are viewed in different geographic regions, as well as how popular they are relative to all videos in that market over a given period of time. You can also delve deeper into the lifecycle of your videos, like how long it takes for a video to become popular, and what happens to video views as popularity peaks.
How does this help you? Well, using these metrics, you can increase your videos' view counts and improve your popularity on the site. For instance, you might learn that your videos are most popular on Wednesdays, that you have a huge following in Spain, or that new videos that play off previous content become more popular more quickly. With this information, you can concentrate on creating compelling new content that appeals to your target audiences, and post these videos on days you know these viewers are on the site. (Maybe even post your next video in Spanish?) And for those of you who are also partners, the more popular a video is, the more advertising revenue it can generate.
Youtube will be making new features and additional information available fairly quickly -- like a specific breakdown of how viewers discovered the video -- so keep an eye out as they roll out new features. As for now, you can find currently available metrics by clicking under the "About this Video" button under "My account > Videos, Favorites, Playlists > Manage my Videos." The YouTube Team
For all you visual learners who want to add features to your blog, but don't have the patience to browse bloggers help articles, we've created the new Blogger Help YouTube Channel. There you can find videos that show you step by step how to use Blogger features.
There are only a few videos at the moment, and we've decided to start with the basics:
In the coming months they will be adding more videos. If you have a suggestion for a video you'd like to see, let them know by posting in the Help Group. In addition, you can give feedback on each video's comment form. They are always trying to find new and better ways to help us use Blogger and they appreciate our feedback - thanks!
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