Previous Image « » Next Image Click to Enlarge Click to Enlarge Click to Enlarge Click to Enlarge

Video Blogging and Podcasting

Video is all over the place on the web nowadays, and nobody wants to get left behind. But how do you add video to a website, and, more importantly, why should you?

Only a few years ago, the words podcast and blog created a new buzz. However, it wasn't anything to do with video. While Webster's Dictionary hailed podcast as the "Word of the Year," a State University in Michigan was handing blog its hat. Fast-forward to today, and both words are still with us. Both survived and are arguably more popular than ever before. In fact, there's a lesson that comes out of the past hubbub: funny as they may sound, blog and podcast may just replace our beloved diary and broadcast.

Podcasting vs. Blogging

A general rule of thumb on the web is that, wherever digital photos and music work well, video is sure to follow. This applies particularly to blogs and podcasts. Both recent forms of distribution share similarities: subscribing is easy and they get regular updates. Blogs advanced beyond simple text to allow publishing of photo essays. Podcasts evolved from featuring unique talk-radio to indie music videos and TV documentaries. Generally speaking, a video blog offers a single, customizable space in which we can show our video. The advantage is having video centrally located.

Video podcasting, also called vidcasting, zips our video to computers in the far corners of the earth. Viewers download video to watch at home or to transfer to a portable device like an iPod or Zune. Though podcasts and blogs function in similar ways, all in all, you can use them quite differen…