Blog Tech Guy

For those looking to add a little spice to some photos on their blog, there’s a great new video tool called Animoto. The website allows you to upload photos (or import from Facebook, SmugMug, Picasa or Flickr), say from your latest company conference, add music from a pre-selected list or import your own mp3. It then goes away and creates a unique video based on the photos and music. See below for an example:

You can create unlimited 30 second videos for free (Animoto Shorts), or extended length (and downloadable) ones for $3 each or $30 for a year (or $25 with this code: tlobsvqg), and I almost guarantee you’ll sign up for one of the options when you see the results! Short video creation can take about 10 minutes, and if you’re not happy with the results you can just press Remix, and as no two videos are the same you’ll get something else. Give it a try for free.

If you’re interested in video, as a free gift to all my newsletter subscribers, you can now get the Ultimate Guide to Online Video for free! A 45 page report looking at 61 different video sharing and video editing sites, this is yours if you sign up to my newsletter.

[Via: Brendon over at Tailored Consulting]

Become A Blogger has launched with a series of free videos on how to become a blogger. Devised by Yaro Starak, the entrepreneur from Australia who currently teaches people how to make a full time income from blogging part time through his Blog Mastermind mentoring program. Plus once you’ve watched these you can download his great free report Blog Profits Blueprint to put you on the path to becoming a full or part time professional blogger.

So what videos are there?
Video 1 - Why You Should Use WordPress
Video 2 - How To Get Your Own Domain Name
Video 3 - How To Get A Web Host Video
Video 4 - How To Install WordPress With One Click
Video 5 - How To Upload Files To Your Webhost Using FTP
Video 6 - Choosing A WordPress Theme For Your New Blog
Video 7 - How To Install And Use WordPress Plugins
Video 8 - How To Create Your First Blog Post And Blog Page
Video 9 - What RSS Is And Why You Need It
Video 10 - How To Use Feedburner For Supercharging Your RSS Capabilities

Whilst some of the technical parts are explained in the videos, one of the main points Yaro mentions is to outsource the technical aspect of blogging if that is not your strong point. Ahem, let me know if this is you . In fact he says:

“In the long run it’s definitely a smarter tactic, something I wish I did myself from day one, but instead I decided to struggle with technology myself and thus slow my progress down considerably.”
Source: Entrepreneurs-journey.com

Blog Tech Guy is designed just for that, so you can concentrate on making money from your blog!

If you’re thinking (and you should be) of using video in your blog, how do you decide which of the many video sharing sites to use?

Life Goggles have produced the Ultimate Guide to Online Video. This consists of the Video Quality Comparison page, Video Comparison Matrix and Free Video Sharing eBook.

They have reviewed 55 of the major video sharing websites (with a brief look at 4 video editing sites) and rated them for quality, and ease of use. What BigBrainBoy called “easily the most useful thing we’ve seen online in a long time“.

So far they’ve looked at (in alphabetical order):
AOL Uncut, Blip, Break, Brightcove, Clesh, Cuts, Dabble, Daily Motion, Dave.tv, DivX Stage 6, eefoof (VuMe), Eyeka, Eyespot, Fliqz, FlixYa, Forscene, Google Video, Gotuit, Grouper, iFilm, JayCut, Jumpcut, Kewego, LiveVideo, Lycos Mix, Metacafe, Mojiti, MotionBox, MyHeavy, MyNumo, MySpaceTV, Ning, OneTrueMedia, Photobucket, Revver, SevenLoad, Soapbox, Spymac, StashSpace, Sumo, Twango, Veoh, Viddler, Vidilife, Vimeo, Vmix, VodPod, Vsocial, Webshots, Yahoo Video, YouAreTV, YouTube, Yurth, Zeec and Ziddio. If you wish to be added to this list, please comment or contact us here.

There are three parts to the guide:

Video Quality Comparison

The video comparison page currently compares the video quality of 51 of the most popular video sharing sites.

Video Comparison Matrix

The Online Video Comparison Matrix quickly allows you to see what features are offered by each of the 55 video sharing and editing sites and what rating they have given them for various aspects of their service.

Free Ultimate Guide to Online Video eBook

The various online reviews and ratings have been gathered together into a Free Ultimate Guide to Online Video eBook that is available for all to download. The guide:

• Quickly looks at the registration process
• Simply compares their ease of uploading your own content
• Looks at the quality of the video
• Rates the services of 50 of the top video sharing websites
• Is FREE!

More video sites are currently being added, so check back for the latest version. To be alerted when another version is released please subscribe to their RSS feed or weekly email updates.

Praise for The Ultimate Guide to Online Video

“Easily the most useful thing we’ve seen online in a long time.” - BigBrainBoy

“A well-written how-to.” - Bnox

“An extremely handy comparison.” - Art-For-Hire

“If you want to put your videos online and quality is an issue, you should definitely check it out.” - Download Squad

“While starting a online video company your guide to online video was really The Ultimate Guide” - JayCut

“An interesting comparison.” - Da Vinci Planet

“Good guides/reviews on a number of different video hosting sites…. worth a look.” - EyeSpyFX

“Here’s something real interesting.” - Inside Google

“A nice comparison page.” - WebZappr