PolkaCast Update.

Our UStream experiment during the Saturday Morning Barndance Christmas party this weekend went off without a hitch.

The site’s built-in metrics tell us we had 117 unique viewers and a total of 271 viewers from 7 to 11:15 AM Saturday.

In emails to Pioneer 90.1, people reported viewing from as far away as Montana, Idaho, Winnipeg, Alaska, Florida and the Czech Republic!

The recorded segments continue to get hits this morning.

And page views of this blog tripled as people searched to find the broadcast.

Use new media. Your audience will find you.

More photos here.

Polka like it’s 2009!

Polka music and new media are an unlikely pairing. But you’d be surprised at the number of online listeners we have at Pioneer 90.1 for The Saturday Morning Barndance polka show.

This Saturday, we’re adding more new media to the Czech Mix as we present our first ever live video stream on radionorthland.org. And this isn’t just webcam video. In the DIY spirit of new media, I’m using an antique 1994 video switcher I found in a closet to mix video from four cameras as we present a live broadcast from Gunderson Commons at Northland’s Thief River Falls Campus.

The hosts of the Barndance radio show have invited Karl and the Country Dutchmen from Wisconsin to play for the live Christmas party broadcast on Saturday morning.

The group has previously performed at the Library of Congress in Washington, DC.

If the past three years’ events are any indication, we expect to have over 100 polka fans at the college. These are very generous people who donate about half of what the radio station takes in each year from listener donations.

Pioneer 90.1 Operations manager Ben Kosharek and I set up the station’s UStream account and embedded it into the station’s website yesterday. It was unbelievable how easy it was to take the switched video from an output on a digital recording deck, feed it through firewire into a computer, and connect with UStream. We had a live stream up and running in about two minutes.

Ustream also allows us to record the broadcast and archive it on our Ustream page or upload it to YouTube. The site has a live chat feature, and allows a streamer to update Facebook and Twitter right from Ustream.

UStream takes all the technical work out of streaming video so we can concentrate on creating great content. I plan to use it for video streaming other Northland events in the future.

So if you’re in the area Saturday from 7 to 11 AM, stop in for the Barndance Christmas Party. Or check us out on Pioneer 90.1, the video stream on radionorthland.org, or on Sjoberg’s Cable channel 13.

This is going to be fun!

Live from Drayton, ND … It’s Christmas!

I just had an interesting conversation with Larry Ritzo, president of the Drayton, North Dakota Chamber of Commerce.

Ritzo is also publisher of the weekly newspaper in the town of about 900 people. Of his subscribers, half are former Drayton residents who have moved out-of-state but stay subscribed because they want to remain up-to-date on Drayton events.

It was that fact that lead Ritzo and e-commerce consultant Larrie Wanberg to create http://www.draytonchristmas.com/. The site uses live streaming video to bring out-of-towners back into downtown Drayton for a host of Christmas activities, including the Old-Fashioned Christmas celebration held last weekend at the Drayton Community Center.

The site uses UStream, a  streaming site that allows anyone with a webcam (or a video switcher with multiple cameras) to “broadcast” live to the web … for free. The site has a broadcast schedule for last weekend’s activities that included church services, a Christmas auction and a visit from Santa Claus.

There’s also a page of links to local businesses, opening these small shops to customers worldwide.

Ritzo said that he and other Chamber members are in the beginning stages of learning about the tools of new media. They used a simple one-camera setup from the Old-Fashioned Christmas event. The video was streamed to UStream over a wireless router that Ritzo attached to the side of a building across the street.

In future years, the webcasts could easily expand into using multiple cameras with graphics.  

Just a few years ago, this kind of internet broadcasting would have been very expensive, if not impossible, to pull off. Today, the tools are essentially free. Add creativity …  and a small-town Christmas celebration can reach a worldwide audience.

Small businesses need online video. USA Today says so.

I couldn’t have written a better ad for our New Media program than the article that appeared on page 5B of last Wednesday’s USA Today. A quote from a Forrester research analyst in the second line of the story says it all:

“Whether you’re a hot-dog vendor in Boston or a design firm in Santa Fe, you will be producing video for the Web. Video is how your customers will find you.”

The story goes on to say that right now only 2% of small businesses have adopted online video, because small business owners “don’t know how to get the video produced.”  

“They don’t understand yet how it will drive their business. That will change in the next two years,” said fliqz.com’s CEO Benjamin Wayne.

We’re looking at a ground floor opportunity for entrepreneurs trained in the tools of new media. If you can make compelling video that helps small business owners better communicate with their customers, you have value in the marketplace.

If you are a small business owner and can make videos yourself, more power to you. You have a really powerful edge over your competition.

The tools for making video are inexpensive. But making compelling video is not “point and shoot” simple.

There’s a lot to consider: What information am I trying to communicate? Who’s the audience? What do I want the viewer to do after watching this video? What mood am I trying to convey? 

There’s the artistic stuff: Camera angles, lighting, good audio, editing in a way that succinctly communicates the message, choosing music and visual effects.

And there’s the technical stuff: Knowing the camera’s manual controls, chosing the best compressed format for a small-but-good-quality file, creating graphics.

Here in northwest Minnesota, we may not have many video production companies, but there are some exciting opportunities for entrepreneurs and freelancers who have the skills to help small businesses use video on the web. It’s a wide-open market in an innovative new field.

Cable’s out … so what’s on TV?

When I returned from walking the dog last night, something was wrong. “The TV isn’t working,” my wife said. “The TV, or the cable?,” I asked, hoping that the plasma set hadn’t melted down.

CSI: Grygla

As it turned out, the TV was fine, but the digital cable/DVR was displaying nothing but a pea soup green screen. This is disconcerting, but it’s not a major issue with me. I could probably do without TV. I can live without dancing psuedo-celebrities and I don’t want anything to do with Octomom or Jon +/- Kate. 

My wife, on the other hand, has seen nearly episode of the “letter” shows: NCIS, CSI, CSI NY, CSI Las Vegas, CSI Miami, CSI Grygla, etc. 

For me, TV has become something just to have on in the background.

So this morning, with the pea green screen preempting The Today Show, I switched over to a device that could represent the future of television. Its unique delivery method makes the cost of distributing video programming to living room TV sets almost nothing. And that’s a very good thing for those interested in new media careers.

The Future of TV

I’m talking about Apple TV, one of a number of set-top boxes that grab audio and video from your wireless router and pass it into your HDTV. So this morning, instead of bearing with the artificial screams of the crowd gathering to hear Al’s weather forecast outside at Rockefeller Center, I was able to watch a podcast of my choice on my Apple TV.

I scrolled through the most popular video podcasts and randomly chose DiggNation, a show hosted by two guys sitting on a couch in their living room talking tech. While their show didn’t have the visual effects of a CSI or the sheer star power of a ballroom dancing Tom DeLay (network TV is so awesome!), it did have something going for it: I was actually interested in what these guys had to say (OK, most of it). It was in HD, too.

I can find a podcast on almost any topic I’m interested in. I can stream them directly, or I can subscribe to shows I like and iTunes grabs them automatically every time a new episode is available.

From the Web to your HDTV

At one time, cable access channels were the only way for an average Joe to make TV programming. Today, it’s much easier to reach an audience in their living room, or on their iPods, or on a mobile device.

All you need is a topic, a cheap camera, a computer and an internet connection.  This is going to have major implications on traditional media and advertising.

Yesterday I said that people don’t like to be sold — they want information to help them solve problems. You can’t just make a podcast that’s an ad and expect people to watch. But what you can do is give them a steady stream of useful (or funny, or both) information, and when it comes time for them to get more specialized advice on your topic; you have become a trusted, knowledgable source.

If you’re selling a service, all those free podcasts you created may translate into a sale.

We’ll cover these topics in-depth this fall in the New Media Podcasting and Video Distribution classes. (Not trying to sell you, or anything).