I know the concept of video email is quite new. Imagine receiving a birthday video email, information on a property you were seeking, or advanced notice of a new car model with a video of it in the email. Certainly providing links to videos on emails is becoming common, and many marketers do that. So why not take the next step?

What You Can and Cannot Do

First, right now, embedding a video in an email is not possible. One day it might happen, but right now email servers don’t have the necessary software for this. This means text links or graphics.

Research suggests that using a graphical representation of your video and then providing a direct link to the video email is the best way to achieve video emailing right now.

The Case For Video Emails

In an article by Mark Brownlow, “Video email: current practices”, he discusses the research on video emailing. There are some interesting statistics.

Looking at this statistic, it is obvious that video is now acceptable to most Internet viewers. “According to comScore, US Internet users viewed 14.8 billion online videos in January, with YouTube alone scoring over 100 million unique viewers in that same period.” Finally video has come of age, and we are all conditioned to use it.

Comparing emails with or without a video link – “When not linking to video his clíck through rate is between 20-27%…when linking to online video it’s consistently between 51-65%” says Anna Yeaman. We know that a video link receives a much better open rate than a simple text message.

With an image in the email, views are 5-10 times as many!

Campaign Monitor reported that: “the screen grab was clicked on more than 5 times as often as the text link.”

Mark Brownlow says of his own email campaigns: “In my own newsletters, a video image attracts between two and ten times the clicks that the accompanying text link gets.”

Do you get this? If you have a properly constructed image in your email, 5-10 times more people will clíck on the link and view your video. If you are in sales, information dissemination, or advertising what would you pay to have 5-10 times more people view your message?

Direct Video or Video With a Link

When considering video email, there are three possibilities;

1. A text link.

2. A video thumbnail.

3. The video plays within the email.

Video Text Link

We are all familiar with text links pointing to videos. These are common in emails now. The challenge is that the link is usually a bunch of numbers and meaningless symbols and not very sexy! The author puts a catchy headline in there to entice you to click. Now you get about double clíck through rates when you direct your emails to a video, so it is pretty good compared to sending them to a text blog entry for instance.

Video Thumbnail

A Video thumbnail is where you get a picture to click on in order to play the video email. A really well produced image looks like a play button. When you click on the image it opens up a browser and plays the email seamlessly. When using a video thumbnail like this, the research suggests a 5-10 times better response than a standard text link! This is huge.

It is not intrusive, as you only see the video if you click on the link. We believe this is the best way to use video email right now, and the research backs us up. Compared to an email with a simple text link to a blog post, you are likely to see a 10-20 times greater open rate. This is phenomenal.

Video Within the Email

There is an email company or two around now that will send an email with a video in it. While this seems great, imagine receiving 20 emails and every time you click on one a video starts paying! I think this is intrusive, and many are likely to get angry at the invasion of their personal space. As well, with most of them you need special software or plug-ins to view them.

Because of this in your face aspect, I would suggest that the best form of video email now and into the future will be the thumbnail version, where with the click of a mouse a high quality video plays seamlessly.

What Video Email Service Should You Use?

I think by now you can see why I am so excited by the concept of video email. It is exciting, new and I believe in the same space as TV was when it first appeared. Right now video emails are not that common. This means sending a message this way is very likely to get opened. As people become more familiar with the technology, expect even better response to video emails and reduced openings of more traditional text links.

After I was Introduced to Video Email, I did my homework to see what was available.

COMF5

Formerly hello, hello, this company has been around for a while. The cost is $39.95 for up to 5,000 email addresses and bandwidth is limited to 40GB. There is no commission payable at this level and to earn residual income you need to pay $99.95 a month.

Their video templates are fairly ordinary and in my opinion, unattractive.

Deliverability is fine. There is no mention of free autoresponders.

EYEJOT

This is a free service if you want to send videos less than 1 minute long. You can upgrade to a 5 minute service for $99.95 a year with tracking. No referral commissions are payable, and there are no autoresponders.

Once again, the actual video template is fairly ordinary and not eye catching. Nevertheless, for a free service, providing you only want to send short messages to people you know, it would be okay.

There is no video conferencing and the basic service can’t be loaded onto YouTube, etc.

About The Author
John Gaydon is an marketing and internet entrepreneur. He currently operates 4 profitable businesses. He has a University Marketing Degree and many years of corporate experience. You can read more of John’s articles on his blog at www.johngaydon.com or contact him direct at john@pems.com.au

Test by webmaster, to see if ShadowBox settings work… Click Here To View Video in Shadowbox

Zi8 and ME67test

Video Transcript…

Hi… in this video series were going to be talking about making Private Label Rights products unique, so the PLR stands for Private Label Rights products.

So what are Private Label Rights Products?. Well Private Label Rights Products allows you to claim authorship of that certain product. So lets say for example we have a Private Label article, they give you Private Label Rights to that article. Basically all that means is that somebody has written that article and they are acting as a ghost writer, meaning that you can stamp your name on that article as the author.

At the same time you can change the article to what ever way you like. So basically Private Label Rights whether you using articles, ebooks, videos or audio or other things like software or source code, and you don’t have enough time or money to hire someone to write the content you need… private Label Rights is a great place to start. Its also a great way to break down writers block, especially if your trying to write an article and you just don’t know where to start… sitting there for fifteen or twenty minutes and you have written an intro but you just cant continue, that’s a great time to buy Private Label Rights to articles that are similar to that niche.

Now here’s the big problem here!. You might be asking, there’s so many other people purchasing the some Private Label Products, lets say for example Private Label Rights articles and a hundred other people, even a thousand other people purchase Rights to that specific Private Label Rights article, how can you compete with them?

Now I will say this, the majority of people will stamp there name on it and they will use the Private Label Article as is. They will not do anything to change the article, or things like that. They will simply stamp there name on it, and maybe do a little changes here and there, but as far as the main content goes, even if the change the keywords and they don’t change the rest, then your going to be part of that bigger crowd.

So to stand out from all the crowd, and to compete with them, its easy. Basically you use private Label Rights products simply to use as an idea. As a starting point so that you can get over, whether its writers block, idea block or whatever, But you change it so that its very different. You can change the graphic, you can change the content. If it’s a video you can change the intro screens, audio. If its software you can change other little things of it by using the main idea. And the main idea allows you toonot have to start from scratch and you can continue on from that point. So basically it allows you to save time and save a lot of money. Because to hire someone to write an article can range anywhere from three to ten dollars. You can talk about writing an eBook from scratch from anywhere from a hundred to several hundred to a thousand dollars.

Or a software program can cost anywhere from several hundred to several thousand so were talking about a lot of money you can save and a lot of time, so you don’t have to start from scratch.

So here’s what you just learned… PLR products that are unique, have higher conversion rates. With that in mind lets move ahead.

Another thing that I want to talk about, that you can shape Private Label Rights products into any shape or form you like. Think about it, say your looking at Private Label Rights articles… your looking at ten, twenty articles that are in the same related sub niche, and you can put them all together, as a Report, as an eBook and you want to change it around dramatically so that they become a unique eBook. Add you own experiences, and things like that.

You can also take it, take the articles, take the eBooks, split it up into Reports. You can take the Reports and turn it into video’s. You can take articles and turn them into audio articles. Take the ideas of eBooks or Reports or Videos and turn them into source code or things like that.

Thats the wanderous part of Private Label Rights Products. Its the idea that matters the most, its not exactly the stuff that’s in it, buts it’s the idea that you can carry forth and do many things.

Now its always good to check out the license before you buy the Private Label Rights Products because this will tell you what you can and cant do. So you want to know what your objectives are first. But if you know what your objectives are first, then you can go ahead with your goal.

Alright, so before we move into the actual video’s were actually talking about articles, eBooks, audio eBooks, things like that. I’m going to talk briefly about tools that you need before getting started with those video’s. Of course with anything like Private Label Articles, Private Label Rights books, I would recommend basically some sort of tool, some editing software, anything like Microsoft Word, Open Office which is free and things like that.

So basically anything that can edit any eBook you looking at, any article your looking at and things like that. Its fairly simple, you don’t need anything that’s complex or things like that.

Now when you dive into things like say Private Label Rights audio books, and lets say you want to add music to it. Now it depends on you whether you use Camtasia Studio and that’s fine. If you use Camtasia Studio you can pretty much compliment using that and dealing with Private Label Rights Video’s later. So if you get that one tool it pretty much cover audio articles, audio eBooks, Private Label Video’s and things like that.

Now, in this video I’m going to asume that, lets try to stick with a lot of free tools, so to lower your costs. So say that your dealing with Private Label Audio eBooks, I would highly recommend that you use a program called Audacity. I’m going to use Audacity in these tutorials in video number four where we talk about Private Label Audio eBooks or audio Articles. And that is a free tool, that’s a really good tool, and let me show you how it looks like…

Ok, so I’m going to go to Google here, so you can see what I’m typing in. if you go to Audacity here, as you can see here, and you’ll notice that theres a free audio editor and recorder. So if you go there, or you go straight to the download link, as you can see here.

You can go ahead and download it, whether you use Windows or Macintosh or Linux, just download the file. Download the stable version of course. And what your going to need is this file, which is basically  the instalation file and your going to need the Lame MP3 encoder. The reason why you need that is that Audacity once you convert to a file that’s what Audacity is going to use to convert what ever audio into MP3. So download this file, and this file and that’s it.

The next thing were going to look at is Private Label Video’s, as I recommended earlier camtasia Studio is the best way, the best route to go. So I’ll actaully go over Camtasia Studio with you. However to keep your costs down low I’m going to use Windows Movie Maker as far as editing goes on Private Label Video’s. So that we can keep your options open, things like that. We’ll type that here.

And next we have Private Label Source Code for Private Label Software. Simply put, what that is, is basically software, or people give you the rights to edit the software. Now most people don’t know what to do with private Label Source Code, they simply stamp there name on it and start selling it.

Which is great, and it’s a little different to Private Label Articles, because your sort of reselling the product. Now Private Label Source Code generally is higher in costs, or you can sell it for more just because it’s a bit of software. And software is generally a higher perceived value.

Now the big question is? what tools do you need!. You don’t need any tools, in fact Private Label Source Code I would highly recommend you hire a software programmer. And I’ll show you how you can hire a software programmer for cheap.

There are ways of communicating with Programmers in a fashion where if it sounds easy to them, the cheaper they give you, a cheaper quote. If it sounds to complicated, if you say something like.. clone this, or clone that, or I want something similar to that, then most likely the Programmer is going to give you a price that is five or ten times higher than what you should be paying. So I’ll show you several tips and tricks to go about that as a Software Developer myself.

So lets go ahead and move on… in the next video’s two, three, four, five and six, I’ll take different types of Private Label Rights products.

Private Label Articles in video two, Private Label eBooks in video three, Private Label Audio eBooks in video four, Private Label Video’s in video five, and Private Label Source Code in video six.

So I’ll be taking each individual type of Private Label Rights PLR and we’ll show you how you can make them unique… step by step. So that you can profit of them individually, and increase your conversions.

Note From Webmaster

This six part video series on Private Label Rights Explained contains a huge amount of information on how to overcome writers block, and get yourself motivated to make money online. Its video training tutorials like these ones’ that helped me to become a full-time professional webmaster. Reading text based articles when learning is old school… video is now the way to go. Click the button below to check out the price of this six part video series on Private Label Rights. The motivation it will give you to be a better webmaster is well worth the price alone.

Private Label Rights Explained : Video Training Tutorials : Important : After Purchase… click "Return To Merchant" text link, to view product download page.

A little bit earlier in this article I mentioned “full-time professional webmaster” and I wanted to quickly explain what I ment. To me a full-time professional webmaster is simply any webmaster who earns more than the basic average wage, in there country of origin… in Australia thats about $800 per week.

I’ll bring a slide up onto the screen firstly, just to show you the microphone that I’m talking about. I’ts the USB 2200A made by a Company called S. E. Electronics. I’ve found that this microphone gives me s result that I like when it comes to recording, I’ve tried a few other microphones…

• The Sennheiser ME 66
• The Sennheiser ME 67
• Sennheiser Lapel Microphones
• Rode NTG-1
• Rode NT 3
• Rode NT 1A

And I’ve found that of all the microphones that I’ve tried out, the one that gave me the best result was the 2200A USB made by S.E. Electronics.

When I use this particular microphone on my computer, I plug it in using an XLR plug, and in order to be able to do that, I use a device made by CE Entrance called the Mic Port Pro. Its a little adapter that allows you to plug your microphone directly into the computer.

Normally plugging an XLR type microphone into a computer isnt possible, but you can do it if you use this little device called the CE Entrance Mic Port Pro.

What I’m going to do right now, is I’ll just cut back to me for one second so that you can check out the background that is behind me. As you can see, its not obviously not my office… it’s a little clip that’s been done by a product called Visual Communicator 3. Thats the name of the software that I’m using to create this little video clip. The product is made by a Company called Adobe.

I’ll bring up there slide and let you have a look at it as well. It’s called Adobe Visual Communicator 3, and its quit an excellent little Product, it allows you to create video clips just like this one that your looking at now.

When I’m doing the recordings, I usually use a Canon XH A1, thats the camera I like to use when I’m doing these recordings. And the lighting I use is all fluorescent. I’ll bring a softbox image up onto the screen for you just to have a look as well, and give you an idea of what it looks like as well.

The background that I normally like to use is this one, that your looking at right now. Thats the background that I normally put into the background of my video clips. What I’ll do right now, and this is just a test, I’m going to put a little “change background” clip up, then were going to drop a background into it, so you can just see what I mean. Then what I’m going to do is bring the camera up onto the screen.

So firstly weve changed over, and there we are… you can see the new background behind me. This is a pretty cool effect that you can do with this software, and its called again… Visual Communicator 3. I’ll bring there slide up for you once more for you to have a look at, made by a Company called Adobe, and it does a pretty good job.

Webmaster Note…
Have placed the video on the left, to try embeding Camtasia video on blog. The video clip is slightly different to the one that is displayed above. Have also inserted hotspot into video towards the end, to see if it works. Have never used hotspots in a video before, though I can see the advantage of using them… especially when selling products off your website.
The hotspot goes to a video website of mine… My Web Video Tutorials

Update…
As you can see it has worked. I have always liked the look of the Flash Player that comes with Camtasia Studio. There are a few other FLV players on the market that I also like, and they have Affiliate Programs, which makes them attractive to both use and promote. Will look into that more a bit further down the road. Still getting used to the idea of video… its still all a bit new to me. The mic that I mention in the video ( SE Electronics 2200A USB Mic ) is actually one of 9 different microphones I like to use. Will get around to reviewing some of the other mics over the next few weeks. They include…

• Sennheiser ME 66 Shotgun Mic
• Sennheiser ME 67 Long Gun Shotgun Mic
• Sennheiser Lapel Mic
• Sony ECM 77B Lapel Mic
• Rode NTG-1
• Rode NT-1A
• Rode NT-3
• Countryman Earset Mic

Note : Placed the next video on page using Camtasia code, and found that it loads and plays pretty fast. Used mp4 at 70% quality for settings.

The results I got were pretty good considering the cost of this little camera. The video sample clip is only very short, but it does give you a chance to see just how good this little video camera performs.

Video transcript :

Welcome to Pro Blog Tips video tutorials. In this edition were going to do some Chroma Keying of a video clip we recorded using a Kodak Zi8 camera. Its a little HD video camera that you can pick-up on the market these days for around 270 dollars.

An excellent camera for doing little “run and gun” video shoots. And.. one of the things I would like to test was to see how it chroma keys, so were going to be doing that this afternoon, in this video clip.

Thats all for today.

Thanks for watching Pro Blog Tips video tutorials.

My name is Jaron.

And we’ll speak again to you soon.

I’ve always had a problem with bloopers when making video clips for my websites. Trying to remember a script, even a short one, has always been a hassle for me. Over the last couple of months though, I’ve started using a Teleprompter to help overcome my memory problems. And so far so good.

If your like me and your always fluffing your lines, then you need to think about using a Teleprompter.

The video clip your watching now for example, was done using a Teleprompter, and so far, I dont think I’ve even made a single mistake.

Normally by now I’d be up around the 3 or 4 blooper mark.

If your making video clips for your websites, and you find yourself making lots of bloopers like I do, then take a tip from me, its time you started thinking about using a Teleprompter.

And if you dont have one, then I suggest you go out and get one. You’ll be glad you did.

Anyway, thats all for today.

Thankyou for watching Pro Blog Tips video tutorials.

My name is Jaron Fraser

And I’ll speak to you again soon.

Were out on the road today doing a test of the Kodak Zi8 Camera. At the moment I’ve got the onboard mic being used and as you can tell, its pretty loud, pretty noisy in the vehicle that I’m recording in. But were going to show you a microphone that you can use when you have to get out on the road to do your little “Run and Gun” shoots.

Its called the Countryman Earset Microphone and weve found that when your out on the road in a very noisy envirenment, like for example at a sporting event, or in a vehicle doing a recording like I am today, its excellent for cutting out all the background noise that you wouldn’t ordinarilly want in your recording.

I’m just going to go around this roundabout, and once we do we’ll do the changeover to the Countryman Microphone and let you see the difference between using the onboard microphone that comes with the Kodak Zi8 and the audio you get if you use a professional earset microphone.

I’m just going to point to it now… Its this one that you see attatched to my ear. It’s not plugged in at the moment, but were going to do that for you right now, so you can see the difference between the onboard audio, and the audio you get from using the Countryman Earset Microphone. Were going to plug that in for you right now.

Ok… straight away you would have noticed a difference to the sound. It’s a lot quieter now, even thou the noise in the background hasn’t really changed. It’s still pretty noisy, except this microphone is very good at cancelling out background noise and just giving a sort of like priorty to the speakers voice. And thats why we like to use the Countryman Earset Microphone when were doing these “Run and Gun” shoots out on the road in the van.

Its also good for when your doing recordings at sporting events where you’ve got a lot of background noise, a lot of cheering, a lot of noise from the crowd. It has the ability to cut a lot of that background noise and give priorty to the speaker, which is why I like this microphone.

Its called the Countryman Earset Microphone, its an excellent microphone, and when your out on the road doing “Run and Gun” shoots in a Van… its perfect.

Thats all for today. Thankyou for watching Pro Blog Tips video tutorials. My name is Jaron, we’ll speak to you again soon.

Welcome to Pro Blog Tips video tutorials. In this episode were going to be reviewing the audio that you get with the Kodak Zi8 camera, and in particular, were going to be trying out the Sennheiser ME 67 shotgun microphone, which were going to be plugging into the side of the camera using the external input. One of the biggest advantages of this camera is the fact that you can use an external microphone.

Click here to view video twice as large

Most of the cameras that are on the market, in fact all of the cameras on the market today except for the Kodak Zi8 have no external microphone input. I’m talking now about the little pocket style flip cameras that have been cropping up all over the place… this one, plus you’ve got the Flip HD camera, you’ve also got the Sonny Bloggie.

So theres a number of cameras around at the moment that have this same style of format, but the only one that has the external microphone input is the Kodak Zi8. And as you can tell right now, the onboard microphone doesn’t do a bad job.

I’m about three to four feet away from the camera and the audio’s a little bit echoee, a little bit boomy. I found that when your more than an arms length from the camera, it does start to get a little bit echoee. What were going to do right now is were going to plug in the ME 67 shotgun microphone by Sennheiser and let you compare the difference. Were going to do that right now…

Ok… I’ve plugged in the Sennheiser ME67 shotgun microphone and already you would have noticed a difference in the audio. This particular microphone is sitting about two and a half to three feet away from me, and its just directly overhead. And this microphone when you use it, is a very good microphone. It gives excellent results. Right now I’m recording in my office, and I know that my wife is in the room next door to me watching TV, and this microphone probably is even picking up a little bit of the audio thats coming thru the walls from the TV in the next room. But as you can already tell, the camera has the ability to give you very good audio simply because you can plug in a separate microphone source.

Thats the end of todays test… Thankyou for watching Pro Blog Tips video tutorials, my name is Jaron… Speak to you again soon.

This is the same video that is displayed above… but testing how it looks when displayed in a shadowbox. It looks fancy, but at the end of the day I like it better when displayed on the webpage.

You will notice that if you click the image to play the video, it plays at a different size than if you click the text link under the image. Dont know why that happens… a code error by me probably. Update : fixed Shadowbox display error. It was a “rel” code error… all is now working correctly.

Click Image To View Video

Video Transcript :
I’ve just come downstairs into the garage so I can do a test of the microphone that comes with the Kodak Zi8 camera. The onboard microphone I’ve found in quiet circumstances is a good microphone. If your downstairs in a garage like this, or in a room thats pretty quiet, then using the onboard microphone is a good choice because it gives a good sound.

Now if your in an area where there’s a bit of noise though, then you need to go up from there and maybe use a lavalier microphone. And a good lavalier microphone will help cancel out some of the background noise and will also give you a better overall sound.

What I’m going to do right now is, I’ve got a little stereo lavalier microphone and I’ve got that attatched to my shirt collar and I’m just going to plug that into this little camera, just to let you see (hear) the difference. I’ll jusy do that right now…

Ok, weve plugged in the lavalier microphone and you would have noticed a little bit of a difference to the audio. The advantage of using a separate microphone is that you have the oportunity to improve the quality of the sound. The lavalier microphone I’ve just plugged in does still pick up a lot of background noise but it also gives more importance to the audio from the speaker which is me.

The onboard microphone I found generally tends to blur all the audio that it records, so if there is any outside sounds, apart from the speaker, then it tends to blend them all together and gives you one great big shamozle of sound. And the speaker generally tends to get blurred into the background. With the lavalier microphone that doesn’t happen. It takes the speakers voice, in this case mine, and gives it a highlight, making it louder than the background noise, and thats what you want.

Anyway, thats the end of todays test. Thankyou for watching Pro Blog Tips video tutorials, and we’ll speak to you again soon.

Wemaster Update
Have included the FLV player below that is playing the same video from above. This was done to test a new FLV player that I will be using on this website… just need to try out a few versions first. I like this FLV player because the html code generator is easy to use, and the FLV player looks nice. Plus the video starts to play at full size… not like the one I have been using that starts at 4:3 then stretches to 16:9. The stretching problem was a Flashvars setting that I was not aware of… now fixed.

Kodak’s Zi8 is a high definition camcorder that records 1920 x 1080p video at 30 frames per second (fps) in the H.264 format. The Zi8 competes with products such as Pure Digital’s “Flip UltraHD” and Sony’s “Webbie HD”. Kodak’s pocket camcorder has a few tricks that the others don’t – such as digital image stabilization, face detection, and an external microphone input.

Kodak Zi8 At a Glance

The Good: Excellent video quality, easy to use, strong feature set, large LCD screen and external mic input.

The Bad: Slightly clumsy user interface, little internal memory.

Video & Photo Quality

Using a 1/2.5-inch, 5-megapixel CMOS sensor,the Zi8 records 1080p HD video.This is one of the first 1080p pocket camcorders on the market and the video quality is definitely impressive for a model in this class. If you want to extend recording times, you can opt for one of three lower resolution settings: 720p/60fps mode (the faster frame rate is good for shooting motion), a 720p/30fps mode or a WVGA mode.

A nice addition to the Zi8 is face detection, which, when activated, can improve exposure around a face it detects in a frame. This function can be disabled as it will draw down the battery faster when it’s used.

The Zi8 also snaps 5-megapixel still photos when set to photo mode (it can’t snap them while you’re filming). You shouldn’t expect much from these stills – with no flash and a fairly slow performance, it’s not going to wow you.

Design

Like other models in the pocket camcorder category, Kodak kept the functionality and buttons to a minumum. Four dedicated buttons on the back of the unit let you access menu settings, delete videos and still photos, return to filming and play back stored videos. The menu, and quality settings, are navigated using a joystick at the center of the unit. All-in-all, a very intuitive design that just about anyone can figure out in short order, even if the buttons could stand to be a bit larger.

The Zi8 weighs in just shy of a svelte five ounces with battery. At 2.4 × 4.5 × 0.9 inches, it’s the size of a nice, lean point-and-shoot digital camera. You’ll have your choice of red, black and blue.

Removable Battery

Another nice design touch is a removable lithium ion batter (accessed by removing the unit’s faceplate). For longer trips where you can run low on battery, you have the option of swapping in a new one rather than finding a spot to recharge. You can charge the battery when the Zi8 is connected to a PC via its flip-out USB connector or by using the supplied AC adapter.

Menus

The menu in the Zi8 consists of nine icons for switching off image stabilization, engaging face detection and accessing other functions. Unfortunately, while Kodak had ample room to add some descriptive wording above each menu icon, in most cases they choose not to. None of the icons are that mysterious, but still, for a novice user it would be nice to use the generous LCD screen to its fullest potential.

Memory

The Zi8 comes with a meager 128MB worth of internal memory – barely enough to record a few seconds of HD video or a couple of still images. To enjoy recording of any length, you’ll need to use an SDHC memory card (not included). The Zi8 supports SDHC cards up to 32GB, which would give you close to five hours of recording at the highest quality setting.

The use of flash memory cards helps keep the price of the unit down, but that only helps if you already own a memory card.

Optics

Like all pocket camcorders, the Zi8 does not offer an optical zoom lens. Instead, it features a 4x digital zoom. The zoom itself is of limited utility and when it’s engaged, it isn’t terribly smooth.

The Zi8 also packs digital image stabilization. Again, it’s not as effective as the optical variety, but it’s also not as important a feature in a pocket camcorder because you don’t have an optical zoom lens. On the whole, it’s better to have some form of stabilization than none, so Kodak gets the thumbs up for adding it.

Kodak Zi8: A Powerful Pocket Camcorder

Kodak’s Zi8 manages to outdo most of its rivals in the pocket camcorder market by adding some feature-enhancements without burdening the camcorder with complexity. It could stand to tweak its interface, build bigger buttons and make the exterior more resistant to finger prints. If you have no interest in anything but the simplest pocket camcorder for creating Web-friendly videos, the Flip UltraHD would still give you the best bang for your buck. But if you’re thirsting for a pocket camcorder with equal (and in some cases, better) quality than the Flip with more features to boot, the Zi8 is the model for you.

By Greg Scoblete, About.com Guide

What Is Right For Your Business?

The correct or most successful strategy required for each business will vary tremendously which is why most SEO professionals will not even conduct a web marketing campaign without some form of initial consultancy or competitive market assessment.

If time is not one of your assets or your budget is tight, then a generic link building campaign may be all that is affordable to you, but if you are in a competitive market and serious about your on-line business then it simply does not make good business sense to second guess your requirements.

Bite the bullet and employ the services of an SEO consultant even if only for initial consultancy as the advice you receive more often than not will be highly beneficial to the success of your on-line venture.

About The Author
Author: Dave Talbot: Search engine marketing and website promotíon is an essential ingredient for any on-line business. For affordable SEO marketing and link building services visit… www.advancedwebmarketing.co.uk