Weekly Web Tools For the Webmaster, Entrepreneur, and Marketer

Take Another Look At These

by Dave Jackson on February 5, 2010

In the past I’ve already spoken about Dimdim.com and Sitepal.com and since those reviews things have drastically changed for the better.

Dimdim.com Adds More Cool Features

Dimdim.com came out with a new version of their system that allows you to hold a webinar for free. If you want to have up to 50 people (you can do up to 20 for free) its only 25 bucks a month (compared to the $60+ I was spending at webex.com ) Here are the cool things I like about dimdim.com

A way to put a widget on the site for people to register for the webinar.You can also collect information about attendants (optional). This was the feature I needed, and I love it.

You can record your webinar and make it available to hear/see afterwards.

They still only allow three people to have microphones, but they do have the ability to use a telephone line as well.

I just know I’m enjoying the savings.

Sitepal Adds the Ability to Turn Yourself into a Cartoon

Sitepal.com recently added a feature where you can upload a picture of yourself, record and upload your voice, and their system turns you into a cartoon that looks real. The feature is called “photo face” and it allows you to upload an image of yourself and then you cut out your face and it will animate it. It’s pretty cool. I would suggest a picture of you where you are staring straight forward for best results. In the picture on the left, I went and traced around my head to make sure only my head was copied into sitepal.

When I played with the preview, I can see where my picture was not the best for this example, but it still worked. When my photo faced version of me would watch the cursor, I looked a little high.

I know what you’re thinking, “Why not just use a video?” Well you can update what you say by phone. You can also have the character as a lead generator where it collects email addresses, and it can also be programmed to answer frequently asked questions (much like those pop out virutal assisstants everyone has now that show up when you close the browser). These feature make it a very powerful tool, and shows you are on the edge of technology. If you don’t want to animate yourself, you can also pick from any of there many characters. You can go over and play with the demo at their site. it’s fun.

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Easy Video Player

by Dave Jackson on January 25, 2010

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

As Amazon S3 become more and more popular, more and more products are coming out to help you take advantage of it. EZ s3 is great if you are looking for easy of use and some stats.

S3 Media Player came along and has great tools (like a redirect). You have to sign up for Mike Stewart’s two buck themes to get it (which you can cancel), but it has some great player to customize your player. The one thing I wish it didn’t (as I own it) is it renames the files as you upload them. It’s $147, and there is a free demo.

A new player is Easy Video Player which is $127 and has all the features of S3 Media player, and has the ability to add sign up forms, buttons, as well as redirects. Also there is no monthly subscription needed.

The one thing that I’m not crazy about is instead of being something yo run from your desktop, this is a web based application. As it is posting videos to my Amazon account, I’m going to have to input my profile information (including password), so for me that is a pretty big negative.

The reason the price is so low is much like S3 Media Player, they will want you to sign up for a membership (optional ) in their mastermind group. So the Easy Video Player is a leader product. They also state that eventually this product will go up to $127 a month.

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