Rae Hoffman

Nickelodeon Turns Webcasting Into Child’s Play

by Rae Hoffman on January 14, 2008 | Business Ramblings

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There’s a show on Nickelodeon called iCarly that my daughter likes to watch. The whole premise of the show is that Carly (Miranda Cosgrove - who is a talented kid) and her friends make and broadcast a live web show from an attic. The web show is accompanied by a website that host all their previous shows and allow interaction with their “fans”.

My daughter wanted to go to the website and I was surprised to find that Nick is allowing kids to make their own videos, send them in and if they’re “good enough”, they can appear on the icarly website and/or TV show.

Now, the thing is, kids don’t know anything about making web videos… so, Nickelodeon has a few videos explaining to kids how to do their own web shows (note to Nick - give people the ability to EMBED your videos and access them via straight links without having to right click to find it if you want more publicity).

What results is quite a few quick, concise and most importantly, simple enough for a kid to understand, tips and tricks to making videos for use on the web…

Choosing your set
Being prepared - information about scripts, stage direction and more
Picking your co-stars for your webcast
Make sure that you rehearse your web show before doing it
How to use lighting to improve the end output of your video

I hope like hell that they put more of them out because these were probably the easiest to understand tutorials I’ve ever seen about making online videos, though these are some decent video making tutorials as well. If anyone has some links to simple - key word being SIMPLE online video making tutorials that deal with sound, lighting, etc. that are aimed at beginners (and not in-depth tutorials on shooting underwater) feel free to drop them in the comments below.

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January 14, 2008 at 12:06 pm

{ 8 comments… read them below or add one }

1 httpwebwitch January 14, 2008 at 10:35 am

The last item on the list should be: Invite your parents to collaborate while making and editing the video, and show the completed video to your parents before posting it.

Kids should know the obvious rules for staying safe online, like: don’t reveal your address, email or phone number, don’t use the name of your school, don’t reply to strangers who ask for personal details, and advise an adult if you witness or are threatened by online bullying.

2 graywolf January 14, 2008 at 10:54 am

I love iCarly!

and the mountain of evidence that I am a freak grows larger by the day …

3 CarrieHill January 14, 2008 at 11:52 am

Hey Rae,

Thanks so much for bringing those tutorials to our attention - my daughter and son (Ok ok me too) are huge iCarly fans and they wanted to send a video in (thanks santa for that new video camera.) I’m a bit of a novice so i wasnt sure how they should start - now I know where to send them and the instructions are VERY easy to understand - so even I can “get it”!

Great post,
~Carrie

4 Business SEO - Terry Reeves January 15, 2008 at 1:24 am

You can never be too young to begin your social media education.

5 Steve January 15, 2008 at 5:52 pm

That sounds like a great way to get kids involved in the social media revolution.

6 Mike January 19, 2008 at 4:43 am

Here are some quick tips that worked for me:

http://current.com/make/training?section=shooting

That whole site is killer… I guess Al Gore did invent the internet, who knew…

Rae Hoffman 7 Rae Hoffman January 21, 2008 at 11:08 pm

Thanks Mike - awesome link!

8 Loretta January 27, 2008 at 6:40 pm

iCarly is totally cute. A little “rich kid” feeling but still cute. One of the few things Nickelodeon has done right lately for sure. For awhile there content has been going kaplooie and sucking, my kids would rather watch Boomerang most nights.

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