Blog Posts About: video

Today we've published a new video: Secure Passwords - Explained by Common Craft

I don't know about you, but in the past I've taken passwords for granted. These days though, I'm very careful with my passwords because I know the risks and what lengths criminals will go to discover someone's password.  This video is about understanding the risks, creating a password that can't be guessed and protecting it from criminals and wandering eyes.

This video will soon be part of our Net Safety Pack, which is meant for helping students of all types understand the risks and make decisions that will protect them and their information online.

Watch the video.

Lilipip is one of the newest members of our Explainer Network of video producers and lately they've been pumping out some great videos for their customers. I'm highlighting a few below...

The first video is for Circle Street and as I told Jen at Lilipip, I really like the way they approached this video.  It's informal, fun and tells a story about a problem being solved.  It made the value proposition of Circle Street clear in one minute.  Take a look:

Second is a video for Adobe's eLearning Suite 2.  Another great video and one that highlights a different visual style and script.  This script is more oriented for elearning pros vs. the mass market, so it's a bit more technical.  What I really like is the visual animation style.  Notice how color is used to highlight the product in a mostly gray video. It also has a noir feel and matching music that gives it style.  Good stuff.

Lilipip, like all members of our Explainer Network, produce custom videos for organizations of all types.  Visit the Explainer Network page for more information.

Today we've published a new video:  Wikipedia - Explained by Common Craft

Wikipedia is one of those resources that works, but it's not always clear why.  It seems preposterous that 1000s of volunteers could not only create an online encyclopedia, but also make it a trusted resource for millions around the world for many years. But it is a reality.  Wikipedia has become one of the web's biggest success stories. 

But how does it really work? What is in place to make sure that the information is factual and high quality?  The goal of this video is to answer these questions.

For this video, we had help from the Wikimedia Foundation, the not-for-profit organization behind Wikipedia.  We worked with them on two versions of the video - a short version that we licensed to the Foundation that focuses on Wikipedia's two big rules and the longer version you see here.  The longer version is more comprehensive and appropriate for classrooms and licensing. Whether you're new to Wikipedia or use it every day, this video will help you see what's happening behind the scenes. 

We expect this video to be licensed by individuals and organizations who want their students and colleagues to have a greater understanding of Wikipedia. This video comes with multiple licenses. 

Watch it now.

If you've tried to watch online videos on an iPad, iPhone or iPod Touch, you may have noticed that some videos won't play.  This is because Apple has refused to use a technology called Flash that has been a standard for many online videos. Steve Jobs recently described why Apple made this decision.

The fact remains many online videos won't play on Apple devices.  That is, unless video hosts and producers use other technologies (namely HTML5) to make the videos play. Wistia, the company we're working with on our Web License, is ahead of the game.  They've adopted the HTML 5 standard that allows videos they host to play on the iPad, iPod Touch and iPhone.  This means that their customers don't have to worry about being limited by technology. More from the Wistia blog:

This does not mean that you’ll simply know whether or not someone is watching on an iPad, we’re capturing Video Heatmaps for each and every iPad and iPhone viewer. You’ll be able to tell who’s interested based on how much they watch, and gauge how your content is performing for your audience. Have an iPad (or iPhone) on hand and want to give our tracking a whirl? Head to our tracking demo and play with the tracking in realtime.

For the Common Craft Web License customers, this means that if you embed a Common Craft video on your site, it can be viewed with the iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch and you'll have data on how they interact with the video. Go Wistia!

Today we're publishing a new video called "Preparing an Emergency Plan - Explained by Common Craft"

If you've seen the news lately, you know there is no shortage of emergencies.  Tornadoes, hurricanes, winter storms, earthquakes, fires, it's all out there.  We don't like to think about them affecting us, but they can.  This video is focused on making a plan so that you and your family or loved-ones know what to do when an emergency happens.  It only takes 20 minutes to create an emergency plan and the once it's in place, you can have peace of mind that you and yours know what to do when it something happens.

This video is obviously a departure from our technical and financial focus. It came from a relationship that we've established with Public Safety Canada. This video is a follow-up to the video we made with them in 2008 called "Preparing an Emergency Kit."  They recently came to us about making this video and we were happy to work with them again.  This relationship is what we call the "hybrid model", where we work together on the video, and we can offer a Common Craft version for licensing.

Along with use in classrooms, we hope that this video will be useful for government organizations that need better ways to get their constituents. This video is only available through this website or via licensing. It is not shared on You Tube or other hosts.  If you're a blogger that would like to use it, please contact us.

The video that started it all, RSS in Plain English, was published 3 years ago today.  We had no idea, three years ago, what we were getting ourselves into, but we're so happy that it has worked out the way it has. 

Here's the original version of the video.  The one that appears on this site (the one we license) has been updated for color and clarity.

The video currently has over 1.1 million views on You Tube and has been licensed hundreds of times. As much as the technical quality of the video makes me cringe, it goes to show that a video doesn't have to be technically perfect to be effective. Since that day, we've continued to publish videos on a monthly basis.

Here are a couple of Twitter updates from the day after we publised:

Good times.  After three years, the process of publishing a new video still gets my blood pumping.  More coming soon to Internets near you.