Category: Social Networking

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Get The Last Business Card You’ll Ever Need

Popl and Tap Tag Digital Business Cards with embedded NFC tags and QR Codes

Gone are the days of big in-person conferences and meetings where you’d pass out dozens of business cards. Well at least for now. I do miss in-person events and hopefully, we’ll be able to see each other in person again soon. When we do, I won’t be carrying a ton of business cards like I used to. I’ve got one digital business card that should last forever.

My Digital Business Card Is The Last One I’ll Ever Need

Instead of getting paper cards printed and knowing that if anything changes on them I’d have to dump (recycle) them and get more printed, I had a digital card made instead. This digital card has an NFC chip in it that can be scanned by any modern smartphone.

Instead of giving you a card, I would wave my digital card near your smartphone and a notification would pop up for you to tap. Once you tap it, all of my contact/social media information would load in your browser with the option to save me to your contacts.

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What I learned about Clubhouse this weekend

Clubhouse Drop-in Audio

What’s Clubhouse?

Clubhouse is an audio only social network. It’s currently invite only and currently only on iPhone (Android is in the works). Here’s the official description:

Clubhouse is a new type of network based on voice. When you open the app you can see “rooms” full of people talking—all open so you can hop in and out, exploring different conversations. You enter each room as an audience member, but if you want to talk you just raise your hand, and the speakers can choose to invite you up. Or you can create a room of your own. It’s a place to meet with friends and with new people around the world—to tell stories, ask questions, debate, learn, and have impromptu conversations on thousands of different topics.

Clubhouse iPhone App

I was surprised

I’ll admit that I wasn’t extremely excited to see a non-visual network start to get popular. After all, I’m a visual communicator and photographer. Everything I have done over the past 25 years has been visual. However, there are definitely some advantages to an audio-only platform. For one, you don’t have to get dressed up for it. You don’t have to worry about your lighting and background. Since it’s an iPhone app, you can do it anywhere you have WiFi or great cell service. Also since it’s audio-only there are no visuals to prepare. No demo to break. It’s just talking and actually, that’s a refreshing change.

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How to Create a 360° Panorama from your DJI Drone

I really love capturing video and stills with my DJI Mavic Pro drone. I’m surprised by what I can get in regards of sharpness and rich colors. I’m also quite pleased with the 4K video. Posting stills and video to social media is nice, but the one thing that takes it up a notch is being above to post fully immersive 360° panoramas to Facebook (like the one above that you can click on and experience). Facebook has native support for 360° stills and video. On the ground I shot 360’s with my Ricoh Theta S or Insta360 nano. When it comes to aerial photography I’d rather not strap one of these cameras to my drone. The Mavic Pro already has a 12MP camera that shoots Raw.

I remember seeing someone post a drone 360° and I about fell out of my chair trying to figure out how they did it? So I asked and he was kind enough to turn me on the necessary apps. I thank him for that, but knowing which apps were used was only half the battle. I still had to figure out the process. Every time I post one someone asks me the same thing and rather than just point them to the apps they need, I’d rather have this post to refer them to so that they get the full process.

Here’s what you’ll need…

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YouTube Live Mobile Streaming is Here!

I remember it like it was yesterday. I was in the Netherlands walking to the convention center to do my presentations and a new app called Periscope had just launched the day before (March 26, 2015). Little did I know at the time that it would be life changing. I remember when podcasting and blogging opened the doors to the masses to allow ordinary people to do internet audio/video broadcasts and create their own posts/news stories. Periscope (owned by Twitter) did it again by allowing regular people to live stream from their iPhones from anywhere in the world that they had a data/wifi connection.

What’s strange is that it took YouTube almost two years to join the party Continue reading “YouTube Live Mobile Streaming is Here!”

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Mevo Live Event Camera Review

mevo-live-event-camera

I pre-ordered the Mevo back on January 5th, 2016 – the first day I heard about it. There was no denying the versatility of a 4K camera capable of doing in-app switching between different HD quadrants of it’s wide angle 4K 150° field of view all while Live Streaming.  Although the camera was originally touted to only work with Livestream.com (a paid live streaming site), I knew that other streaming services would come on board. The camera was delayed from it’s original target of shipping in April and finally arrived this week (4 months late – I won’t complain since I got a sweet pre-order price). The good news is that out of the box the camera supports Live Streaming not only to livestream.com, but also Facebook! While I and many others expected Twitter to jump on board with Periscope support, Facebook provides an API (application programmer interface) for their Facebook Live platform that allows developers like Mevo to write support for Facebook Live right in their app. I’m sure others will come on board over time, but having Facebook Live at this point is great for me.

How does the Mevo work?

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I love shooting 360° photos and videos – Ricoh Theta S Review

 

Ricoh Theta S 360° Camera

I’ll be the first to say that when 360° images hit the scene I was not the least bit interested. All I saw from my friends were images like the one below. While they are somewhat interesting to look at in that style, I just didn’t see myself wanting to create a bunch of those. Then the announcement came out that Facebook was now supporting 360° images NATIVELY and INTERACTIVELY.

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Facebook Live from my Desktop

facebooklive

Facebook just up’d the ante for Live Streaming by releasing a developer API for their Live Streaming feature. This means that any developer can now take advantage of this by adding Live Streaming to their Apps or Devices. One of the first companies to take advantage of this is Telestream. Telestream makes my favorite screen recording software (Screenflow) and they make a professional level streaming application called Wirecast. Wirecast 6.0.7 came out on the same day and allows you to add Facebook Live as a streaming option.

wirecastSS

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Do You Know How To Use Snapchat? Me either!

How to Use Snapchat

Snapchat is one of those social networks that I do more viewing than posting. For whatever reason I just never really got into it. However, more and more of my friends are on it and I figured it was time to learn How to Use Snapchat. I jumped in with both feet and learned as much as I could about it. I’ll also let you off the hook if you’ve been struggling with it. It’s NOT a user friendly app…

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Dealing With The Death of a Loved One in This Digital Age

Edmond T. White

No matter how much you try to prepare yourself for the death of a loved one, you’re never truly prepared for it. This past weekend my 86 year old father passed away. He lived a long and good life and of course I never thought that he would live forever. I knew that one day I would get “that call.” That call came Friday evening from my sister…

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What I Learned at Periscope Summit 2016

Terry White Scope Gear Master Class

I feel like a pioneer when it comes to Periscope. I did my first broadcast on March 27th, 2015 which was one day after the app became available. I’ve done 249 broadcasts to date. I’ve also learned a LOT about live streaming in general. When the folks over at Periscope Summit asked me to speak I was both excited and honored as I have a lot to say on the subject, platform and app. I live stream on a regular basis for work and personally. So what could I possibly learn at Periscope Summit?

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