“Video Blogging” is a book that gives practical and detailed instructions about developing a video-based blog, appropriate for both beginning and experienced video bloggers.

Video Podcasting, Vlogging, Vidcasting, Vodcasting, and What it All Means…

“Video Blogging” opens with a detailed introduction that breaks down the mindset of what videoblogging is all about, and why someone would do this. Reasons are numerous: connecting with family and friends, promoting business, sharing homemade movies and shows, etc.

In the recent past, video distribution could only be done locally, such as by television stations, network cable or Hollywood films. Now with internet and high-speed connections, video can be freely (and easily) shared and distributed globally via video blogging.

While reading through this I found the text to be very open in style, that someone new to the process, as well as someone with experience and background in videoblogging, could equally benefit from this material.

Video Blog Preproduction

The first section of the book delves into the big picture of what video blogging is all about, and gives some samples of videoblog directories. What I like about this book is the inclusion of sample interviews with successful video bloggers in the industry, as well as plenty of screenshots of current video blogs.

The text addresses the phenomena of “viral videos”, or those lucky folks who win the lottery with their video and have it distributed around the world to hundreds of thousands of folks (Could be a good thing, and could also be colossally embarrassing, depending on the content of the video.)

Cameras and Blog Creation

Following the introduction, the text then offers a guide to selecting Webcams to use, in terms of quality and price. Helpful tips on video lighting, editing, and computer specifications are also included.

Also covered are detailed steps on starting a free web blog, including helpful screenprints of the steps to create a blog. Personally speaking, when I read through a techy book, screenshots are very valuable in conjunction with following setup steps and the book provides plenty through each section.

Production Tips and Advice

The Production section of the book offers a wealth of good tips on capturing video, working with digital stills, slow-motion, and even gives detailed steps about capturing mobile video footage. Pages 54-62 even gives technically detailed Perl code samples for parsing an email message to receive text, images, audio and video from it.

Chapter 5 covers some of the details of “screencasting”, or capturing a computer screen while it’s being used (such as for demonstrations of new software or computer games) and identifies helpful PC and Mac software that can be used for this.

Post-Production of Video for Blogs

“Video Blogging” includes an extensive section devoted to post-production details, and identifies software that can be used for editing audio and video.

Also included in this section of the book are steps detailing how to add titles and captions, and concluded with some helpful guides regarding transcoding and compression, namely converting the video format to different formats when needed. The software examples were especially helpful to me personally, since video conversion is something I’ve been working on currently with some of my films.

Distributing Your Films Online

A Comprehensive section follows that discusses distribution of films, starting with an overview of free hosting options, and includes a detailed guide to setting up Wordpress. I’ve worked with WP and know first-hand that it can be a beast to configure, so the detailed steps offered here are very valuable.

Following this the section also discusses topics such as distribution of videos with programs such as BitTorrent and Prodigem, then features an overview and description of what RSS is, followed by descriptions of free RSS2 services like FeedBurner.

Finding Videoblogs to Watch

Part V of the text breaks down ways to find and subscribe to videoblogs, and offers an analysis of sites like Mefeedia, VlogDir and Gmail, that can be used for this purpose.

This section of text also gives a handy overview of how to watch videos on your television, including setup tips (with plenty of helpful images, too.) Next are steps to customize your videoblog, all with an impressive level of granular detail.

“Pimping” Your Vlog

The final section of “Videoblogging” offers you some steps in terms of tagging your videos to make them stand out, how to let people know about your feed, tracking your video statistics and how to make money from your films (via means of Paypal and Adsense).

As a final thought, I was impressed by the comprehensive material covered in the text, and I think this stands out as an excellent guide for anyone who’s either interested in getting started with video blogging or who has been at it for awhile and needs quality video blogging reference material.

Online Reviews and Feedback About Video Blogging

The reviews I’ve seen of this book have been generally favorable. Amazon had a number of reviews, mostly positive, identifying that the book offers practical and valuable information for all experience levels.

Barnes & Nobles offered a favorable editorial review, noting how the text will offer guidance for everything from pre-production to promotion. A reviewer also noted that while there are some sections that might not apply to everyone, the book serves as a good video blogging reference guide.

Video Blogging – Prices, Deals and Discounts

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