Almerimar Life Readers Question – Week Three
November 25th, 2008 - Chris MarshallHere is our third Readers Question from Adrian:
I have noticed more and more video content over the last year on the blog. Is that intentional and can we expect to see more?
In a word, yes. It is however a bit of a double edge sword though. Capturing the video content is naturally easier than capturing a written post ….. just point the video camera and press the record button.
Processing the video takes a (very) long time! Of course the services that we use like Qik and 12secondsTV make it easy to either stream directly or email clips, but the clips tend to be short and unedited. As the services are effectively social network groups they do have great SEO potential and we regularly get viewing figures in the 10′s of thousands range for these video clips, which of course is great, but isn’t necessarily directing traffic to the site. As a means of generally promoting Almerimar they are good, and as they are fun and easy to do they are ideal. All you need is a phone with a good camera and ideally WiFi and GPS, accounts with the services, and good SEO skills and you are away.
We use these services for the fun, short clips, live streaming type of stuff.
The larger videos have their own set of issues. Not only do they need importing to the Mac, but they need post processing i.e. editing, titles, pictures inserted and then they need converting to a format that allows them to be seen via the web. Then they need uploading to a hosting site (we use BlipTV, and then the code imbedding into the post. The videos that you see in the sidebar are all automatically shown direct from the relevant service account so that is a time saver.
So a video takes a lot more work, if you care about it, but people tend to prefer to watch a video than read a post (a good post that we write will get around 3,500 unique views, a typical one will get 1,000) whereas we can get 20,000+ views on a good video and a typical viewing figure of around 5,000.
I have started to get more into the video side of things though so yes you can expect to see more video content on the site, ranging from the highly personal cat stuff to the (slightly) more serious cooking paella video.
You will have noticed that I have made no mention of You Tube for any of the video. We tried that for a while, and while the viewing figures were OK it is one of those social networking sites where ‘being seen to be in’ is more important so people tend to start a video, then skip to the next one as the trend is to jump on the coat tails of the popular clips to promote your own site.
Finally, the video will not take over from the written posts. The plan is to maintain a balance that continues to represent our life here in Almerimar.
About Almerimar
Almerimar is located in the region of Andalucia, Spain. The nearest airport is 30km away in Almeria. Other airports that are within 3 hours include Malaga, Murcia, Granada, and Alicanti. Other holiday resorts in the region include Mojacar , Aguadulce and Roquetas de Mar
Almerimar is a great place to live as an expat amongst the expats, or to work amongst the Spanish. There are all kinds of properties including villas, apartments and town houses for rent or sale. It is a very traditional part of Spain, with traditional Spanish foods so if you plan to travel to Spain either to look for jobs, for your company to trade with companies in Spain, or to learn Spanish and enjoy the Spanish weather then come and take a look.
If you are interested in purchasing a property in Almerimar please visit our sponsors Mediterraspain. If you have purchased a property and need it furnished please check out our Sponsors DBJ who will give you a Exclusive 5% discount with the code AL2008.
If you want an amazing activity based day out in the mountains and to learn how to ride a motorcycle off road then check out our sponsor The Long Way Round and get 5% off with the code AL2008.
If you want quality printing at affordable prices then please check out C&R Printing Services
Almerimar is also one of the largest marinas in Spain with over 2,000 berths and excellent boatyard facilities.
