Have you toyed with the idea of a building a multimedia blog? Well not to be rude, but it's about time! Admit it - a text-based blog is boring. No matter how information-rich your posts are, they're just text and the last time we paid attention to any of it, text didn't exactly throw us into any sort of exciting frenzy!
With today's technology, there's really no reason why you can't turn your blog into a virtual entertainment center complete with video, audio, instant messaging, and more. This article describes a couple of the multimedia tools we're talking about just so you can get an idea of how you can turn a Plain Jane Blog into a screaming wild ride of thrilling exhilaration.
Internet Video
Online video takes multimedia to the max and quite often, making it available from your blog can be a simple matter of installing a plugin or pasting in a small piece of javascript code. YouTube offers thousands of free videos like this for example, but if you want to make your presentation truly unique, you'll need to make your own little movies. Most of today's cameras (and some cell phones) can turn anyone into an instant movie maker and if you're not camera shy, you can record yourself using a product that you're selling, you can record yourself explaining a particular technique, or you can simply record yourself giving a speech.
If you are camera-shy however, you can record your computer screen instead. Thanks to a sweet and free screen-capturing program called Camtasia, you can make videos of yourself using software like Microsoft Excel or Word with or without audio and text bubbles. If you're a software developer, you can make training videos and teach your users how to use your programs while you're sleeping!
Internet Audio
Offering audio on your blog is another great way to satisfy today's multimedia-crazed society -- especially since we're all naturally attracted to sound more than we're attracted to text. With audio, you're presented with a couple of options. You can offer streaming audio, which is live audio broadcast from a radio station or even from your own home. Or you can offer recorded files. Many blogs will play a recorded audio file as soon it's loaded while others let visitors download a collection of files.
Either way, audio gives you the opportunity to offer an earful of business-related speeches, lectures, or interviews and increase the interactivity of your blog at the same time.
Instant Delivery v/s Archived Delivery
If the truth must be known, immediacy is what makes multimedia most effective. Streaming video and audio is much more exciting than their recorded forms because they're LIVE. It gives visitors the feeling that they're "right there" inside the action and that they're part of an important event.
If offering your own streaming information isn't a feasible option for you right now, offer some of the free streaming videos and audios that are already available. You'll find a ton of relevant subjects ranging from software and computer topics to sewing and fishing hobbies. Just be sure that you keep your visitors' capabilities in mind when offering these tools.
You don't want for example, to overburden your visitors' computers by forcing unwanted downloads. Always give your visitors the choice of listening to an audio file or watching a video. Believe it or not, a significant portion of the Internet community still connects via dial up. These users for instance, won't appreciate having to download a ten megabyte audio file before your blog completely loads -- especially since it can take dial up users up to half an hour before that download is even finished!
