Yep, Sony sure did, with both the PSP and the PlayStation3. There’s no doubt that Microsoft has been eying the competetion closely, and it doesn’t stop with XMB. In fact, what’s even worse is the shameless Mii ripoff that the new avatars are. I don’t care how much Rare and Microsoft say that they did this years ago, they are late to the party and the avatars looks just like Miis, just in high resolution.

Miis being Nintendo’s cute little avatars of course, used in games such as Wii Sports and more.

Sorry for the poor quality, shooting pictures of screens is hard

That being said, both the avatars and the new graphic interface are a great addition to the Xbox 360 experience. I’m satisfied with the upgrade, although I’d prefer it if Microsoft had done something more original.

If you’ve got a Xbox 360, grab the update and create an avatar. If nothing else but just to play around with the new functionality. Oh, and here’s tip for you! If you stay in the hairstyles screen long enough, new ones will appear. Some say you need to wiggle around but I’m fairly certain that it is a timed bonus feature and nothing else.

My gamertag is tdh, by the way.

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Anyway, online video is big, and I’ve been wanting to dabble with it. I actually bought a Sony handycam a little while back, just to see what I could do with it.

So how would I launch a video show?

I’ve got the strategy all worked out, and although celeb news like PopCrunch would probably work best, this should work for any type of quality video content. Yeah, content is king here as well, it’s bitch but whatcha gonna do?

The requirements for success

Let’s face it, some things is just needed for actual success. You might not quite live up to it all the time, and if you don’t it will weigh you down, but that doesn’t mean that all is lost – you’ll just have to fight an uphill battle, but those can be won as well, so don’t take these too seriously.

• You need an adequate studio. This doesn’t mean that it has to be state of the art, it just have to suit your needs. Avoid doing your video show with the kitchen sink in the background – get a backdrop or choose a nice looking wall. Make sure it looks nice and fits your video show’s style. Doing one on extreme sports? Consider venturing into the concrete jungle, using graffiti in the background, or whatever. Use you imagination.
• You need a good-looking host. Well, technically I guess not all video shows need a host, but most of them do, and s/he should be good-looking. The bigger boobs, the better, in some cases – but not all! Let’s not fall into this one, shall we? Video is a visual medium, so you need someone who works on camera, with a voice that carries. Some people do, others don’t. Your target audience governs this as well, so make sure you know it before selecting your host, or the style you’ll dress yourself in.
• You need hardware equipment that gets the job done. A HD camera is great, but not necessary. Get a camera that does the job and is easy enough to manage, as well as the light sources needed to make it all work out. I’d say lights are more important than camera quality, but that’s a generalization of course. Consider an external microphone, video cameras usually suck in this aspect. Also remember that sometimes the equipment needed is just your webcam, although it will probably make it a lot harder on you.
• Get the software you need. There are a bunch of choices here. Get one that does it for you, and don’t overspend until you know what you need. Alternatively, get someone to do the editing for you.
• Get a quality jingle and intro spot. Not all video shows need a serious intro spot, sometimes just putting a logo up there, and fading to the first segment, does the trick. You should, however, get a jingle to go with it, as this will help create awareness and brand your video show. If you’re not a musician you should hire one to do this for you. There are free sound snippets out there which might do it for you, but you should consider having one custom made.

Five points to consider. It all boils down to how professional you want your video show to appear.

Getting the viewers

What’s a video show without anyone watching it? Lots of money and time spent for nothing, I’d say, so here’s how you’ll attract your viewers.

• Get a kickass blog. Video shows and blogs go hand in hand, so have a designer do a kickass blog theme for you, and get blogging. Naturally, you’ll want to feature your latest episode from the video show on all pages, leading people into viewing it.
• Offer subscription methods. While not all are RSS users, a lot actually are, so make sure they can subscribe to new episodes. Also offer e-mail subscriptions, and make your show available via iTunes. Most of this comes with the blog, actually, but if not you really should utilize it – it keeps viewers coming back. Feedburner helps.
• Use YouTube for promotion. YouTube has a ton of visitors, and you can really find yourself lost browsing it. Use that! Do a special YouTube version of your video, promoting your website extra hard at the beginning and in the end, promising higher quality video if they visit it. YouTube is free, embeddable and totally awesome for these things – I can’t believe more video shows aren’t doing it! It’s a free commercial that can show up just about anywhere, for Pete’s sake!
• Use a high quality video provider for distribution. Keeping in line with the promise on YouTube, that there’ll be higher quality versions on your site. You’ll accomplish this by using any of the numerous video providers out there offering this. And you know what? Many of them, such as Metacafé and Revver, offer revenue options, so you might even earn an extra buck doing this. Also, make sure that you don’t post the YouTube version of the video, they should be different, although you need to keep in mind that these services also are embeddable.
• Do niche partnerships to attract more visitors. Find blogs in the same niche as your video show, and make a deal with them. The ideal solution is to have them post the latest YouTube version in the sidebar, if you want readers to come to your site for the full version. However, if you’re just interested in getting more viewers, not caring where they actually watch your show, then make use of the provider of your choice. Since doing this will add to the partner’s content, it shouldn’t be so hard hammer these partnerships out.

Another five tips on achieving video show success. They’re all linked, of course.

What do you think? Have you perhaps launched a video show already, or are you considering doing it? What are your tips on this matter?

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