If you have ever tried to use the Twitter search you have probably noticed it doesn’t feel much like a search.  It is more of a live filter or live pulse for a specific word, showing you a stream of live tweets containing that word.  Try using the Twitter search at http://search.twitter.com and search for something like “#CS5″ (Adobe Creative Suite 5) and you will see what I mean.  It doesn’t return the most interesting results, it just returns the most current results (imagine if Google did this).  Don’t get me wrong, current is cool, like in the event of an earthquake, or zombie apocalypse it is nice to “See what’s happening — right now.”  But maybe that isn’t what you are looking for, maybe you want to find the most interesting Tweet on #CS5, or in the case of Screenr the most interesting screencast on PowerPoint, not just the most recent.  So several months ago I was bored and set out to build a better search system for Screenr, and I did, and here is how I did it.

How to make a better search

This morning the New York Times posted an article on TweetUp, a company that is building a smarter search for Twitter (read the article here).  Essentially, what they are trying to do is turn the search into more than just a pulse, they want an actual search, like Google’s that ranks the search based on factors to determine if it will be the most relevant.

TweetUp measures a Tweets popularity by:

• Measuring how often readers repost the tweets (number of ReTweets)
• How many clicks each links get

They also just raised $3.5 million in funding for this concept (along with an interesting monetization idea).

Measure interestingness by the number of ReTweets

I think this is a pretty cool concept, if something is ReTweeted it usually means it is interesting, and the more ReTweets a tweet gets, the more interesting it is.  What I was happy about was this was the same conclusion I came to when building my search.  So tweets that are more heavily ReTweeted should appear higher in the search results, so this is what I did.

Other ways to measure interestingness

So I kept thinking about this and wondered if there were other ways that you could measure “interestingness.”

Here were some alternative ideas I had for measuring interestingness:

• Reach – “Reach” I defined as the total number of followers of everyone who tweeted the screencast.
• Views – Simply measuring the number of views of a particular screencast.
• Views per Reach - The number of views of a particular screencast divided by the “Reach” of the tweet.  The idea behind this though would be that the most interesting screencast would be the one that compelled people that saw the Tweet to actually view the video.

The difficulty of these approaches is that at Screenr we don’t give you access to the number of views through any type of API so that I can analyze the data, and when trying to determine the “Reach” of a Tweet it can use several hundred API calls to twitter that quickly push you over the API call limit.  So I abandoned any of these other approaches.

How I built my search

Here is a quick rundown of what I did:

• Dump all Screenr tweets from Twitter in a database every hour using the Twitter API. Twitter only gives you access to a couple of weeks worth of data using their search.  To deal with this I run an automated script every hour that dumps all tweets that contain the text “http://screenr.com” into a database.  This database is what I use for the search queries.  Obviously on screencasts that have been tweeted will show up in my search results because I am using the Twitter API.
• Search the database when someone searches, then rank results based on RTs. When you search using my search tool, I will query the database and find every screencast that uses your search term.  I then look for which screencast has been tweeted the most, then display that Tweet at the top of the results.

Pretty simple huh?

Use my Twitter based search for #Screenr

If you want to try it out you can use my Screenr search here:

Or by visiting it directly here:

http://www.mozealous.com/screenr/

This isn’t an official Screenr search

Just so you know, this is something I was just playing around with, at some point in the future Screenr will release an official Screenr search that is better than this.

How this search can be improved

There are a couple of things I don’t like about my search, and I think that it could be improved.  Here is what I think should be done:

• Only display the original tweet in the search results (no need to show all RTs)
• Create a better search results page, like maybe something like what YouTube does, or Bing video search, that shows the video, or video thumb, not just video description.  After all, you are looking for the video, not the description.
• Handle apostrophes better.  I don’t handle them well.

You should improve it

If you are interested in improving this search, and are comfortable programming in PHP I would be more than happy to give you access to source code I used to build this search.  If you are, let me know in the comments and I’ll give you the code and the current database I am using that stores the tweets.

It’s 2010, and you are dying to do something that embraces mobile learning. Why not create a Video Podcast of all your Screenr screencasts?

Here is how you can create a Video Podcast of your Screenr screencasts in 4 easy steps.

A little background

One of the cool things about Screenr, is that you can view your Screenr Screencasts on an iPhone. Articulate’s CEO @GetAdam created this Screencast to show you what Screenr Videos look like on an iPhone:

View at Screenr

Cool, so Screenr screencasts play on an iPhone…how did we do that? Only certain video types will play on an iPhone (like MP4 for example), and will only play video up to certain dimensions (640×480). In order to provide the best video quality for both iPhone users, and normal web users Screenr creates two separate video files for each screencast you create. A smaller 640×480 video that is optimized for the iPhone, and a larger full resolution video that matches your recording dimensions for web users.

When we build our Video Podcast feed we are going to link to the iPhone version of your Screencast to make sure that it will play nicely on an iPhone and iPod Touch.

Step 1: Install some tools

You need a few tools to follow these steps. Go ahead and install them now if you don’t have them.

• Firefox + the User Agent Switcher Add-On
• A text editor to edit some XML (I recommend Notepad++)
• iTunes

Step 2: Get the video links

We need to get the links to the iPhone version of the MP4s. In order to get the iPhone version of the MP4′s you will need to trick Screenr into thinking your Firefox browser is an MP4.

Here is how you can do that:

1. Install the User Agent Switcher Add-On in Firefox if you haven’t already.
2. Select Tools
3. Select Default User Agent > iPhone 3.0
4. Go to Screenr.com
5. Find the video you are looking to include in your Podcast
6. Select View > Page Source to view the HTML (this will help us find the link)
7. Find the <video> tag..hint, it should look something like this:
   <video width=”290″ height=”161″ poster=”http://c0203141.cdn.cloudfiles.rackspacecloud.com/81e750d1-56dd-4e55-97e0-72f3cb445e79_thumb.jpg” controls=”controls”>
   <source src=”http://c0203291.cdn.cloudfiles.rackspacecloud.com/81e750d1-56dd-4e55-97e0-72f3cb445e79.mp4″ type=”video/mp4″ /><!– Safari / iPhone video –>
   </video>
8. Copy the link to the MP4 and save it for later
9. Repeat for all the videos you want to include in your podcast

Confused by those steps? The screencast below will walk you through it.

View at Screenr

Step 3: Create the XML feed

There are easier ways to do this, but we are just going to create the XML feed for the Video Podcast by hand. This XML feed is what iTunes will use to build and update your Video Podcast. So let’s get started.

1. Grab my sample Video Podcast XML feed here (Right-Click and select Save As).
2. Open up the XML file in your favorite text editor (like Notepad++).

Ok, now a little explanation about the Podcast XML structure. A Podcast XML feed is made up of a channel, and a channel has various different items, somewhat like programs. This is kinda similar to like TV channels being made up of various different programs. Like how ESPN is a channel, and has various different programs like Sports Center, Monday Night Football, etc. The Podcast XML will be similar, we first create the channel, and then we will add a bunch of items, and the items will be the individual screencasts.

Create the channel

So lets take a look at the XML file. The first thing you will want to do is update the tags in the channel. The channel has the following tags, most of which are self-explanatory, but here is a short explanation of each:

• <title> – This is the title of the Video Podcast.
• <link> – I just made this a link to my homepage (http://www.mozealous.com).
• <language> – Assuming you can read this, you can probably leave this as is. It is set to English.
• <copyright> – This is your copyright statement.
• <itunes:subtitle> – A subtitle for the Video Podcast.
• <itunes:author> – This is you. The creator of this Video Podcast.
• <itunes:summary> – A short summary of the Video Podcast. What topics does this podcast cover?
• <description> – I just made this the same as the summary.
• <itunes:name> – Your name, the owner of the Video Podcast Feed.
• <itunes:email> – Your email address.
• <itunes:image> – A picture that will appear in iTunes next to your Podcast.

If you want to see how these items relate to what is seen in iTunes check out this diagram by clicking the image below.

So update the channel tags with your info, and let’s move on and…

Add items to the channel

Now that we have created the channel, we need to add some “items” or screencasts to our feed. Most of the item tags are pretty self-explanatory, but again, here is a short explanation of each:

• <title> – This is the title of the specific screencast.
• <itunes:author> – The creator of the specific screencast.
• <itunes:subtitle>- I just made mine the same as the title, but you want to provide more info.
• <itunes:summary> – A longer description of the screencast.
• <encloure url=”link to podcast” length=”size in bytes” type=”video/mp4″/> – The enclosure tag is made up of:
  • The URL to the screencast (from step 2). I linked to the MP4 on Screenr.
  • The length, which is the size of the screencast in bytes. I couldn’t think of a really good way to get the size of the screencast without downloading the video, so that is what I did. I downloaded it and then checked the size on disk (right-click in windows and select Properties). The size should be listed with numbers only, and in BYTES (ex. 124444. Not 124,444kb).
  • type, which should always be “video/mp4″ for screencasts.
• <guid> – A unique identifier for the screencast. I just used the URL.
• <pubDate> – The date this screencast was added to the feed.
• <itunes:duration> – The duration of the screencast (you can get this from Screenr).
• <itunes:keyword> – Keywords to help users find your screencast in search.

If you want to see how these items relate to what is seen in iTunes check out this diagram by clicking the image below.

You will want to add items for each screencast you want to include in your podcast. You can update the feed at any time to include new screencasts by adding additional items.

After you have finished updating the XML feed, save the file.

Making a Podcast is an official explanation of all this from Apple. Read it if you have trouble sleeping. Or re-read this post, it should help you sleep too.

Step 4: Submit to iTunes

Now that we have created the XML Feed for our Video Podcast we will want to host it someplace so that we can submit it to iTunes. I just hosted mine on my website at http://www.mozealous.com/vodcast.xml. Once you have it hosted you can submit it to iTunes. This will allow people to find your podcast in the iTunes Store, and to subscribe to your feed.

To submit a Video Podcast feed to iTunes

1. Launch iTunes
2. Select the iTunes Store
3. Select the Podcasts tab
4. Select Submit a Podcast
5. Enter the URL to your Podcast Feed and follow the steps outlined

Within 24 hours your Screenr Video Podcast feed will be available on iTunes.

You are done. What’s next?

It might seem like creating this Video Podcast feed was a pain in the ass…well, it was. I know I know, I said that this would be 4 easy steps, and it was closer to 40 complicated steps, well ha, I hooked you anyway. The good news is that once you created the feed it is fairly easy to update, all you need to do is add the screencasts as <items> to the XML feed and the changes will be picked up by iTunes in about a day.

If you create a Screenr Video Podcast feed let me know in the comments below. I’ll highlight them in this post.

So congrats, you are done! You have created your first Video Podcast feed of your Screenr screencasts.

Troy McClure has made some exceptional instructional films in his day. You might remember him from such educational films as The Half-Assed Guide to Foundation Repair and Alice’s Adventures through the Windshield Glass. So with all his instructional video experience, you might be wondering…

What can Troy McClure teach me about creating awesome Screencasts?

Let’s first watch this educational film from Troy McClure, Meat and You: Partners in Freedom:

Eliminate confusion points and address common mistakes

It is maddening watching a screencast when something confusing is shown, and not addressed by the author of the screencast. You watch a 5 minute screencast and have this huge question at the end “well, what was that button you pressed”, or “why did you choose that option,” and that can kill an otherwise great screencast. David Anderson also points out that by rolling with mistakes in your screencast, and using the “Yes, and…” principle to your screencasts you can address common mistakes or confusing points.

In the previous video Troy does an excellent job of clearing up any points of confusion in this educational film. First he lets us know that a “killing floor” isn’t actually a floor, it “is more of a steel grating that allows material to sluice through so it can be collected and exported.” He later tells us that people who think its wrong to eat meat aren’t crazy, they are “just ignorant” because they haven’t heard of the “Food Chain”.

The Food Chain

By eliminating points of confusion and addressing common mistakes you will make your viewers much happier and better informed.

Another of my favorite screencasters (Donnie Hoyle) does this frequently too. In this demo on Photoshop (at the 1:25 mark) he points out that you shouldn’t use the eraser tool to eliminate a background.

Add some personality

Because your Screenr screencast can contain audio, it gives you an awesome opportunity to add some life, humor, and personality to your screencast.

Let’s watch the next clip of Troy from the Self Help video, Adjusting Your Self-O-Stat with Brad Goodman, and look at how his personality comes through in the video.

Troy adds personality by over simplifying everything.

In the clip Brad draws a circle on the board and tells Troy, “this circle, is you” and Troy exclaims, “My god, it is like you have known me all my life!” Troy adds personality to the clip by ridiculously simplifying.

So, over simplifying is probably not the best idea for screencasts, it is better to cover and eliminate points of confusion, but viewing a screencast with some personality is always more interesting than some dry, script-read screencast.

Donnie has also done a great job of creating his series of wicked screencasts that really show off some of his personality that are worth checking out.

Troy adds personality by giving natural, hilarious, branded intros

Every instructional film Troy does begins, “Hi, I am Troy McClure! You may remember me from such educational films as…” and then follows it by stating some hilarious other film he has appeared in. Some of his more memorable educational films are:

• Lead Paint: Delicious But Deadly
• Locker Room Towel Fights: The Blinding of Larry Driscoll

The reason this works so well is I know really quickly that: this guy made this other hilarious film, and it was awesome, and hey, I’ll want to check out this one too. If you check out the screencast I did on Dokeos I tried to do something similar (minus the hilarity). It didn’t really work out that well though because the intro was too rehearsed and too robotic, in other words, it came across with NO personality. Troy comes across naturally in his introductions.

There is a lot to learn from Troy McClure

Troy McClure is able to to create awesome educational films by eliminating and addressing points of confusion, and adding some personality.

Now go out there and create some awesome screencasts that Troy McClure would be proud of.

Special thanks to the guys over at http://www.snpp.com for all their awesome info on The Simpsons. Couldn’t have written this post without you.

David Anderson makes Screenr screencasts that always look awesome.    His screencast below had over 250 views in just over 24 hours.  If you are looking for advice on how to get people to watch your ENTIRE video, this post won’t cover that.  This post WILL show you 3 easy steps to get viewers to press play.

This screencast gets me to press play

Here are 3 simple steps that will increase the views of your screencasts:

Step 1: Use a custom Twitter profile pic

Bad: Default Twitter Profile Pic

Every time I see someone still using the default twitter profile picture I figure that they can’t figure out how to set their Twitter pic, they are too lazy to change it, or they are they are using Twitter to send me spam.  Why would I want to view a screencast by any one of these people?

Good: David's Profile Pic

Part of the beauty of Screenr is that it allows you to show some personality to a screencast through narration.  A good way to not show personality is by using the default Twitter profile pic.

See how David’s pic adds some personality to the banner above the screencast?

Adding a custom Twitter profile pic tells me that you:

1. Know how to use a computer
2. Aren’t a robot
3. Aren’t lazy

Step 2: Use a good description

Eliminate excessive words, and remove “How to…” from the beginning of your screencast descriptions.

Back in the Web 1.0 world it was generally thought that adding more text to a web page increased the usability of the page.  People soon figured out that this was not the case, and icons became popular.

People hate reading excessive amounts of text, this is why NOBODY EVER reads a help file or FAQ.  As an example, check out Screenr, there are less than 100 words on the Screenr home page (excluding screencast descriptions).  Yet, despite having very little text people aren’t having a tough time figuring out what Screenr does, or how to use it.

Use fewer words to describe your screencast, it will make it easier to quickly figure out what your screencast is about.

Look at the description of David’s screencast:

Create a Polaroid, page curl image effect in PowerPoint 2007

What if it had been:

How to create a Polaroid, page curl image effect in PowerPoint 2007

Or even worse:

How you can create a Polaroid, page curl image effect in PowerPoint 2007

The top description allows me to almost instantly figure out what the screencast is about without having to READ the description.  I can quickly just parse it and figure out, hey, this is about creating a Polaroid effect in PowerPoint 2007.

Note: Articulate’s Adam Schwartz pointed out in the comments that there is a lot of reseach that shows that words like “How to” actually increase conversion rates.  So the words “How to” may actually help more than they hurt.  It is important though that you remove excess words, especially in the Twitter world.  The longer the description the more difficult it is to ReTweet.  The quicker someone can parse your description the more likely they will be to view the screencast.

3. Use an interesting thumbnail

Two reasons why David’s screencast thumbnail rocks:

1. The thumbnail displayed looks compelling
2. It shows the finished state of the demonstration

Don’t make the thumbnail be the record instruction page.

The thumbnail displayed in Screenr is the first frame of your recorded screencast.  Avoid this by minimizing your browser before starting the recording.

First rule of Screenr is we don't record the recording page.

In David’s screencast the first frame he captured was the end result (i.e. the result of following the demo).  This way I know what I am going to get by viewing the screencast.  I don’t have to wait till 3 minutes into the screencast to decide if it is something that I am interested in learning about.

Old School Learning Tools

1. Articulate Studio ’09. Hands down, the best eLearning toolset on the market  How about that for a completely unbiased opinion from the QA Manager for 3 out of the 4 tools in the suite?  Honestly, I do think it is the best eLearning toolset on the market or I wouldn’t work at Articulate.  We offer great support, and make products that are so easy to learn even your grandma could use them.
2. WordPress. It is impossible to ignore what blogs have done for eLearning, and how can my list be complete without including the BEST Blogging software.  Wordpress.
3. Twitter. This choice might turn some heads…you might be thinking, how does constant updates from Ashton Kutcher and Shaq facilitate learning?  Good question…it depends on how you use Twitter.  If you only follow the tweeps like Shaq or Ashton Kutcher you probably aren’t going to gain much from it, and you probably don’t have a whole lot of friends (Ok, I admit it, I follow Shaq).  However, if you use Twitter to connect, share, and ask advice from other professionals in your industry it can be an invaluable tool.  Find a blog that you like, and subscribe to his/her Twitter feed, you will be smarter for it.
4. Screenr.  Screenr is a tool for creating instant screencasts for Twitter.  Although this is a very new tool, it is easy to see the impact this is going to have on people making software demos and screencasts.  Screenr has eliminated the barriers to entry for anyone looking to create demos and screencasts.
   
5. Wikipedia. Originally I was going to list this as Wiki’s in general, but then figured I should probably suggest a specific vendor.  Problem is I don’t know enough about the different Wiki vendors to say which one is the best.  I don’t really think I need to explain this selection, it kinda speaks for itself.
   
6. Articulate Online. Another tool from the great guys at Articulate.  I know listing two products from the same company (or 3 I guess, technically) is a no-no, but this had to make my list.  The reason…Articulate Online has made distributing and tracking eLearning training easy.  One problem with traditional Learning Management Systems is that it is often difficult to deploy content to them, and then distribute content once it is on the LMS.  Articulate Online has changed that with one click publishing and easy deployment links.
7. Moodle.  Yes, Moodle, the Open Source LMS.  Why does this make my list…so many people are using it to distribute and track training.  It is free and reasonably good, which means it works for a lot of people.
   
8. Google Search. I am reading an eBook on SEO (Search Engine Optimization), because it came free with the purchase of my WordPress theme, and in the book it mentions that 90-98% of Google’s revenue comes from ad-words placed on Google’s site.  So why does that matter?  Well, Google stops making boat loads of cash if people stop using their search, and people will stop using their search if they stop finding what they are looking for.  So cool, now you get the Google business model, but what hell does this have to do with learning and being a good learning tool?  Simple, it allows you to easily and quickly find the information you are looking for.  My dog @winstonpotacho has recently been diagnosed with an elevated lymphocyte count, and the only reason I know what the implications are of a high lymphocyte count is that I was able to find the information by googling for it.  I now know just as much about leukemia in dogs as just about anyone.  In the time before Google I would have no idea what it meant to have an elevated lymphocyte count.  On the positive side of not knowing though, I probably would have slept more than 4 hours a night the last 2 weeks.

Like my list?  Don’t like my list?  Want to submit your own list?  You should let the Center for Learning and Performance technologies know here.

So you have made some screencasts and are ready to embed them in your blog, but the problem is your blog layout is so narrow it doesn’t fit nicely when you embed it in your blog.

Website looks bad when your screencast is too big

So what can you do to make your embedded screencasts smaller so they will fit nicely in your narrow blog?  It’s easy, all you need to do is change the dimensions in the embed code.  Here is a screencast that shows you how:

So you have checked out Screenr, and are ready to make some kick ass screencasts.  Here are some tips to make your screencasts ultra compelling and easy to view on an iPhone.

1. Use a cool desktop background, and minimize your browser before you begin recording. The screencast thumbnails that you see on Screenr are always much more compelling when the first frame of the movie is not a screenshot of the recording page.  Notice how on the Screenr home page all the Popular Screencasts have an awesome thumbnail?  That isn’t a coincidence.  Better thumbnails make it more compelling to watch the screencast.
2. Record narration. Screencasts without any audio are boring.  I know everyone hates the sound of their own voice, but really, you don’t sound as bad as you think.
3. Keep your recording area clean. Remove excess junk in your recording area.  See the two screenshots below.  Which would be easier to follow a demo on?
   
   
   

   Cluttered

   

   Clean

4. Embed in a blog don’t link to it. Back when I worked at Macromedia we created demos of a lot of KB articles, and in the articles we linked to the demos.  The problem was, nobody clicked on them.  We eventually started embedding them in the post because people were more likely to view them if they didn’t have to go to another page.
5. Use a 16:9 recording aspect ratio. From the help page…The embedded player size uses the high-definition aspect ratio of 16:9. If you record with a 16:9 ratio, you won’t have black bars. So pick one of the preset HD sizes of 854×480 or 1280×720. You can also select one of these two presets and shift-drag the corner of the recording frame. This will lock the aspect ratio but allow you to select a resolution.
   
6. Use large mouse icons if users will be viewing on an iPhone. If you record on large resolution screens, it can be difficult to see the mouse movement when viewing on an iPhone.  You can make the experience better for iPhone users if you use large mouse icons.  Note: Use the Windows Standard (extra large) pointers, other pointer sets may not be captured.  Turns out this only appears to work on Windows Vista/Windows 7.  So this doesn’t work on XP.  Sorry folks.

That’s about it for now.  You should be ready to create some kick-ass ultra compelling screencasts.

As many of you probably already know, today we launched Screenr and we already recieved a glowing review.  Screenr is by far one of the coolest projects I have ever worked on,..it allows you to create screencasts right from your browser without installing anything.  I’ll be posting more about it over the coming days.  If you have checked it out, you can do so at http://screenr.com.

Also, I created a demo that is featured on the home page which you can see below.  The architecture of screenr is really sick, all screencasts are deployed via the “cloud” which means they will play just as well in China as they will in the US.