I’m going to be kind of lazy about today’s post. Time kind of got away from me, but true to my plan, here’s my Day 5 video. Remember, quantity not quality. (winks)
No, I apologize. I’ll do better tomorrow. Don’t desert me just yet.
Before I dive in to today’s post and sharing the Day 4 video, I wanted to share a new avatar look for Bizzy. We’ll call it “Bizzy Grows Up”. 
While I loved the little cartoon like cat avatar, it was causing me some problems when filming in Second Life©. The alpha prim hiding the normal avatar body was showing up in some of my filming. Let me know what you think? Keep the new Bizzy or go back to the old?
A friend and I have been talking about this whole ‘Klout‘ thing. A lot of people were pissed off and ranting last week, a lot of people were dismissive about it’s perceived importance and a lot of people ignored the whole thing either because they didn’t care or they had no idea what was going on.
Our main discussion was centered around trying to understand where the data is coming from to drive the scores. Before the adjustment my Klout was a healthy 55 and growing, my friends was at around 35. This made sense, I am a heavy social media user on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn etc. ect. and my friend is a lighter user, mainly sticking to Facebook and Picassa pictures and YouTube. So okay, maybe Twitter was the main catalyst for your Klout score.
Then, after the algorithm adjustment I dropped 6 points to a 49 and theirs soared 15 points to a 53. FTW !!! How could this be? My friend basically shunned social media while I was one of the biggest cheerleaders of this channel of communication. Well, we decided to dig a little deeper and start comparing our own stats to see if we could guess how this could have happened. We looked at Twitter..I have over 750 followers, over 3,900 tweets compared to my friend with under 75 followers and a scant 175 tweets. Okay, so Twitter must not be a significant factor.
Hmmm.. on to Facebook. We did a little comparison here.. I have 3 times as many friends, posted more often, liked more things and I belong to and interact with a variety of groups.
Around this time I threw my hands up in the air and though “who the hell cares”. The thing I did take away from this was that I’m probably spending too much time networking within my industry, peers and thought-leaders, instead of networking with those who would see me as that. Having a Bizzy Inventor Twitter account will help me test that. I am NOT going to interact with anyone in my real life industry. Oh, and I did notice that without even signing up, Bizzy has a Klout of 10. Let’s see where it goes.
So, now that we have THAT out of the way… it’s time for my Day 4 machinima.. woohoo… (remember it’s about quantity, not quality lol) We’ve picked up a couple of new subscribers, how cool is that!!
Okay, so my avatar in Minecraft is not named Bizzy, but it was still me at the helm. It’s kind of funny that with all the advances in graphics in video games, this one is an 8-bit world. What I most like about video games is the social aspect. I need a multiplayer game environment. I guess this is just because I am a very social person, always have been. If the game doesn’t allow you to talk to people within it, well, we head over to Skype and talk there while we play. In Minecraft, we tend to go in an out of creative mode. In this video you can see the types of buildings and fun stuff we’ve been building. The other mode is survival and fighting off the zombies and skeletons and other creepy crawlers. I admit, I get a little scared when one sneaks up on me.
But, back to the point of this experiment…
“They” say that it takes about 50-75 blog posts to begin to get people to start engaging. “They” also say that you have to create great content. I suppose it’s really all subjective. What’s great to one audience might not matter at all to another one. I’ve chosen to keep writing this blog and posting these videos to see what kind, if any, audience it attracts. The possibility is that no one will find me and no one will care. OH WAIT !! I just had a friend request on YouTube from another Minecraft poster. SWEET.
What do you think?
Using a virtual world like Second Life is a great way to try out visual storytelling. There are plenty of free tools to use to capture video. (I’m using Fraps, a Windows-based software.)
On this video a day project I don’t plan on shooting for top quality in content, just quantity. Sure, I hope some will be better than others, but what I’m really trying to test is how videos get found. Do they get found or are we simply posting out into the great void beyond?
And, with Google going to a new business model, how will the “little guy” fare?
Amateur hour may not exactly be over at YouTube, but it looks like the time has finally come for the sleeping kitties and exploding pop bottles to make some room for professionally produced content from the likes of Madonna, The Onion, TED Conferences, and others. Read the full article from CNET.
Check out this Happy Halloween ditty!! Produced by some of my favorite machinimatographers, Draxtor DesPres & Pooky Amsterdam, let’s see if even THEY find my Bizzy Channel through pingbacks.
Bizzy Inventor has her own YouTube Channel now. An easy way to create visual storytelling through video is to use Machinima aka machine cinema. While I’m no Scorsese, I did mange to put together a quick video to start using my YouTube as a vehicle in this social media experiment.
As you may know, Google owns YouTube, and YouTube is the second most used search engine. So, hanging on the theory that search engine optimization is the end all, be all for driving people to a website, well, basically, you best not ignore this advantage. Or should you?
There’s a TON of crap out on the web. Do you want to be a part of it? If all you’re going to do is post self-promoting videos that offer viewers nothing more than what your company or venture “thinks” they would be interested in, why not save your mone? Do you really think people are hanging on your every word about the latest gadget you’ve produced and want them to buy?
The TOP rated videos on YouTube, the ones everyone is really watching, are NOT corporate videos. No, it’s Justin Bieber, Lady Gaga, Jennifer Lopez, Eminem, and Charlie Bit My Finger. BLIMEY! Really? How does your company compete for attention when this is the kind of stuff that goes viral. You don’t. Why should you waste time and money on creating videos then? Because it adds to your search engine ranking. DUH ! You’re gaming the system. So I thought I’d try a little experiment. One video a day for the next 30 days. Are you game?
Thus begins an experiment in social media. Building a following, sharing information, and hopefully engaging an audience.
Bizzy is a cat avatar because it seems to me that the Internet community has a adoration for cats. 
I am actually a dog owner, because a lot of my family and friends have allergy issues with cats. This doesn’t mean I don’t love a sweet kitty myself.
Bizzy’s role in virtual life is to provide me with a place to express myself without directly revealing exactly who I am. I know, I know.. we’re in the age of transparency. I get that. But in a world where everyone’s social footprint is tracked and monitored and reported on, sometimes you just need a place to call your own. This is mine.
I’ve set up a Twitter account for Bizzy. A great place to begin since I know that Facebook and Google+ frown on pseudonyms. I’ll have to rely on WordPress and Twitter to test for now.
I’m sure it’s going to be a little lonely here at first. But that’s okay. It’s a process.
Any small business attempting to use social media to build their business probably feels the same way. I’m here, now what do I do.
I’m going to head over to YouTube next and create an account. Watch for some visual storytelling coming soon.
Bizzy Inventor 