Anticipation

Apple store down. Will we be able to buy a new iphone today?

Tick, Tock, Tick Tock.

Weapon of Choice - Xacti HD1000

Many times I am asked for recommended video and photo gear. There is a plethora of options out there but you would be hard pressed to find an easier solution for recording HD video than the Sanyo Xacti HD 1000. First of all, lets get something straight, if you want the best quality you should be looking at Canon’s line, they make incredible camcorders.

However, if you want ease of use, nearly pocket size, full hd recording, at a bargain price, look no further. Sanyo, yes Sanyo has done a great job with its xacti line by filling a niche of folks looking for portable digital recording (saving to a memory card) at an affordable price.

I hate tapes. I hate long editing jobs. I have grown to love taking short clips with my digital cameras and putting them together with simple editing tools like movie maker or imovie. This is why the next logical step up for me is a more capable memory card based camcorder.

Here are a few clips (which we took just to test it out). We have since purchased the wide angle adapter and are going to get some better campus shots filled with students for b-roll on our video projects and to feed our virtual tour pages.

In order to see it in HD you will need to visit vimeo’s site. Vimeo is a great video sharing site for hosting quality video. It does have high traffic (compared to youtube) but its embedded videos look fantastic. Actually, the one seen here is not even as nice as they can appear on your site, since wordpress is restricting the size of the video window on this site.

Pros

• nice quality HD video
• pocket size - take anywhere
• easy - flip open = turn on mechanism
• fast edit potential - easy upload
• external mic plug
• wide angle adapter available

Cons

• photo quality - sub standard
• low light performance - slow focus - focus hunting

But what about post production?

All these HD camcorders had many problems with editing when they first came out, mostly software related. Many are fixed now, including the HD1000. You can edit clip files with IMovie and Windows Movie Maker (for movie maker you only need to open in quicktime and save as “mov”, this alows movie maker to read the files). Its also important to note you can actually edit right in the camera’s built-in menu and you will be able to upload the “mp4″ file right to any video host.

The caveat: you need to record in the 720p mode. I use the 720p 60 frames per second mode. I have tried the higher resolution (1920 x 1080) and I just cannot find a program that will edit it. I am sure that video production folks have the skill to make it happen but for the amateur or enthusiast like myself, it was not working. It’s a software thing and eventually the consumer software will catch up but for now 1280 x 720 is a nice jump from standard videos and looks great online (for those with broadband and a good computer who can view it).

But even if the end product will be used in standard definition, you will get a very crisp looking picture that will rival and in some cases beat professional standard video equipment (assuming you have good lighting of course).

Lets recap, the name of my game is fast quality, portable, HD.

For this task I feel the HD1000 is a great choice. It been out for 8 months now and Canon has released memory card camcorders that I am sure are better choices for image quality but at $200-300 premium and a different, less portable form factor. As with all technology, I am sure in a few months I will have a different “weapon of choice” for quick HD video recording but for now you cannot go wrong if you want quality fast HD in your pocket.

Here are some more samples of what others have created with this little hd wonder.

Social Media - Should You Care?

I’m going to confess, I am very green on the subject of social media, to the point that I only started reading the Cluetrain Manifesto this year. By internet standards I’m a total newb. However, most of my circle of friends and colleagues are by far even more naive to the end of business as usual.

Image Credit: Scobleizer

My first real experience with the concepts of this life changing phenomenon occurred at a Higher Education E- Marketing conference hosted by Stamats last year in Chicago. I have to credit Thomas Frey of the DaVicni Institute with his presentation on ” the future of education”. He ingrained in my mind a sense wonder and a thirst for knowledge. Other presentations at the event went on to discuss how universities were using social networks and I returned to my own institution, energized and full of ideas.

But the concepts transcended my work in marketing. They pointed to what is so eloquently written in books like Cluetrain or Groundswell. Everyone knows that the only constant is change but the majority of people still do not realize just what an incredible revolution the web has made possible and how it will continue to change our culture, our habits, our lives.

So should you care as a marketer? Damn straight you should care. How much? That is dictated by your customers and the product or service you are selling. In higher ed, its a no-brainer.

Here are a few links I found very informative:

How To: Effectively Talk to Execs and Clients about Social Media - This one is of great importance to me since many times, talking to folks that do not use social media is a real challenge.

Is Social Media Marketing Right For You? - A good recent post on the subject.

The Press Release is Dead: How Web 2.0 Could Save PR and Marketing - and of course there is the social media press release developed by shift communications.

Facebook Page direct links now work without logging in?

We developed a facebook page a couple of months ago and were frustrated when trying to tell people about it since you had to be logged in to view it.

Something has recently changed and it may have happened with the release of this note on April 21.

How to Promote your Page off Facebook

1:09pm Monday, Apr 21

While Social Ads are effective at driving word-of-mouth marketing for your Facebook Page on the site, we also recommend promoting your Page on your own website externally to help spread the word to new customers and fans. When promoting your Page off Facebook, encourage your customers to show their support by visiting your Page and clicking the “Become a Fan” link in the upper right-hand corner.You can download a “Find us on Facebook” badge to promote your Facebook Page from the link below.

If you’re running promotions for your fans on Facebook, don’t forget to mention the promos on your receipts, tickets, menu, and website.

Whatever the case, I can now link directly to our FIU Facebook page and people can see it without loggin in. Just thought I would let everyone know.

If your institution has a page, post a link in the comments. I would love to compare and get some other perspectives

WordPress + Issuu = Online Magazine Solution

Challenge: Get our print magazine online fast without sacrificing the quality of the design and making sure that the articles are searchable and available to blogs and other social media as soon as the print version hits subscribers.

Solution: Using wordpress and issuu.com, we have developed a work flow that allows us to get our print publication online as fast as possible with the least amount of manual input and errors, requiring a much shorter approval process.

We had gone through many different iterations of the magazine online, very evident when you look at the archives. The problem was always that each one was created as a mini-site and the text was taken from the PDF file, requiring massive amount of re-editing and formatting to get into html. This in turn created a lengthy approval process with the editor and designer, making the entire production last well over 3-4 weeks, start to finish. By then the articles were stale and no one cared, in fact a few magazines never made it online.

We are now creating 2 versions of the magazine online in a matter of 2-3 days. Issuu.com hosts the flash version (simply upload a PDF) and the wordpress driven site is used to post the articles. The posted articles allow search engines to hit our stories and the flash version allows users the option to view them as they were originally designed. Bonus: Issuu.com is also becoming a a popular destination and by virtue of our magazine being there it is also getting increased exposure at no cost. The articles are also searchable on issuu.com’s search function.

Here is a bit more detail on the workflow:

Using Issuu.com to host a flash version

1. Designer exports to PDF (version 1.5)
2. Upload PDF to issuu.com account and check for errors
3. Make note of pages with errors and pull the PDF down again, to avoid it being bookmarked or viewed with errors (you may also create a separate account for this). Note: you will not be able to see the errors in the PDF, it is in the conversion to flash that they show up.
4. Open pages with problems in photoshop and make a PDF of the page with problem alone, essentially making the page an image. (there may be a better way to fix the errors but we have not found it)
5. Insert these pages back into your original PDF, replacing the pages which contained the errors. (there may be a better way to fix the errors but we have not found it)

Using WordPress software to post articles

1. Designer exports publication document (we are suing In Design), creating “rtf” files. (Note: if the design file is tagged correctly there will be less files and less confusion when opening these.)
2. These files can then be easily copied into the wordpress system (using the “paste from word” options with little to no formatting needed. It is best to have someone work on this with hard copy as a guide.
3. For feature articles, we include a direct link to the flash version of the page with the feature. (but users can view the whole magazine in that format as well).

Alternates:

We were not the first to use issuu in this manner. Red Country magazine embeds the issuu reader right into their page. I like this presentation and we may incorporate this in the next update. Just FYI, I do not read Red Country, it was sent to me as an example by issuu.