review Archives - Page 35 of 35

First Video Blog : Reviewing the Pure Digital Flip From a Vocano

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I don’t shoot much video, and the video I do capture is not of me when I can help it, but let’s face it. Video is taking over the web to a degree and I would be denying a new market opportunity if I didn’t at least poke at some online video. After some urging from Jim Kukral, I bought myself a Pure Digital Flip video camera and then headed to Jim’s site, OnlineVideoToolKit.com for some video tips. The video below is the the result of a Saturday out playing with my new toy. (Please look past my scratchy voice, shaky hand, and inability to remember where I am at any given time)

Having watched the video, it’s clear that I figured out a couple transitions and how to put the videos together with Microsoft Movie Maker, but I could use some practice handling the camera. Despite my clumsy newbie ways with a video camera, I managed to come up with something not too catastrophic, and that’s a testament to the Flip. So what’s my verdict? Let’s just break it down to the pros and the cons…

Pros
– Small and very light weight
– Much better video than I get with my still camera’s video recording
– Super fast to get going
– Super fast to get the video on my computer
– Cheap and easy video publishing solution

Cons
– Where’s the threaded tripod mount? (design flaw in my older version, it seems)
– Non-upgradeable memory
– USB interface is a bit clumsy without a cable

I bought the cheap version just to play around without putting a lot of money on the line. I spent about $72 (shipped) to buy mine on ebay. If you’re thinking about getting one, spend the extra money and get a 1GB or 2GB model, tripod-ready, with the extra features. Either way, I’m still pretty happy with it since I won’t need that much memory and the tripod and cable issues are easily fixed.

Now that I’ve jumped on the video band wagon for a test run, should I pack the camera (and my video blogging aspirations) into a box and hide it in my closet, or would you like to see more video blogs on JoeTech.com? Drop your thoughts in the comments area or post a video response on YouTube.

Twitter, a Review, an Interview, and Other Updates

A lot has been going on, so I thought I’d give a little update.

Twitter – My new time consumer
I’ve been sucked in to Twitter. I got sucked into MySpace, FaceBook, and everything else, and now Twitter has sucked me in, too. Shoe was my first follow on Twitter, but I think it was Tris who convinced me to give it a shot.

Talkin’ about Joe Tech, eh?
It’s been a busy couple weeks. XY7.com shot some video of me talking about what I hope to get out of their affiliate program for some marketing video they’re producing, Pam Hoffman of Internet Marketing Seminar Listing interviewed me online about attending Affiliate Summit West for her blog, and Bloggin-Ads.com wrote this nice review about JoeTech.com. I’m working on those changes you suggested. I promise. I’m happy to have all the attention, so feel free to drop me a line if you’ve written a review or would like an interview.

Another broken camera project
Michelle took a fall while hiking and landed on her camera, so I’m going to have another project coming up in the next week. The plan is to replace the broken screen with one from an otherwise broken camera on ebay. Should be fun.

Sites and other projects
As many of you know, I build web sites in my spare time and get traffic to them so I can sell them. I currently have a few sites for sale, so contact me if you’re interested. One earns about $100/month and has a lot more potential for someone with more time, and another has a good deal of traffic, but I haven’t had the opportunity to monetize it properly. I’m looking for about $2,000 and $500, respectively. I need to free up some time, as I am about to enter into a partnership with an existing site and it should eat up some time, building the site up to what it really should be. More on that later.

Review: NewestOnTheNet.com

NewestOnTheNet.com Logo

NewestOnTheNet.com is a blog by Fred Petersabout blogging, social media, internet marketing and any closely related topics. In Fred’s own words:

I have created Newest on the Net to provide you with the latest trends occurring in our online world. This blog was born from my love of technology and my fascination with social networking, blogging, podcasting and all the other ways the Internet is allowing humans to communicate with one another. When I was younger, I used to always think that my grandparents were so lucky to have experienced some of the greatest inventions, e.g. cars, airplanes, rockets and television. However, with the invention of the Internet I am no longer envious. The Internet is the greatest invention of our time, maybe of all time.

That alone should get you to head over there and poke around if you’re a techie and and internet junkie like me, but I agreed to a free review and “free” means I can be completely objective, with no regard to Fred’s feelings. [insert evil laugh here] Time to dig in.

NewestOnTheNet.com Page
It’s a blog, so after reading the About page (most of which I’ve copied and pasted above), I headed straight for the first post, StumbleUpon – A Bloggerâ€™s Secret Weapon, and I agreed with it before even getting past the title. StumbleUpon was, for me, a kind of mental note that got ignored. For a while, it was that social media site that I kept meaning to play with, but didn’t really see the value in it. Anyway, I’m not reviewing SU here, but let’s just say I had a moment of clarity a month or two ago and now realize the incredible value of StumbleUpon to a blogger. Fred gives a good description of StumbleUpon and why you should use it, points out where you can find him on the site (critical thinking there, Fred), follows with a 4 step guide to promoting your blog articles with the site, and finishes with more follow-up resources than you can swallow. It’s a good read and definitely bookmarkable [Shut up, Firefox spell-checker! I’m MAKING it a word]. I liked it enough to stumble it, and that’s what’s important. If you’re thinking of heading over there for this article, check out his series-starter, From Zero to 190,000 Page Views In Just 3 Months.

Moving on, I decided to read 35 Guaranteed Ways To Increase Your RSS Subscribers, the first article listed in his “Most Popular Articles” list, because the guy has 238 RSS subscribers in just a few months and I want that action, too. It had some of the typical information I’ve read several times on several blogs, but I did find a couple new tips I hadn’t seen before.

Write an article explaining what RSS is and how to subscribe to your blog. Bloggers tend to be very technologically savvy. Sometimes we forget that our readers might not know what RSS feeds are and how to use them. You should write an article on your blog explaining what RSS is so that your readers will know that subscriptions are available. Darren Rowse has a great What is RSS? page on Problogger.net. DoshDosh also has written a great example for how to tell your readers about RSS subscriptions. Also, please check out Rich Gilcrestâ€™s article describing RSS feeds.

That’s a nice idea, and I imagine it will help, but how much? Maybe I shouldn’t question the guy who has a lot more subscribers than me. Still, I have to think that this next bit was a lot more valuable, and is something I hadn’t even thought of, as simple as it is:

Use the MyBlogLog Widget. One of the best ways to increase the number of people who subscribe to you blog is to ask them to subscribe. Sometimes readers need to be encouraged or coaxed to subscribe. Maybe they arenâ€™t even thinking about subscribing or maybe they are not using an RSS Reader. By asking them to subscribe, you remind them that subscription services are available. These next few tips provide ways for you to track who is visiting your blog, so that you can send them messages requesting them to subscribe. The MyBlogLog widget allows me to track who is visiting my site. When a new MyBlogLog visitor appears in my sidebar, I click their avatar and send them a message. I typically thank them for visiting and ask them to subscribe, including a link to my RSS feed.

When I promised to review blogs, products, etc for free for anyone who asked, I was worried I’d have to start it with a scathing review, but Fred’s blog gave me a free pass. In short, he’s got subscriber #239, and I clearly have some promotional tricks to learn.