Make Money Online

Back in June, I ran a quick post about the Pure Digital FlipVideo Camera over at DVGadgets. I was so taken by this new camera, that I purchased the 30 minute version the very next week.  And I wasn’t alone - over 300,000 Flips have sold since they came out, and the company expects to sell 1 Million over its first year.  That would make it the second largest Camcorder manufacturer in the world behind Sony.  Not bad for a new product.

How has the experience been over the last few months?  My wife and I haven’t had this much fun with a video camera. Ever.

We are acknowledged video freaks. We bought the Canon GL-1 when it launched years ago, and have a variety of Sony and Panasonic MiniDV (standard and Widescreen) camcorders to go along with our digital cameras as well.

But here’s the rub. When we’re heading out and know we want to take video, we’ll grab one of our camcorders, as well as one of our tripods if the occasion warrants. When you want high-quality video, nothing beats videotape. We very rarely just want pictures, but on occasion will also have our digital camera packed away somewhere in our car - “Just in Case”.

The problem comes when we’re just out and about on a casual trip and didn’t plan on taking any video. And that’s where the FlipVideo comes to the rescue.

Small and very light, Jean has taken to bringing the FlipVideo everywhere in her purse. After 10 days of using it, she has claimed it as her own. The casual, candid, everyday family moments that were usually a story to tell to my parents over the phone are now being preserved and shared in video form with my family over the web. Extremely easily.

Although the FlipVideo comes with easy-to-use software to upload your videos to Grouper or YouTube, I choose to upload all our video to stashSpace. Yes, I am a co-founder of the company [disclosure], but my free account at stashSpace lets me trim the starts & ends off of the individual clips, and arrange them in a movie sequence. This way, I can share one movie (made up of a number of clips) with my family, instead of having to share a whole range of individual clips. The video management features (movies, collections, tagging, search, etc.) make it very easy to customize movies for different family members, as well as just keep track of all the video that you take.

I was hoping the FlipVideo would be a convenient would be an easy-to-use way for Jean to take video and post it online for our families without having to get me involved. I am glad these hopes were not in vain.

What else can I say except if you are currently using a photo sharing or video sharing service, buy a FlipVideo now! I very rarely feel this strong about product recommendations, but this is a video device that makes video accessible across all generations.

Even if you own a digital camcorder or camera that can take video, you still need to go out and buy a FlipVideo now! It is not a replacement for your current camera or camcorder - but it will allow you to preserve so many more of your precious moments on video for the future.