June 4th, 2010
Scraster Professional Screencasting has had its share of different web-based video hosting over the last couple years: we’ve experimented with WordPress.com video hosting, Blip.tv, Vimeo, screencast.com, and have most recently been happy with the CDN that started it all, YouTube. At YouTube, we know we’ll have a quality compression into a universally viewable HD flash, strong indexing for search, and a dependable delivery for smooth play from their servers.
One major component that’s lacking at YouTube, however, is the personalization of a call to action at the video’s end. In fact, viewers may even be taken away from your videos to related content from the video service. And by related, we mean a Justin Beiber interview from MTV’s channel. It’s a balancing act trying to find a free or cheap video hosting solution that gives video professionals all they want and need, but Scraster thinks it may be one step closer to figuring it out.
Enter SlideShare. Ever heard of it? If you’re familiar with the business media site, chances are good that it brings to mind PowerPoint-ish slidedeck presentations that are a major bane of professional screencasters. As a strategic partner of Linkedin, SlideShare presentations are often embedded into user profiles on the social/business networking site. But then… what’s this we see? SlideShare video on a LinkedIn profile? In HD? With a nice streamlined player and a customizable lead gen form for the viewer to make direct with us? Sign us up!
On the same day Scraster found out about SlideShare’s beta video project, our most recent client, IdeaScale, had coincidentally also joined the service. On day three, during an IM chat, we shared how impressed we were. We had both already received qualified leads through the service. Scraster also got an inquiry to our website from a SlideShare user who had seen a Scraster video on SlideShare.net when it was uploaded and featured on their homepage. Cool! Finally, it’s worth noting that SlideShare behaves with standard lightbox players.
The model of SlideShare’s lead generation tool, called LeadShare, is not one we’ve seen before (which may explain why the company has a patent pending on the method of lead collection). In terms of our video player, LeadShare’s lead info collection screen appears at the end of the video in an overlayed lightbox. What makes LeadShare unique is that the users collecting the leads pays $1 per lead. If custom info, such as the viewer’s URL or other personal information from the viewer is required, the SlideShare account holder pays and additional $2 per field.
There’s always going to be the issue of insubstantial leads running us down, but “you have to spend money to make money”, and it has to be assumed that the viewer who’s watched a few minutes of a Scraster’s video is one that legitimately wants to be in touch. We’re happy to pay the premium as long as the LeadShare system is working for us. So far, so good. What do you think of our new player? Check it out on the Scraster homepage or the blog post page about our new IdeaScale video. Thanks for sharing your thoughts!
Blue box hard sell: If your organization has a web-based product or service that you’d like to demonstrate through the effective medium of professional screencasting,
get a free quote from Scraster today. You can also email Scraster at
info@scraster.com or ping
@scraster on Twitter.
Tags: blip.tv, Professional Screencast, Professional Screencaster, scraster, scraster professional screencasting, scraster.com, screencast CDN, screencast.com, video cdn, Vimeo, youtube
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June 2nd, 2010
Scraster recently completed an updated marketing video for IdeaScale, one of our oldest and most valued clients. IdeaScale has been working with Scraster since we began in the spring of 2008, so the starting blocks of this new marketing piece were in place well before we were started—Scraster knows the product inside out and IdeaScale is just as familiar with our workflow.
For the marketing video update, IdeaScale’s Rob Hoehn decided to part from the conventional sign-up process/feature tour screencast model. Working collaboratively with Scraster, Rob instead created a script that introduced the product in a more conceptual manner. To convey these concepts effectively, we used the impressive motion graphics work of Rory Campbell, who has been working consistently on Scraster’s recent videos. Rory’s animation not only looks great, but it effectively creates a context for the subsequent screencast video. If you enjoy this Scraster screencast, please share it via the social icons below. Thanks!
You might wonder while watching the IdeaScale video, “Is Bob & Terry’s a real ice cream company?” The answer is… Nnnnnyes. Bob & Terry’s is totally real. You might also wonder why so many of the names seen in the video match the names of characters from the Kasper Hauser Comedy Podcast. That’s no coincidence. We’re fans.
Blue box hard sell: If your organization has a web-based product or service that you’d like to demonstrate through the effective medium of professional screencasting,
get a free quote from Scraster today. You can also email Scraster at
info@scraster.com or ping
@scraster on Twitter.
Tags: Professional Screencast, Professional Screencaster, scrast, scraster, scraster professional screencasting, Screenflow
Posted in Professional Screencast, Professional Screencaster, Scraster Professional Screencasting, Screenflow | 1 Comment »
June 1st, 2010
Scraster Professional Screencasting’s founder and head screencaster John Basile was recently featured on Telestream’s ScreenFlow blog called The Screening Room. Since it’s John writing this post, let’s go ahead and switch out of third person and into the first. Done.
The Screening Room has been blogging strong–featuring teasers of upcoming releases, ScreenFlow tips, company news, and user profiles since around the time of their ScreenFlow 2 product launch in the fall of 2009. The folks at Telestream have done a good job of creating a much-needed and much-appreciated community around their popular screencasting software for Mac. (Next on the list: a crowdsourced idea portal for feature requests).
A few weeks ago, I was pleased to get a direct message on Twitter from Lynn Elliot, the main author of The Screening Room blog, which was complimentary of Scraster’s recent professional screencast work. I gladly accepted Lynn’s invitation to contribute to the regular “Meet the Screenflow-er” feature of the blog and was sent the standard Q&A via email. It was fun to share info about Scraster’s workflow and I was able to link to some of our work. There hasn’t been any noticeable swell of web traffic to scraster.com, but the exposure is super and I’m very grateful for it.
There was one question from the Q&A was particularly challenging to answer. It asked, “Do you have a screencast that you’re especially proud of? And why?” I referred to some recent professional screencast work, but also thought hard to word my answer as diplomatically as Screencasts Online producer Don MacAllister did few months back: “That’s a hard one! Each one seems to get better as I get more experienced!” Don said in his Q/A. I suppose this is the case with most creative work. It is certainly the case at Scraster Professional Screencasting, where our work continues to get better and better and we’re continually proud of the quality work we’re selling our clients.
Go to John’s Q/A at The Screening Room blog
Blue box hard sell: If your organization has a web-based product or service that you’d like to demonstrate through the effective medium of professional screencasting,
get a free quote from Scraster today. You can also email Scraster at
info@scraster.com or ping
@scraster on Twitter.
Tags: enhanced screencast, John Basile, Professional Screencast, Professional Screencaster, scraster, scraster professional screencasting, Screenflow, screenflow.com, screening room, Telestream
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May 9th, 2010
Scraster has always been proud of its minimalist carbon footprint. So when we went to work to create a professional screencast for a green website called Welectricity, we were glad to know we’d have a chance to write a blog post boasting about how darn green we are. [winky emoticon here]. In all seriousness, Scraster is happy and proud to introduce Welectricity, an online social network designed to promote energy efficiency in households. The slick web service helps users monitor and decrease their electricity consumption.
After a quick set-up at Welectricity, where the user tells the site a bit about their appliances and household, Welectricity takes a few numbers from your monthly electricity bill and crunches the numbers. The service presents a graphical representation of how you’re doing and offers instructive advice of how you can be doing better. An interesting social component comes into play when you meet other Welectricity users in your area or with similar households and see how your energy use stacks up. There’s twitter-style messaging built right in to create dialogue between you and the friends you either invite to the service or those whom you meet while you’re logged on. Welectricity will save you money–and will help you and your family create a greener house and world. Sign up for free today at Welectricity.com.
Thanks to Rory Campbell for adding some nice AfterEffects elements and effects to this project. Rory’s touch is carrying Scraster to the next level these days. If you like what you see here and think that your organization’s product or service can benefit from a professional screencast, why not get a free quote? You can also email us at info@scraster.com.
Thanks for watching, commenting, and sharing!
Tags: custom screencast, John Basile, Professional Screencast, Professional Screencaster, scrast, scraster, scraster professional screencasting, scraster.com, screencast, screencaster, screencasting, Screenflow, video tutorial
Posted in Client Work, Professional Screencast, Professional Screencaster, Scraster Professional Screencasting, Screenflow, Uncategorized | No Comments »
February 1st, 2010
Teambox is an interesting new project management tool that bridges the gap between real-time social media like Twitter and web-based project management solutions like Basecamp. Pablo Villalba, the creator of Teambox, found Scraster online a few days after a major write-up on the popular blog ReadWriteWeb. Too bad that Scraster’s video couldn’t have been live before that major press, but not to worry–Teambox will be getting its share of press very soon. In fact, just this morning, Teambox was featured on TechCrunch.
Teambox’s objective in creating a screencast was to minimize bounces and grab visitor’s attention for a viewing experience that would lead to conversions. Teambox came to the right place, because site retention is what Scraster screencasts are all about.
We’re happy to be associated with Teambox, who we consider to be a client with enormous potential. We’re also very glad that Teambox was 100% psyched about their delivered video from the moment they saw it. Since the ESL office of Teambox is in Spain, Teambox relied heavily on Scraster’s expert script writing to guide the process. We gleaned a cursory understanding of the app during a Skype screenshared walkthrough by the client, and within a couple of days, we were engrossed in the elaborate script.
Because of the collaborative nature of Teambox, the screencast script required not just a single user case, as is the norm, but a demonstrative scenario of an entire team of users. We decided that a small freelance web team would be a realistic way to communicate Teambox’s value and set a Project Manager named Frank at the video’s focal point. Frank and his team guide the user through a few multi-user scenarios to demonstrate Teambox’s major selling points. (One very fun part of creating a full-blown scenario like this? Hiding the Easter eggs.)
While the elaborate Teambox script and site set-up involved a lot of time and work, the effort wasn’t entirely on our end; the Teambox team made an invaluable contribution by being constantly on call to answer questions and to clear things out of the system when Scraster needed “a second take”. The results speak for themselves. Teambox was so pleased with their video that they blogged about their Scraster experience.
Like most of Scraster’s professional screencasts, the Teambox video was created in ScreenFlow with a handful of other tools. Thanks to Javier Saldeña, a Bay-Area based graphic artist, for his help bringing the Teambox logo to life in the AfterEffects bumpers.
If your organization has an online product or service that could benefit from a professional screencast like the one Scraster Professional Screencasting produced for Teambox, please be in touch. You can get the ball rolling with a free quote. You can also email us at info@scraster.com or find us on Twitter.
We’d love to spread the word about Teambox, so please consider tweeting the following 128 characters:
Got 4:20? Check out the @scraster screencast for Teambox, a cool new Twitter-ish project management tool: http://bit.ly/9NuzYO
Thanks for reading. More soon.
Tags: custom screencast, John Basile, open source screencast, Professional Screencast, readwriteweb, scrast, scraster, scraster professional screencasting, screencast, screencaster, screencasting, teambox, techcrunch, video tutorial
Posted in Camtasia for Mac, Client Work, Professional Screencast, Professional Screencaster, Scraster Professional Screencasting, Screenflow, Uncategorized, iPhone screencasts and demos, iphone app screencast | No Comments »
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