Bob Baker's The Buzz Factor

When I spoke in Austin last month at a GoGirls Music event during SXSW, a fellow in the audience asked me what I saw ahead as the next big trend. My response wasn't exactly brilliant, but I encouraged musicians to prepare to present themselves visually -- because video capabilities were becoming more common online.

Well, in the weeks since then I've been blown away by what's happening with Internet video and the explosive growth of sites that offer it.

Take a look at the list of web sites below. Most will host your streaming video content for free. Some of them even allow you to edit together various video clips, photos and audio into your own DIY productions.

http://www.youtube.com/
http://video.google.com/
http://www.stickam.com/
http://www.zippyvideos.com/
http://www.eyespot.com/
http://www.jumpcut.com/
http://www.videoegg.com/
http://www.grouper.com/
http://www.vmix.com/
http://www.vimeo.com/
http://www.ifilm.com/
http://www.photobucket.com/
http://www.dailymotion.com/
http://www.vsocial.com/
http://www.metacafe.com/
http://www.castpost.com/
http://www.streamload.com/
http://www.putfile.com/
http://www.homemovie.com/
http://www.simplestar.com/

Back in December 2005, blogger and media expert Robin Good wrote about video and his prediction that it would flourish in 2006. Boy, was he right.

• First, there was blogging, which gave everyone an easy way to post and share their words (text)
  
  
• Last year, podcasting took center stage by offering the same capabilities with sound (audio)
  
  
• Sites like Flickr.com have done very well by giving people the freedom to easily store and share their photos (images)
  
  
• The next logical step is video.

Blogs and podcasts are still going strong and will continue to thrive. But you must be aware of and make smart use of video to squeeze the most out the Internet.

In fact, I've jumped on board and will continue to do more with audio, while experimenting with ways to incorporate video into the ways I get my message out.

Check out this short, silly test video I created yesterday using a paid service called Audio Acrobat:

Internet video is here. Now. So get ready.

-Bob