Today, I spoke to Steve Garfield, who is the author of Get Seen: Online Video Secrets to Building Your Business and one of the leading edge experts in online video and blogging. In this interview, Steve talks about how he got started with online video, some video podcasting equipment for beginners, how he’s used videos to connect with people, common mistakes people make with video and more.
What got you started in online video?
I was always been interested in capturing images and capturing video. Then I worked a lot on the web, at one point I thought it should be easy to put video on line, but then I found out it wasn’t, so I looked at it is a technical challenge to figure out how to put video online.
For beginners what equipment you need to produce online videos, what are the bare essentials?
The basic thing you need to record online video is a WebCam but also you can do online video with out a camera. You can make video screen captures, mash ups of other videos. The second level would be to have a camera. Do you have a cellphone that shoots video, maybe your point-and-shoot camera shoots video?
How have you used your videos to network with people in your industry? How did you meet Jimmy Fallon?
Through the community of video bloggers on the web, we watch each other’s videos, and comment on them and then meet at social media events that take place all over the country.
Meeting Jimmy Fallon: I left a comment on his video blog and he talked about it on his next video blog post. Then I sent in a video 
and Jimmy played it and responded on his video blog. Finally we met at CES.
What common mistakes do people make with online video?
You’ve got to get good audio and need to be aware if you’re in a noisy situation and if you are, go somewhere quiet. The most important thing of good video is good audio.
What if someone is camera shy? Should they still make video content because it’s the cool thing to do?
You don’t have to be on camera to make videos. You can interview others from off camera.
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Steve Garfield is the author of Get Seen: Online Video Secrets to Building Your Business and one of the leading edge experts in online video and blogging. An early adopter of live streaming over the web and on cell phones, he launched his own regular video blog on January 1, 2004. Steve blogs regularly at Off on a Tangent, which has received over 1 million visitors, posts videos at Steve Garfield’s Video Blog, and can be found on twitter where he has over 18,000 followers. He is also the founder of Boston Media Makers and has helped the group to spread to other cities including New York and Washington, DC. He was chosen as the Boston correspondent for the pioneering video podcast, Rocketboom, and he also provides citizen journalism reports for CNN iReport, The Uptake, and techPresident. Garfield lectures at Boston University, Northeastern and Emerson College.
