Talance Friendly Web Tools Blog » Video

Five for Monday

Talance — Mon, 07 Jun 2010 12:24:34 +0000

Honestly, who feels like delving into those voice mails and uncompleted projects this early in the week? Fill your cup of coffee and watch these five great little movies that will help polish your tech education.

What Is Drupal? from help.asu.edu on Vimeo.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) basics for Non-Profit Organizations (NPO) from Firstgiving on Vimeo.

Demo Usability Test by Steve Krug from Larmon VanWinkle on Vimeo.

History of the Internet from Melih Bilgil on Vimeo.

Why Video Content Is Important from WebDesign.com on Vimeo.

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Use Video for Awareness Campaigns

Talance — Tue, 19 May 2009 08:00:23 +0000

Video is a fabulous way to spread awareness, so think about blowing the dust off your YouTube account next time you want to drum up support for one of your organization’s programs.

International Medical Corps is an organization that’s spreading awarness of the humanitarian crisis in Darfur, and it’s been tremendously successful with thousands of views and thousands of comments.

Are you planning some kind of event or have a fund drive that you can get help for by putting online?

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Who Uses YouTube

Talance — Thu, 14 May 2009 12:44:25 +0000

Everybody knows YouTube is full of pimply 15-year-olds lip-synching to pop songs and babies who laugh funny. Right? Wrong.

Those people are all there, but there’s a different audience than you might think. Interestingly, the age breakdown is pretty even among all age groups. Surprisngly, the 55+ sector is a little bigger than the 18-and-unders, according to research from Nielson/NetRatings:

What this means is that YouTube is relevant to all kinds of people who are interested in non-profit causes, synagogues or churches. It certainly was relevant during the last election. Your people are probably already there. Are you?

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Top Five Social Networking Sites

Talance — Tue, 23 Dec 2008 17:28:07 +0000

I spend so much of my time on social networks that it’s hard for me to remember that not all nonprofits use them. But you should! Social networks, like those below, are an ideal way to create community, distribute information and learn from others. Plus, these are all free services, and free marketing is a nonprofit’s best friend.

So, as part of our end-of-the-year-top-five-blow-out, here are our five favorite social networking sites:

Facebook: We love Facebook is the community-based Pages and Groups. But we especially encourage charitable organizations to set up a Facebook Cause. This lets you easily spread the word about important issues and lets you take donations online. (See Talance on Facebook.)
MySpace: What we love about MySpace is its size. It’s the third most trafficked sites in the United States according to Alexa, so it’s a great way to make connections and send out buzz. Non-profits can use the blogs to distribute alerts and updates.
Twitter: Twitter wins our hearts because it’s so fast. This microblogging site lets people follow updates without the bulk of a blog. Nonprofits are using it in great ways – such as sending out calls for blood donations. (See Talance on Twitter.)
Flickr: Sharing photos seems innocuous enough, but there’s power in those images. We’ve seen church groups post compelling images of their missionary work and nonprofits post images of their events, which can create interest in future events.
YouTube: If photos are powerful, videos are even more so. We love the way YouTube brings images and sounds to your network. Look the Living Darfur official music video, which has received more than 2 million views. Activist Naomi Klein has created a powerful network for her Shock Doctrine. Movies are powerful things.

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Gadget Monday: Top Five Gadgets

Talance — Mon, 22 Dec 2008 19:01:33 +0000

In the giving spirit of the season, our Friendly Web Tools blog is going to close out the year with a wealth of tips for you. From now until 2009 (we’re taking a break on the 25th and 26th), we’re going to give you our top five every day, from design tips to gadgets.

Today, as it’s Gadget Monday, I’m giving you our top five gadgets. As with all gadgets featured on Gadget Monday, these meet our criteria of affordability, ease of use, practicality and ingenuity, all factors we think are vital for charitable organizations.

So, with the end of the year nigh, our top five gadgets:

1. XO. We adore the cheap, durable, energy efficient and inspired green and white laptop computer from the One Laptop Per Child project. We love it because it’s wonderfully designed and it can help change the life of children all around the world. It’s cute, rugged and has built-in wireless. In fact, it’s so great, you might want to buy one for a kid somewhere else who needs one and then buy one for a kid closer to home.

2. E-book reader. It’s a weird experience going from a book to a digital square, but once you cotton on to an e-book reader, you’ll never look back. Even if you don’t want to pay for the expensive books, you’ll still love either the Sony E-Book Reader or Amazon’s Kindle for free and paperless newspapers, magazines and a large backlog of public domain books.

3. Solio Charger. We first saw this when we volunteered at our local public radio station – they were giving it away as a premium for pledging. I’ve loved it ever since. The Solio “stores power from the sun or socket; freeing you to recharge your mobile phone, iPod and other handheld devices anywhere, anytime. A fully charged Solio will recharge the average phone up to two times, or give you up to 15 hours of MP3 music.” Green and great.

4. Zi6. We’ve reviewed the Flip Video digital recorder, but we really like Kodak’s Zi6. It’s a cheap HD (I’ve seen it for barely over $100 online) camcorder for quickly capturing video and letting you upload it to YouTube easily. Fast and fun.

5. Optoma’s Pico Projector. Earlier this year, we featured the 3M pocket projector, a gadget that makes taking PowerPoint or video presentations on the road much easier. We also like Optoma’s Pico, which is bright, incredibly portable and just shy of $400.

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Gadget Monday: Tiny Pocket Projector

Talance — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 21:48:55 +0000

Move over pens, it’s time to make room for a pocket projector. Yes, projector, not protector. The 3M Pocket Projector is a dinky $359 projector that takes the place of hyper-expensive LCD projectors that can run in the thousands.

Plug the projector into your laptop to access DVDs, presentations and photos, and project them onto your desk or wall or another blank white space. It’s definitely limited to a smaller room application in bright light – it displays around a foot across – but in a dark room, you can use it to project a much larger image on the wall.

Perfect tool for taking on the road for seminars or doing quick displays.

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STAR Opens You Tube Channel

Talance — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 14:51:53 +0000

Very nice! Our friends at STAR (Synagogues: Transformation and Renewal) have launched a new YouTube Channel to promote their programs and to aid in their ongoing quest to educate synagogues in the powers of technology.

I believe one of the tools they use to put together their web videos is the Flip camera, which I’ve mentioned here in the past.

Check it out and click Subscribe so you can receive updates from this great organization.

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Introducing … Gadget Monday

Talance — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 19:04:01 +0000

Now you can look forward to Mondays – this week marks the beginning of Gadget Mondays on the Friendly Web Tools blog. We know that the Web stuff doesn’t work unless you have the technology to make it happen, so we’ll start to cover the hardware that will make your computing life less confusing.

On this inaugural Gadget Monday: the Flip video camera.

With this ultra user-friendly gadget, converting lectures, presentations and conversations into YouTube-ready movies is a snap. Keep this little guy handy so you can record any action and turn it into a simple presentation for your constituency or colleagues who can’t be there. One client of ours is already using the Flip to create quick videos and distribute them on YouTube.

The best part? These things start at $129.99 – more manageable than you might have thought.

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