Viddler

Have you ever wondered how they add cool art in the foam on the top of a cappuccino? Wonder no longer as Viddler user Jasonian shows us in Cappu. Jasonian has several videos showing different sizes and tries to make really great cappuccino foam art.

Jasonian is Jason Haeger of Lubbock, Texas and he runs his own blog dedicated to Coffee Aspirations where he reviews coffees and coffee-gadgets. He also runs a site that he says is dedicated to Texas Coffee People and the community involved with coffee in Texas. We here are Viddler wish him the best with his coffee projects and his web sites.

If you would like to suggest a video to be featured on our blog please send me a message, use our forums, or just comment on this post.

I’ve been “on the look-out” for a Wii ever since its debut. After the first few weeks I nearly gave up. Then, yesterday a friend of mine brought his Wii over and now I’ve been reinvigorated about all things Wii. After calling every single retailer in a 50-mile radius I’m nearly ready to resort to eBay, something I’d much rather avoid if at all possible.

Recently one of Viddler’s users, entr200, posted the video of the Wii-laptop and now I’m even more driven to find a Wii anywhere I can. The Wii-laptop is a hack for a Wii to create a truly portable Wii system in laptop form. Pretty slick idea.

I’m hoping to find a Wii to play soon, though I’m not sure I’ll hack mine into a laptop right away. Do you want to hack yours? You’re in luck. The entire process of how to hack your Wii into a laptop is available in a three-part series from Engadget. Start with How to make a Wii-laptop part one! Happy hacking!

If you would like to suggest a video to be featured on our blog please send me a message, use our forums, or just comment on this post.

This week we changed the way that featured videos were chosen and debuted. No longer do you have to wait until Friday to get the best of Viddler! You can tune into our blog every single week day and find at least one featured video. Then, at the end of the week, we’ll recap each featured video – show them to you here – and put them on our explore page!

We hope you like this new format and find it useful and insightful. Remember, if you would like to suggest a video to be featured on our blog please send me a message, use our forums, or just comment on this post.

Now onto this week’s featured videos!

• Monday: This guy is incredible by jactij
• Tuesday: A new theft device by chris
• Wednesday: Concussion tour by bizzar
• Thursday: HRPL #4 by Trinc11
• Friday: “Bull fighting” by jactij

We’re extremely happy with the videos that our user’s are putting on Viddler. We find all of them interesting and worth watching – we just feel some of these stand out. Do you have any that you think stand out? Let me know about them.

Until next time!

Oh, and don’t forget. If you are in the Philadelphia area – some of the Viddler team will be at tomorrow WordPress and Blogger Meetups. More information on my personal blog.

I am not a big fan of bull fighting or bull riding or even horse races. I generally keep my opinions on such things hush, hush – but today I ran across this video of a guy getting some pay back from a bull.

Sometimes there is justice.

The next time you decide to run away from a bull you might want to cover your ass. Pun intended.

If you would like to suggest a video to be featured on our blog please send me a message, use our forums, or just comment on this post.

One of the most under-utilized features of Viddler, or any social sharing site, is use of meta data. To be more specific, tags. Often tags are not even used! And, when they are used they are not being used well enough to really promote the content properly.

So, lets go through proper tagging techniques and the benefits of taking an extra few moments to make sure your videos are tagged properly.

Three simple questions

In order to make best use of tags, all you need to ask yourself is three simple questions. By answering these questions, by using tags, you can be sure that you and everyone else will be able to find your videos quickly and easily.

In fact, asking these three questions can expose your videos to people who may not even be looking for your video specifically. We’ll look into this more in a minute.

• Who?
• What?
• Where?

Three simple questions that can be used on pretty much every single video that you upload to Viddler. Who is in the video? What is in the video or what does it regard? Where was the video shot? Each of these questions may have multiple answers or can be answered in little or great detail.

Lets look at an example video, and pick apart its tags to see how they are best utilized. The Riddler – by: Bryan is a video I shot back in 2003 of my friend Bryan doing the “riddler walk”. I’ve added the following tags, to answer the above questions.

• Who? Bryan Jackson
• What? impersonation, riddler
• Where? Montdale, Pennsylvania at a golf course

This makes it very easy for me to find the video again. It also would make it easy for anyone to find the video under the following circumstances: anyone looking for: Bryan Jackson, videos taken in Montdale or just Pennsylvania, videos taken on a golf course, impersonations, or the riddler. So essentially I’m exposing my video to many more people by adding the proper tagging.

Proper timed tags

When should you use timed tags? Obviously you can use timed tags as often as you’d like, but to really add value you should add timed tags anytime the three questions answers change. When a new who, what, or where changes in the video – you should put a tag on the timeline. This makes it much easier for people to find the portions of your video they are looking for.

So the next time you’re wondering how best to tag your video – perhaps you should ask yourself the three simple questions.

The popularity of paintball is rising fast and it is beginning to show here on Viddler. We’re beginning to see more paintball videos all the time and we encourage anyone that is into paintball to share theirs too.

Today I’ve decided to feature HRPL #4 by Trinc11 because I really enjoyed some of the camera angles, music, and quality of the video. At over 18-minutes in length you may need to go grab a drink before you sit back and watch the entire thing, but it is definitely worth it.

If you are interested in getting into paintball I recommend reading some of the information found on the, seemingly, extensive wikipedia page for paintball. Tons of information and resources on the rules and how to get started as well as some precautions to take to keep yourself injury free.

Happy skirmishing, we look forward to seeing more paintball videos here on Viddler in the future!

If you would like to suggest a video to be featured on our blog please send me a message, use our forums, or just comment on this post.

I thought it fitting, with the weather dropping buckets of snow here in the Northeast, that we’d feature a snowy video today. We’re due to get a few more inches here, so to stay warm I’d suggest just to stay home from work/school and play on Viddler all day!

Skiing in Vermont with bizzar on the Concussion Tour is aptly named because; “the first time a friend of mine [bizzar's] went snowboarding, he fell so much he gave himself a mild concussion”. Ouch.

Hope you enjoy this video and all of the Viddler user’s videos today as we keep warm and out of the crazy weather. Be safe.

If you would like to suggest a video to be featured on our blog please send me a message, use our forums, or just comment on this post.

Local TV commercials, like the ones in our area for our local cable company, are typically horrible commercials. Bad acting, low budgets, and horrible sound. That is not the case for the Suburban Auto Group out of Sandy, Oregon. Their Trunk Monkey commercial series is very well produced and hilarious.

Today is a special day as my friend Matt is here to grab some lunch. Before we head out I asked him to browse around Viddler to find what he thought should be today’s featured videos. He, wisely, chose to featured the Trunk Monkey videos. His favorite is the New Theft Device which is also my favorite now.

Use the play buttons, or the links, to view all of the Trunk Monkey commercial series from the Suburban Auto Group.

• A new theft device (great ending)
• Kids (the kids face is hilarious)
• Road rage (“get back in the trunk”)
• Pregnant Woman (Never knew Monkeys knew lamaze)

I need to get me a Trunk Monkey!

If you would like to suggest a video to be featured on our blog please send me a message, use our forums, or just comment on this post.

When I was a kid I had a skateboard that rarely got used. I was never very good at it and after I moved away from Philadelphia I didn’t have a good place to board anymore.

Eventually I graduated to a “scooter” which I liked a lot more. Larger tires, better handling and balance (for someone as uncoordinated as I am), and I could use it here in Northeastern, Pennsylvania.

Martin Sweeney obviously had better luck with his skateboard than me. According to the audio on this video of him setting the skateboarding slalom world record; he’d been at it for more than 15 years (and this video was taken in 1991) to get as good as he is. Maybe I should have given my board more time!

You can find more information about Slalom Skateboarding in the UK at the United Kingdom Slalom Skateboarding Association‘s web site. Thanks to jactij for uploading this video!

Hey kids. Try this at home: Just wear a helmet and all proper safety gear. Oh, and record your video and upload it to Viddler!

If you would like to suggest a video to be featured on our blog please send me a message, use our forums, or just comment on this post.

Donna recently got a new cell phone. She was as happy as a clam that she could “send email on her phone” quickly and easily. I made sure to warn her not to try it while she was driving. We’ll not mention if she has or not – we’ll just leave you with this Viddler Public Service Announcement for our Friday fun: Drive carefully, like these people clearly have.

Other parking techniques uploaded by chris.

• Parking Technique 1
• Parking Technique 2
• Parking Technique 3

And no, Donna was not the lady driving the little van in Parking Technique 3. Enjoy today’s fun and be sure to drive safe.

If you have any videos you’d like to recommend for next Friday, send me a message, use our forums, or post a comment on this post.