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posted @ Thursday, June 12, 2008 2:41 PM | Feedback (1) |


YouTube Annotations + Camtasia Studio = Cool stuff!


youtube  YouTube has recently released a new feature they're calling Annotations - the ability to embed speech bubbles, notes, and spotlights into YouTube videos, with ability to follow a hyperlink when any of those objects are clicked. I remember there were books I read as a kid where you could choose your own adventure. Does anyone remember those? You would get to a part in the book where it would say: "Should Johnny go home and study? Turn to Page 32. Should he hang out and play Rock Band with his friends? Turn to Page 68." Anyway, it was awesome. This is what YouTube just put out there. The ability to create a pop-up video of the used-to-be-mundane.

 

camtasia Couple this with Camtasia Studio, which is a screen recording application that allows you to make video demonstrations, how-to's, or training videos (among many other applications), and you've got one heck of a rich and compelling video.

 

 

For a while now, I've been wanting to create some training videos for a .NET-based web site I built a couple years ago called VFW eMembership. This site allows VFW members and officers to perform tasks that were previously reserved for the post office. Renewing annual dues, changing addresses, applying for new membership, replacing a lost membership card -- these are just some of the things that can be done on the site. However, I'm not a UI guy (and no budget for a UI guy), so some of this stuff is hard to figure out. You've got to jump through a bunch of hoops to even register (especially for an officer account).

I've used Camtasia and YouTube's annotations to create some rough videos that take advantage of the zoom-n-pan functionality in Camtasia, as well as the speech bubbles and spotlights in Annotations. Like I said, it's a rough draft, but hopefully enough to pitch to upper-management.

This is the main video that links to 2 other videos (or you can go see my videos here):

 

posted @ Thursday, June 05, 2008 3:28 PM | Feedback (1) |