For years, people have been asking. They say, “Scraster, when are going to do a video for an online product that effectively eliminates the expenses associated with traditional off-site and on-site tape storage and tracking methods?” We were almost getting tired of hearing the question when we were approached by Rocket Software, the parent company of Servergraph and makers of a product called Tape Vault Expert. TVE does just this.

In all seriousness, when Rocket came to Scraster, we knew nothing about tape storage. We were familiar with the ubiquitous Iron Mountain trucks on the road, but that’s about it. One of the beauties of professional screencasting is learning about so many different areas of business… like tape management. In the course of a few conversations and the exchange of few emails with photo attachments, Scraster figured out the best way to approach the subject visually. Scraster’s lead animator Rory Campbell fired off some rough sketches to the client to make sure we were on the right track. A week or so later, we had transformed the client’s vision into an reality. The animation Rory creatively crafted would serve as the needed conceptual introduction to support the walkthrough of the Tape Vault Expert interface. The client will be the first to admit that the UI of the TVE interface is far from sexy, but in terms of function, TVE gets the job done better than anything on the market and this screencast effectively demonstrates exactly how for potential customers.

We’re happy to have learned something new and interesting about an industry we’d otherwise never come across and Rocket Software was/is very happy with their video. Scraster will likely be producing some videos for other Rocket/Servergraph products in the coming months. If your organization has an online product or service that could benefit from a professional screencast like the one Scraster Professional Screencasting produced for Tape Vault Expert, 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.

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.

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!

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.

One of the most gradifying aspeccts of professional screencasting is being exposed to so many cool new apps and web services. This professional screencast Scraster recently finished introduced us to two cool new applications–first, our newest client Timebridge and second, a popular app with which TimeBridge has partnered, called Evernote.

TimeBridge is a web app that makes it easier to “schedule and run great meetings”. Through an integration with your desktop or web-based Calendar client, Timebridge users are able to see each other’s availabilities and plan accordingly. No more sending invitations back and forth through email. There’s also a number of ways that TimeBridge can improve the organizational process of putting a meeting together. Who doesn’t need TimeBridge?

Evernote is a popular desktop and mobile app that is said to serve as your “external brain”. It’s pretty damn unbelieveable. Evernote takes OCR to another (almost sfi-fi) level, whereby you can take a picture of something textual with your iPhone and viola-it goes right into your searchable Evernote archive. There’s a lot more, so do yourself a favor and visit the Evernote website.

Scraster is happy to be working with Timebridge on a few other videos to explain how the tool integrates with major email clients. We’re happy that the Timebridge team realizes how effective video can be in their goal of reaching a critical mass with their platform, whose true strength is in the growing number of people that use it.

If your organization has an online product or service that could benefit from a professional screencast, get a free quote from Scraster Professional Screencasting today. You can also email us at info@scraster.com or find us on Twitter at @scraster.