ShowMeDo Blog

I’m pleased to say that we’re clarifying our message for our professional screencasting services on our ShowMeDo Services website.

We know now that one of our clear advantages is that we have great expertise at making screencasts for product demonstrations, marketing and technical support. I have changed the format of our Services page to make this clearer.

We have also rolled out the first version of our statistics reporting service. We can report the number of plays and finishes that a video has every day.

I don’t know of any other site that reports the number of times that a video is fully-played - this information is hugely useful when optimising a video’s content and its display on a page. Screenshots of this will follow.

Dai just keeps on adding more great Scribus tutorial videos to the site.  Heathenx has joined us and is building up a great set of Inkscape tutorial videos in the Graphics section (e.g. this one on creating a globe in Inkscape).

Gasto is our newest author and he has started work on a C video tutorial series which begins with a study skills for (C) programmers episode.

Our authors frequent our ShowMeDo Google Group where we discuss new videos and features that ShowMeDo needs - do feel free to join us and share your thoughts.

Side note - if you’re interested in Professional Screencast Production then do see our ShowMeDo Services website, our experience building tutorial videos for ShowMeDo means that we are very experienced with screencasting.  We can create walk-throughs to show your users how to use your website and software, technical support guides and training material.  Just get in contact and tell us what you need.

Interestingly I’m getting some public interest now for professional screencast production via our ShowMeDo Services site. (please see ProCasts, this replaces ShowMeDo’s Services arm).

People seem to be coming through from google with terms like ’screencasting service’ and ’screencast production’ and given the evidence from ShowMeDo that I can produce clear and informative screencasts - we’re getting requests for production.  This is great and rather unexpected - woot!

Cliff Jenkins at Yoolaa has created his first screencast under our professional screencast production arm.

Now that their new website is ready Cliff has plans to create a whole set of marketing screencasts and also educational screencasts to communicate their message more effectively.

The title for the first video is ‘More moolaa with yoolaa‘. In Cliff’s words:

“it talks about how you get your customer to pay you earlier, indeed getting 87% of your customers to pay you by the ‘due date.’”

Yoolaa is a local Brighton company, in the past they’ve been associated with the Sussex Innovation Centre.

Last week we revamped our ShowMeDo Services website with a new look. This is the first time that I’m working with a graphic designer and I have to say that I’m very impressed with the result

Jo and I spent time discussing the main point of the site - it is to give people confidence that we do more than just run ShowMeDo.com and to tell them about our services.

On the site I link to 3 case studies (PasPic, Kwiqq, Apex Auctions) - one for screencasting and two for real-world video.  We also have a costs page which details our screencasting service and hosting plans.

Soon I’ll also be able to demo our lead-generator form which is shown at the end of a video. It is used to hold a viewer’s attention and turning them into a prospective customer.

I have also covered our new Services site on my personal blog where I talk a bit more about professional screencast production.

Digg.com, the hugely popular social news site, has just released a screencast which demonstrates Digg’s latest features (original blog link).

Strangely they have chosen to use Flash version 8 which isn’t available on many Linux machines (losing them a portion of their audience) though the screencast works fine on Windows and Mac machines.

In 3 minutes they cover a range of new features at Digg which educate the viewer on how to share and favourite the news stories and shows them how to customise their user profile.

Add Streaming Video To Your Company Website?

We help you to add streaming video and screencasts to your company website.

For 2 years our public ShowMeDo.com has streamed a Terabyte of high-quality tutorial videos every month to a global audience. During that time we have been providing a managed service for companies who wish to demonstrate their products and services to their users.

Contact us to learn how streaming video can generate sales leads and reduce your technical-support burden.

This comScore study (June 2007) discusses the rise in use of streaming video in the UK:

“The report shows that 80% of Internet users in the UK stream video, and that the average Briton initiated 80 streams in the month of April”

This study also stated that 76% of US users watched video online. This statement is backed up by a more recent survey (September 2007) by MacWorld:

“In July, almost 75 percent of U.S. Internet users watched videos online, up from 71.4 percent in March, according to comScore Networks.”

The second study is further discussed on Slashdot.

Add Streaming Video To Your Company Website?

We help you to add streaming video and screencasts to your company website.

For 2 years our public ShowMeDo.com has streamed a Terabyte of high-quality tutorial videos every month to a global audience. During that time we have been providing a managed service for companies who wish to demonstrate their products and services to their users.

Contact us to learn how streaming video can generate sales leads and reduce your technical-support burden.

[Update - Amazon adds video of products]

eXpansys sells mobile phone and wireless devices in the UK, I’ve been using them for years and can’t recommend them enough. I noticed last week that they link to YouTube videos which show their products in-use by a ‘normal person’.

You can see it here for this Dell Stowaway Bluetooth Keyboard - they have linked to two user-generated YouTube videos.

The first is 3 minutes long and shows the user connecting a Nokia n95 to the keyboard and typing. The second is almost 10 minutes long and has a different user unpacking his new N800 along with the Dell keyboard. He walks through unpacking his freshly-delivered box and talks about each item.

How could they improve?

Really eXpansys should comment on what’s shown in the video (who wants to watch 10 minutes of irrelevant content?) - the first is useful, the second is pretty weak.

eXpansys have made a great start by showing user-generated content which they have filtered. This content however needs to be more relevant to the viewer - a proper guide to connecting and using the keyboard would be invaluable.

If a prospective purchaser could see how easy it is to get started with this keyboard then one of their mental barriers to purchasing the item would be removed.

When talking with a prospective client about adding video to their site this is exactly the sort of conversation we encourage - it is essential to consider the needs of the user when talking about video.

Amazon has added video to their product page for Fifa 08 on a Wii, the video shows elements of the game in-action. I’ll guess that they’re adding video to give you an idea of the experience to back-up their text-only descriptions and user-reviews.

Add Streaming Video To Your Company Website?

We help you to add streaming video and screencasts to your company website.

For 2 years our public ShowMeDo.com has streamed a Terabyte of high-quality tutorial videos every month to a global audience. During that time we have been providing a managed service for companies who wish to demonstrate their products and services to their users.

Contact us to learn how streaming video can generate sales leads and reduce your technical-support burden.

IBM are now using streaming video to show you how to install a memory upgrade inside your laptop. The video is for the Thinkpad X40 or X41.

Memory installation on a laptop is often a difficult job - it is nice to see IBM take the time to show a video (along with a text description for the partially-sighted or deaf) of the process. I’d have thought that anyone who is comfortable using a screwdriver will be able to follow this video and install their upgrade with confidence.

The video is crisp but has rather small dimensions (5cm * 4cm on my screen) - it does however show you all that you need. The author shows you how to insert the DIMM at the correct angle, pressing it gently into place, and then re-attaching the cover to the laptop’s case.

Add Streaming Video To Your Company Website?

We help you to add streaming video and screencasts to your company website.

For 2 years our public ShowMeDo.com has streamed a Terabyte of high-quality tutorial videos every month to a global audience. During that time we have been providing a managed service for companies who wish to demonstrate their products and services to their users.

Contact us to learn how streaming video can generate sales leads and reduce your technical-support burden.

Under our new ShowMeDo Services arm I’m working with Cliff of eAdvantage to help him build and host videos which demonstrate their software.  Today Cliff made and published his first video (it’ll go live next week).

Cliff suggested I use GoToMeeting to remotely configure his PC - it took 5 minutes from accepting his invite (on my Windows XP machine) to seeing his desktop in a window on my laptop.  I configured his CamStudio, walked through his script and showed him how to record his first video.

Cliff went on to record his video and an hour later we spoke again.  I took control of his desktop and showed him  how to use our Uploader program and 10 minuts later we had his freshly-recorded videos on-line in a webpage.  Lovely!

I’ll be featuring Cliff’s videos inside our Services website shortly (hopefully next week).