At BlogOrlando I created several video blog (vlog) entries via YouTube using the Flip camera. After seeing me with the mini-camcorder, Extraface Blogger Dave Coustan asked me to share some of my experiences and review the Flip.
The Flip is really neat. It’s compact with a user interface made for Luddites like me. For example, there are not too many buttons, and the camera seems to automatically adjust its clarity.. a big plus for a guy like me who has no video or photography training. Amateur video suddenly becomes easy with the Flip.
Even better, editing and uploading video is pretty easy, too, via the USB port, and tools like Windows Movie Maker 2.6 and YouTube. This allows me to easily create video blog (vlog) entries for the Buzz Bin and Now Is Gone.
Vlog entries are easier to create than regular entries, particularly when I am out speaking or engaging with blogerati types. For example, late on Wednesday I created this mini vlog interview with Valeria Maltoni, CC Chapman and Doug Meacham.
Vlogging is a great way to diversify your content, engage in new forms of social media, and provide readers more insights into the organization. Video has great potential to become even more powerful than traditional marketing (as outlined in Chapter Five of Now Is Gone), and at bare minimum livens up blogs that are mired in text.
And the popular Flip provides a low cost entry point to begin experimenting with vlogging. In the future, if my interest in vlogging continues to wax, I may buy a more expensive camera and engage in some training. But for now, this seems to work just fine.