Welcome to my technology blog!
I’m finally back in my live streaming studio this week! That means that I have some live streams to do this week on the various Adobe Facebook pages:
Monday, July 9, 1PM PT – How to Add Your Own Branding to Adobe Spark
Continue reading “What I’m Live Streaming About This Week – 7/9 thru 7/13”
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
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.
Continue reading “How to Create a 360° Panorama from your DJI Drone”
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.
I’ve been a Facebook user for years. However, I can remember that when I first started using it I wanted to use it for “personal” networking. I wanted to post pics of my family so that only my family and friends would see them. However, I started getting lots of friend requests from people I didn’t know! Let’s call them “Fans”. These are people that follow me as a public figure on social media and at live events, but people that I’ve never met. For weeks I just kept those requests in the queue without approving or declining them. I didn’t want to be rude and decline them without explanation, nor did I want to approve “strangers” and have them seeing things that were personal to me. Finally after the requests pilled up in the hundreds, I gave up on using Facebook for personal use and started approving everyone. Then I discovered this hidden Facebook feature that made all the difference in the world!
Twitter launched Periscope on March 26th, 2015 and so far it has been a hit with many. It’s estimated that Periscope has 12 Million Users. It even got Apple’s prestigious “App of the Year” for 2015. Yes, all things are pointing to Periscope only getting better from here on out. However, Periscope is in an ever increasing crowded field. While we don’t see Meerkat in the new much anymore, there are others like Blab and yes the 800 lb gorilla, Facebook. Facebook has dipped their two into the live streaming pond a little at a time. Well recently, they waded out a little farther by starting to turn on Live Streaming in their regular Facebook iOS App for “regular folks”. I say “regular folks” because before this advancement, Facebook only allowed Public Figures (and people with Verified Pages) to stream in their Facebook Mentions App. Now keep in mind that this is a slow rollout. You may not have it yet. This feature only started rolling out since December 14th, 2015. I only just got the feature (a button shows up when you have it) right around Christmas day. I have other friends that still don’t have it yet. Whether you have it yet or not, you will ultimately have this ability (at least in the iOS App). It’s just a matter of time as they turn on more users each day.
Continue reading “5 Things the Periscope App Could Learn from the Facebook App”
Many of you know that I embraced Live Streaming early on. Periscope launched on March 26, 2015 and I did my first LIVE broadcast on March 27th using the App. Since then I’ve been streaming on Periscope on a regular basis as well as Facebook Mentions Live. I also stream twice a week on the Adobe Twitch.tv channel. Last night I got the word that I’ve been added to the list of speakers for the upcoming Periscope Summit in San Francisco January 14-17, 2016. I’m honored not only to be a speaker but to speak about something I’m passionate about and that is Live Streaming and Photography.
But wait, there’s more…
Continue reading “I’ll Be Speaking at the Upcoming Periscope Summit”
The average Facebook user has no idea how Facebook really works when it comes to the content that the post. Facebook is a business! While it’s free for users to join and share content with their friends, family and colleagues, Facebook actually makes its money by advertising to its users. There’s nothing wrong with that. It’s a simple model. You can use the service for free and the only price you pay is seeing ads (unless you have an ad blocker). Yes it would be fine if it stopped here, but it doesn’t.
Continue reading “The Game That Facebook Plays With Your Content”
You didn’t think Facebook would sit idly by while Twitter did LIVE streaming via its Periscope App did you? Early yesterday evening I got an App update to the Facebook Mentions App announcing that it now has a feature called “Live from Facebook Mentions.”
Facebook Mentions is Facebook’s dedicated App for those of us who are Public Figures and have a “verified” Page on Facebook.
While I was certainly honored that Facebook verified my page without any action on my part and the fact that they even created this separate celebrity app, I really didn’t find that it was all that useful compared to the regular Facebook Pages Manager App. Well that all changed yesterday. Now I can bring up the Facebook Mentions App on my iPhone and start a live broadcast at any time. People that have previously “Liked” my Page will get a notification and they can watch the broadcast and make comments via text in the broadcast itself. The best part compared is that after the broadcast is over it appears as a regular video post on my Page for anyone to view after the fact. I also like that this post can be edited so that I can add links, additional information to the items or sites that I mentioned in the broadcast.
Periscope is Twitter’s Live broadcasting service. Like Twitter it’s free to use. You can download the iOS or Android version and start broadcasting immediately. When you start a new broadcast the app sends a tweet to your Twitter followers as well as a push notification to any of your Periscope followers. People can watch the broadcast either in the Periscope App or on the web in a browser. People can also make comments via text in the App that you can respond to verbally and they can also tap the screen to give you “hearts” (their version of Likes). The idea behind Periscope is to be able to show the world what you’re seeing in realtime. After the broadcast is over it will be available for replay by anyone that follows you in the App or has the link for up to 24 hours. After that it automatically self destructs forever.
Obviously Facebook Mentions Live (FML <- LOL) is the new kid on the block and will come at a disadvantage to Periscope that has now been out for 5 months. Periscope has had several App updates to address user feedback and finally released their Android version. FML is only iOS at this point and currently limited to only those with a Verified Public Figure Facebook Page.
Video format
Periscope’s video format is portrait. This pisses off most people not viewing the video in the app and while Periscope has promised to deliver landscape video it hasn’t made it on the scene as of this post. FML on the other hand is a square aspect ratio. This makes it less frustrating to view, but means that they may never deliver landscape video. As you might expect the quality of the video/audio to your viewers will depend on the strength and speed of your data connection. When I’m on WiFi at home both Periscope and FML look awesome. On slower cellular data connections Periscope can be sketchy.
Your potential viewing audience
Here’s where it gets interesting. While your Periscope broadcasts automatically announce to your Twitter followers that you’re LIVE, it can be missed if someone is viewing your tweets in the moment. Unless your followers are diligent about scrolling their timelines and viewing your tweets, your broadcasts will only be seen by a fraction of your followers. Periscope does have the advantage that people can follow you on Periscope separately from Twitter, but from what I see the average number of Periscope followers to Twitter followers is usually a small fraction. For example, I have over 43,000 followers on Twitter, but only 3,227 followers on Periscope. My buddy Scott Kelby has over 288,000 followers on Twitter and only 10,830 followers on Periscope. I think that the lower number of Periscope followers is largely due to the fact that people can only follow you on Periscope from the iOS App or recently released Android App. There’s also no way currently to give someone a link to follow you. You can only give them your user name (ie. @TerryLWhite <- yes follow me please).
On the FML side you already have an audience on your Facebook Page. I have 39,736 Likes on my Page. That’s my potential audience each time I do a broadcast. Facebook does play games though when it comes to showing your post to your followers. Look at the graphic above and you’ll see that last night the post had only reached 1,725 of my audience. The more popular your post is the more people that Liked your page will see it. So with that being said not all 39,736 people were notified when I did my 1st broadcast. There’s no way to control who gets notified and who doesn’t.
If you want more people to see your post/broadcast you can click the Boost Post button and PAY to have to promoted to more people. It’s a shame that people ask to follow you by clicking the Like button on your Page, but unless they manually visit your page regularly they may not see many or any of your posts via notifications or in their timeline unless you pay for them to see it. Let’s face it that while social media is free, Facebook and Twitter make their money from advertising.
Comments and adorations
Both Periscope and FML allow people to make comments during the broadcast. in the case of Periscope the comments appear superimposed over the video and some find that distracting. FML on the other hand displays the comments at the bottom of the screen below the square video. With Periscope if your viewers like what they are seeing they can tap anywhere on the screen to give you hearts (adorations). I haven’t seen anything like that yet in FML. However, I did see at the end of the broadcast that I had “Likes” not sure how I got them at this point?
Replays
Both Periscope and FML offer the ability for people that missed your live broadcast to see it after the fact. With Periscope your broadcast remains active for up to 24 hours in the feed of everyone that follows you. Anyone that got the tweet when you went live can still click it to watch after the fact. Recently Periscope was updated to allow you share a link to anyone. The obvious downside is that if you send the link to someone and they don’t watch it within 24 hours, the link won’t work afterwards. Periscope also offers the option to save the raw video to your device after the broadcast. This means that you can post the video anywhere you want afterwards but note that it will be a vertical video. FML on the other hand puts the raw video of your broadcast on your Facebook Page immediately after the broadcast ends. That’s VERY COOL because there’s not expiration date. It also means that I can edit the post after the fact and add more info and links to the things I was talking about during the broadcast. Also since it’s a regular Facebook Post you can share it with others on Facebook that aren’t on your page. If you right click the video on your page you can copy the URL and share it anywhere like here.
I came up with an idea to broadcast to both Periscope and Life from Facebook Mentions at the same time. It became a product from Arkon called the TW Broadcaster Pro. Check out my video below:
Periscope is cool and I use it regularly. However, I’ve always felt that many of my fans were missing out if they’re not on Twitter or don’t follow me on Periscope. I’ve posted links to the Periscope replay on Facebook afterwards but again the replay is only available for 24 hours. If Facebook opens up Live streaming to the regular Facebook app, Facebook Pages app and Facebook Groups App I think they would ultimately win as there are more people on Facebook than there are on Twitter. Twitter should open up Periscope a little more by offering direct links to follow people even on the web and they should give the option of allowing replays to last longer than 24 hours. If Facebook wanted to “own” the Live Streaming social media world they certainly have the base to do it. Live from Facebook Mentions Live may be just the beginning of their strategy!
Follow me on Periscope @TerryLWhite
Like my Facebook Page here.
Follow me on Twitter here.
Get the Periscope App here for iOS
Get the Periscope App here for Android
Get the Facebook Mentions App for iOS here (if you have a verified public figure page)
I just wanted to take a moment to say THANK YOU for subscribing to my YouTube Channel. I just blew past the 75,000 mark and I’m thrilled that so many of you like my content. Having over 75,000 subscribers and over 13 Million Views is no small accomplishment and again thanks.
Hey if you’re in the subscribing/following kinda mood, don’t forget to follow me on Twitter (approaching 25,000 followers) and Like my Facebook Page (over 15,000 likes). Also add me to your Google+ Circles (over 25,000 have me in their circles) and follow me on Behance.
My Learn the Adobe Creative Suite with Terry White App has now been rebranded to “Learn the Adobe Creative Cloud with Terry White” as well as some bug fixes. Be sure to download the update. (note – I did have one person tell me that he’s having issues with it on iPad 1. So if you have an iPad 1 you might want to hold off till I confirm).
Grab the app here:
Well technically I did. You’re reading it now. However, the point of this post is that I don’t post daily or as much as I used to. The reason is quite simple, I don’t always have a product to review or something that requires a full blown blog post. However, that doesn’t mean that I don’t have something to say each day. For the shorter, quick messages that I want to get out to my followers I usually use social networks. I almost always have something quick to say or point people to each day and I do those posts on Twitter, my Facebook Fan Page, Google+, YouTube, Tumblr, Flickr, Instagram, Pinterest, etc. If you’re missing your daily “Terry White” fix, then it’s best to make sure you follow my social media channels. These are the places I’m also more likely to have a conversation with my followers when time permits. Even if you HATE social media, you can still browse my Facebook Fan Page or Twitter feed WITHOUT actually having to be a member of those networks. Just this week alone I posted “inside-look” photos of Adobe San Francisco, a funny Facebook Phone Parody video, sneak peek videos on Adobe’s Video Products, a cool Illustrator extension that turns shapes into code (geek style), and more. If you’re only following my blog, then you’re missing out!
