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Benefits of streaming your next event?

You're planning your next conference and thinking about web streaming some of the show. You wonder about the benefits of streaming and wish you had someone to ask. Besides the coolness factor of pulling it off, what can it really do for you and your company? Here are my top three benefits of streaming your event:

  

Benefit #1 -  A Larger Audience 

Do you wish you could reach more people? The information you provide at your conferences is valuable. Web streaming opens up a world of possibilities for your audience sizes - you're not limited to the people in the room. Inside every organization there are members who cannot attend every meeting or every conference in person. And yes, it would be great to get 100% participation from members, but that may not be possible due to limited financial resources or time constraints. So why not make the conference available online to your non-attending members? And while you're at it, invite potential members to get a sneak peek at your organization. You can also use streaming to strengthen your social media presence when you add social media feeds, like Twitter and Facebook. Viewers can get involved in the conference during question and answer sessions or just by commenting on the feed. 

Benefit #2 Control Travel Costs

Companies are always trying to control spending, and traveling to conferences can carry hefty price tags. The costs of flights, hotels and meals add up. Web streaming your event can curb some of those costs. I recently attended an industry conference and I spent well over $1600 on hotel, food and airfare. I spent about the same amount on conference registration. Utilize web streaming as an integral part of your conference to deliver content and you could see a decrease in travel expenses. 

Benefit #3 Increased Revenue Potential

I know you're thinking about how you need attendance/registration to pay for the event. Well, consider this:  you can offer some of your popular and most-informative sessions as a pay-per-view option. Using a pay wall system, you can generate revenue by allowing access to live events by selling pay-per-view subscriptions. After your conference is over, you can monetize your best sessions in the same pay-per-view manner. You should be able track your viewership data and see what worked and what fell flat. 

There are no substitutions for meeting face-to-face with other people in the organization, or the deal making and networking that comes with being at a conference, but think of streaming your content as adding value to your event. Streaming allows you to broaden the size of your audience while cutting costs and adding revenue back to the organization.

Have some questions about live event streaming?  Contact Kevin Hill. For more information about Igigo Communications, check out www.igigocommunications.com

Review - 600 LED Bi-Color lights

I bought a pair of 600 LED Bi-Color lights I found on Ebay and since I could not find a review of these, I thought I would give you the scoop on them. I think I got a great deal for the two... around $500 dollars and so far I like the quality and the performance of these LEDs.  If you have any comments or questions please leave a comment.

PadPrompter Review

PadPrompter 

If you like me and you need an end of year tax deduction check out this new product. It's called the Pad Prompter. It's Teleprompter that uses an IPad as it's main monitor and script source. It is small, compact and portable. It weights about two pounds in its own case... About the size of a 15 inch laptop case. 

Constructed of hard plastic and real 70/30 beamsplitter glass as opposed to acrylic. It features Side panels, lens hood and a form fitting bottom for an iPad to securely sit in. It either comes with hardware for 15 millimeter rails systems or for attachment to tripod or light stand. 

The Pad Prompter utilizes teleprompter apps from the app store. 
I have used this prompter and it works great in the field. The words are visible and clear. 

If your a small business owner who wants to Vlog or a fellow video pro like myself and you are looking for a lower cost option to traditional Teleprompters... You should check it out for yourself at onetakeonly.com

I am very impressed with the quality, the functionality, the convenience and the price of the Pad Prompter. 

Kevin Hill

Igigo Communications

igigocommunications.com

Never miss a March Madness game

We are coming up on one of the best times of the year for college basketball junkies. March Madness will be jumping off soon and one of the way fans like me watch the games is online. CBSSports.com would stream all the game for free. Well now there's a app for that, it's called NCAA March Madness Live and it will cost you $3.99 to see all 67 games across multiple platforms - online, mobile and tablet. All game televised on CBS will still be free through the network's website. Most, but not all, viewers who get TBS, TNT and truTV on their cable or satellite systems will be able to watch games aired on those channels online for free. http://www.ncaa.com/news/basketball-men/article/2012-02-13/march-madness-live-faq

I can watch my Jayhawks play and also see how Wichita State is doing. Let the Ballin Began!!!!!!

Psst... I got a great free video converter

The other day I was talking to my buddy Patrick over at KEF media,

who hipped me to this great free video converter which work great for all formats. MPEG STREAMCLIP at http://www.squared5.com/

MPEG Streamclip is a powerful free video converter, player, editor for Mac and

Windows. It can play many movie files, not only MPEGs; it can convert MPEG files between muxed/demuxed formats for authoring; it can encode movies to many formats, including iPod; it can cut, trim and join movies. MPEG Streamclip can also download videos from YouTube and Google by entering the page URL.

I own a Sony EX1R which if you didn't know it can shoot HD and SD, the problem i ran into is that on my first SD shoot with it I realized that the file it saves the clip on are .avi. Final Cut Pro does not like .avi files so I had to switch over to Adobe Premiere Pro to complete the job. I had remember Patrick telling me about MPEG STREAMCLIP so I tried some test runs and it worked!! Granted it did take a couple of trys but is did a great job.

You can Batch convert with this bad boy too!

Here are some of the supported input formats: MPEG, VOB, PS, M2P, MOD, VRO, DAT, MOV, DV, AVI, MP4, TS, M2T, MMV, REC, VID, AVR, M2V, M1V, MPV, AIFF, M1A, MP2, MPA, AC3

MPEG STREAMCLIP has close to hundred compression types. From Apple ProRes 422 to DVCPRO HD.

Check it out! It's Free!!!!

Peace,

Kevin

The power of video and how it can help your business.

Since the birth of the motion picture camera in the mid 1800’s, audiences have been captivated with the power of seeing pictures move across the screen. In the early 1900’s when sound was synchronized with those pictures, the medium of video production was here to stay. From that humble beginning, the medium now comes in many sizes and formats. Who would have thought that you could ride a train on your morning commute or soar through the friendly skies and still have the ability to watch your favorite television show, or watch some random person falling so hard that you LOL, or even watch a sales presentation. All this is now possible with the advances in the internet and mobile technologies.

You’ve heard the expressions “a picture is worth a thousand words” and “the pen is mightier then the sword.” Now think about the combined power of sight and sound. Video production, done right, can provoke emotions that pictures and words by themselves can’t match. Have you ever seen a commercial one day that caught your attention? And the next day notice a print ad for the same product? What is the first thing that comes to mind? The commercial usually does. You either start singing the jiggle or you remember a line that was said. I love the Sprint commercials about the film crew taking over a wedding. The one thing that I always remember is the line “no rain, no rainbows.” In my mind, I see the burly guy turn off the water with that “okay” look on his face. Once marketers learned how to harness that power and use it for “evil” (just kidding), for the purpose of selling all of us their stuff, it was on!

The Internet has changed the way you should look at video production. It has made it affordable to advertise and encourage your current and potential clients to buy your products and services. You don’t have to own a satellite or a television station to get the word out. For a relatively small amount of money you can get the same or better results from e-mail, Web sites and social media than you can by buying time for the big boys.

The key is to give your clients a reason to buy. What is one of the top reasons people buy things? Emotions! If you can use video to touch on that particular emotion that sells your product or service, then you are halfway there. Get people the see the passion at which you do your job, the trust that past clients have in your products, the ease at how your service works and the value that you offer, and you will see that it will help you and your bottom line.

Videos give you an opportunity to reach masses. Videos on your Web site can be seen all hours of the day and night, even when your business is closed for the day. Think of them as little salespeople that don’t sleep, take vacations or call in sick. They can be e-mailed, youtubed, and produced on a DVD for tradeshows and conventions.

“Luke, use the force.” Tap in to your businesses power and see if video production can help your bottom line.

Peace,
Kevin