Amusing Video: Kitty Alarm Clock

If you have cats, you’ll love this video! Kitty says “WAKE UP”! 

Yeah, and I have three of them – ouch!

Hat tip to A Reality of My Own for sharing this amusing video!

Blogging Tips: How to maximize traffic to your blog

I started writing tips for bloggers and am surprised by the amount of traffic and emails the posts generated. It seems a lot of people are looking for help with developing a solid blog and “blogging tips” is quite a popular search, as is “how to blog”. So I’ve found another great list of tips to help you get the most out of your blog, no matter what you write about. This time we’re focusing on getting people to your blog (traffic) and eventually you’ll want to work on turning visitors to subscribers, but that’s for another post.

From Seth Godin, marketing guru with a popular business blog, come a few of the over 50 excellent tips on How to get traffic for your blog:

 2.  Be topical… write posts that need to be read right now.

5.  Be timeless… write posts that will be readable in a year.

11. Don’t write about your cat, your boyfriend or your kids.

15. Be sycophantic. Share linklove and expect some back.

16. Include polls, meters and other eye candy.

19. Do email interviews with the well-known.

27. Include comments so your blog becomes a virtual water cooler that feeds itself.

31. Write about stuff that appeals to the majority of current blog readers–like gadgets and web 2.0.

35. Write posts that each include dozens of trackbacks to dozens of blog posts so that people will notice you.

36. Keep tweaking your template to make it include every conceivable bell or whistle.

41. Post on weekdays, because there are more readers.

46. Edit yourself. Ruthlessly.

55. Don’t be boring.

56. Write stuff that people want to read and share.

Read the complete list here: http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2006/06/how_to_get_traf.html

What a great list of tips! You should check out the comments at the end of the post for some additional hints, tips and tricks. I plan on continuing to follow this topic so be sure to check back for more good stuff to read! Better yet, subscribe to my feed and get updated regularly!

Related posts:

• Blogging Tips: How to blog for beginners
• Blogging Tips: Self Branding Will Help Generate Income as a Blogger
• Blogging Tips: don’t over complicate things
• New to blogging? 5 Key Components Every Blog Needs

Technorati Tags: Blogging, How To Blog, Blogging Tips, Successful Blog, Start A Blog, Increase Blog Traffic

searchles TV Remash: beta video clip editing tool

Looking for a new video editing tool? Here’s a new one that’s currently in beta – searchles TV Remash let’s you edit “ANY Youtube or Google video” but there’s a neat twist:

You also have the option to drag multiple videos at once into the Remash timeline box for editing. You can then mash up the clips into a single channel. A searchles channel will stream the videos seamlessly back-to-back in one player and you can embed the searchles TV player anywhere on the web. HOW AWESOME IS THAT?!?!?  

Well, it sounds pretty awesome to “mash” multiple clips together into one video that I could embed on my blog or website. How does searchles TV Remash stand up? Here’s my first try:

• First step is to register and confirm vial email. Then you can log in and get to work. 
• I started by searching for videos to mash, I entered “Scrubs” for one of my favorite TV shows and clicked search = YouTube
• Results were good and I got different videos related to changes in search terms
• Dragging the videos to the Timeline Videos section was a snap and they instantly appeared in the Remash Timeline in the order I had added them
• Reordering videos was also easy, just drag to rearrange videos or click the small X in the upper window of the desired video to delete it. Originally I found myself trying to delete and reorder videos on the Remash Timeline, but figured out I was in the wrong area pretty easily. You can chalk this up to new user trial and error but perhaps a pop-up or note directing new users to delete or reorder in the Timeline Videos section could be of use.
• As a new user I was again trying to use the Remash Timeline to edit videos, but it was easy to find the “Selected Clip Options” area and edit time off the front and/or back of each clip in the Timeline Videos section
• Once I had clipped time off the front and back of a video I was confused as to what the next step was. There wasn’t a clear save option for a given clips edits. I finally determined the time edits were being saved when I switched to another clip.
• I still found myself wanting to use the Remash Timeline to drag clip times but it’s probably something a regular user would get used to
• Once I trimmed both vidoes down, I entered a name for my mash: My Scrubs Mash and was taken to a page where I could view it or copy the embed code to use on my blog or website.
• If your blogging app lets you use embed code for videos, you’ll be pleased with the results. If you use Worpress, like The Whole Enchilada, you won’t be able to embed the video as WP only accepts links and does the embedding on their end. I tried using the URL for the video that’s in embed code (it’s the hack in me) and WordPress still didn’t want to play nice. Kind of a bummer since the whole point is to embed videos, but there is the My Scrubs Mash link and I logged out to verify you don’t need to be registered with Searchles to view it. So that’s cool. I’m not sure how the tool stands up to other blogging platforms like Blogger, TypePad, Windows Live Spaces, etc. so you’ll want to make sure it will work for you.
• Currently Remash only supports YouTube and Google videos, but I’d expect other options to come – remember the tool is still in beta – and you can add videos by entering a URL so that’s nice.
• The other benefit of searchles TV Remash is the social search/social networking aspects. You can create and share videos, create channels, share with friends, and more. I received a comment from someone minutes after submitting My Scrubs Mash 

Summary of searchles TV Remash

 A pretty cool tool to search and add multiple video clips, trim as desired then publish with options to embed the “mashed up” video, submit to searchles channels, add other videos and such. The app is pretty simple but a little light on instructions for new users.  The four steps on the main video edit page are probably enough for regular users but someone new to the tool might need a few more tips to help get started with their first mash. Now that I think about it, the teaser page that gets you interested in signing up had some more detail – perhaps using that image for new users would help them get started. I worked my way through with minor hit and misses but searchles might want to consider helping new users along with informative text, alt text or other types of user prompts.  If you keep in mind that TV Remash is in Beta I think you’ll be pretty pleased with the tool. The drawbacks are some blogging platforms don’t allow embed and only Google and YouTube videos are supported.  Additionally it’s not the most intuitive User Interface (UI) and there is light support when getting started, however if you’re a quick learner or actually read help/support/faq’s then you’ll probably be ok.

Overall I think TV Remash is a good tool and I can see myself using it in the future. For instance, I love the show Scrub’s and am always trying to explain various scenes and skits, which ends up butchering the humor and making me look like the dork I am. With TV Remash I can chop up my clips and send a link. Now that’s what I’m talking about –  all my clips in one pretty little video! It will be interesting to see what searchles TV Remash UI looks like post-beta. I know they’re soliciting feedback and working on a final cut so I’ll keep my eyes and ears peeled for updates on future releases.

Technorati Tags: Video TOol, Searchles, Searchles TV Remash, Embed Videos, Video Clips, Video Editing Tool

Amusements: Pretty Darn Funny Walmart Application

There’s some excellent humor in a post outlining an actual (supposedly?) Walmart application turned in by a senior citizen: Now This Really Happened!

Here are a few of my favorite lines:

• DESIRED POSITION:  Company’s President or Vice President.  But seriously, whatever’s available.   If I was in a position to be picky, I wouldn’t be applying here in the first place
• LAST POSITION HELD:  Target for middle management hostility.
• MAY WE CONTACT YOUR CURR EMPLOYER?:   If I had one, would I be here?
• WHAT WOULD YOU LIKE TO BE DOING IN FIVE YEARS?: Living in the Bahamas with a fabulously wealthy dumb sexy blonde supermodel who thinks I’m the greatest thing since sliced bread.  Actually, I’d like to be doing that now.

Read more here: http://isthisworthit.wordpress.com/2007/11/14/now-this-really-happened/

Now I have no way of verifying if this was a real application or if the man was actually hired “because he was so funny” but wouldn’t you want to work for a manager who saw and got the humor instead of being labeled an unemployeed, aged nut-job? Of course the manager in me is screaming – oh no you didn’t, but this is my fun blog so I can laugh and applaud the bold move!