by Uncle Alan
It’s easier today than ever before.
When I was a kid, we had three local TV stations. It was a big deal when a PBS station opened up, giving us another viewing option. My dad put a huge antenna with a rotator and signal reception booster on the roof, so we could pick up six more stations from Kansas City, about 60 miles from Topeka.
Two of those six Kansas City stations were independents. They played re-runs and old movies, like cable super stations do today. The other four were affiliated with the same “big three” networks and PBS. They usually played the same shows we got on the local stations during regular programming hours – with a fuzzier picture.
At night, however, those Kansas City stations played re-runs and old movies, too, making them still worth viewing.
To make certain we continued enjoying this magnificent viewing variety, dad would drag me up on the roof with him once a year. We’d clean the terminal connections on the antenna and re-string the guy-wires, to make certain sure the antenna stayed where it was.
All for 10 “free” channels … four of them a little bit fuzzy.
For decades, the “big three” networks – CBS, ABC and NBC — held the reigns on television. PBS was a distant fourth. They decided what we watched. More importantly, they controlled who could reach out through the airwaves.
You had to have massive popular appeal (at least by their standards), or you didn’t get air time at all.
If you were to pluck me out of that reality and plop me straight into today, without the mental preparation provided by some transition time in between, I don’t know if I’d survive the overwhelm.
Today, we can choose from hundreds of channels on cable and satellite – and thousands more online. We have whole networks devoted to niche specialties such as food, animals, do-it-yourself, crime, romance and more.
There are also DVDs, DVRs, and streaming on-demand online programming that enable us to pick and choose what we watch whenever we feel like it.
Literally everything you could ever want to watch is available immediately, including entire seasons of almost every popular television series ever produced — even the classic TV series from the hey-day of the “big three.”
Now the big three of the past have become just – another three.
Where do you fit into all this?
The logjam created by the big three of the past has been broken, making it easier than ever for anyone – including you — to produce and launch your own video and audio programming.
YouTube makes it possible to record short videos and post them for viewing by literally billions of people. U-stream lets you broadcast live and attract an audience of viewers from their base of millions of users.
You can also easily record your own programming, so people can watch it whenever they want, on your own Website or on countless other video sharing sites.
Existing technology enables you to easily and cheaply launch a TV network of your own. Just plug in a webcam and start broadcasting. Or, record your programming with a simple camcorder, with your phone or with your computer. Then, upload it where the world can watch.
The low cost and ease of entry afforded by this modern “broadcasting” lets you reach out to a select audience of just a few people, on extremely specialized interest niches – or attract millions of listeners or viewers with broader topics.
It’s entirely up to you.
Big Marker (www.bigmarker.com) is completely free and enables two-way communications with up to 100 people in an online room with video, audio, live chat, presentation slides and desktop sharing capabilities that can be shared among all the attendees.
One broadcasting option I really like is live online meetings.
I’m conducting a minimum of two live online meetings per month for members of my new Ink-U-Bator MasterMind Forum. I just held the first meeting last Thursday evening, January 5, and I used a new system, called Big Marker (www.bigmarker.com), that’s completely free. I wanted to give it a spin because it enables two-way communications with up to 100 people in an online room with video, audio, live chat, presentation slides and desktop sharing capabilities that can be shared among all the attendees.
Yes – you can pull in attendees, have them on-screen with you with their video and/or chat with them on audio or in the on-screen chat box.
The only feature missing is built-in recording, which won’t be available until some time between now and the end of March. Still, it’s possible to record your events by running software like Camtasia and get by until then.
Big Marker’s simple to use. Unfortunately, that simplicity also means there are fewer options. For example, you must include live on-screen chat. There is no way to shut off or turn on specific functions of the system like I’ve seen offered by other systems.
Of course, those other systems also charged a LOT of money to use them.
I hit a couple of technical glitches with Big Marker that I hope to iron out. One was my own fault and easy to remedy. I accidentally set up the meeting so that all attendees were moderators. This caused a lot of confusion for me, the real moderator and presenter, and could prove disastrous if the mastermind group wasn’t such a cooperative bunch of great folks to meet with online.
There was also a glitch of some kind that made my live video stream drop out. When I tried refreshing my screen, to see if that would fix the video, I was logged back into the system as a normal user — not the presenter. This got my video back but, then I had no audio.
Fortunately, we’d already had roughly 90 minutes of excellent meeting time and, after ten minutes of trying to get my camera to function, we decided to call it a night.
There are now several similar systems starting to pop up. Big Marker’s well worth looking into, as it allows meetings with up to 100 attendees and offers a lot of capabilities. You can also conduct larger meetings, if you let the operators know ahead of time, so they can move your session to a dedicated server — still free of charge.
Meeting Burner offers a free beta running through the end of January, 2012, and promises meetings with up to 5,000 attendees, with no monthly fees or contracts.
Meeting Burner (www.meetingburner.com) is another system worth checking out. Meeting Burner offers a free beta that I believe is running through the end of January, 2012. They limit you to 25 online attendees and 50 on the phone at this time, but they’re are also promising meetings with up to 5,000 attendees, with no monthly fees or contracts. It’s all strictly pay-as-you-go. I haven’t yet seen what the rates will be – but I get the impression they’re aiming at keeping them really reasonable.
Meet Cheap (www.meetcheap.com) promises to offer low-cost Webinar hosting, too. They’re launching January 24, and promise similar features to Big Marker and Meeting Burner, for just $9.95 per month – with a $1 trial.
For added reliability, you can always go with a more expensive service, such as GoToMeeting (www.gotomeeting.com) or Instant Telesminar (www.instantteleseminar.com). These tried-and-true giants will run you $50-100 a month or more – but they’ve been rocking along for quite a long time now and their reliability is stable.
Still, lack of funds or technical knowledge is no longer an excuse. You can today easily produce your own live or recorded video and audio presentations and programs quickly and easily from the comfort of your home or office.
Meet Cheap (www.meetcheap.com) promises similar features to Big Marker and Meeting Burner, for just $9.95 per month – with a $1 trial.
You can use these presentations to pull people in from your social networks. Introduce them to you and the publishing that you do. Involve them in the creation of your next product or article by asking them what they want to see or inviting them to contribute their opinions and knowledge on-the-spot.
Record the meetings and you have new content.
The possibilities are endless.
Get your cameras and mics hooked up and give it a try. There’s nothing more powerful than inviting your Facebook and Twitter followers to hop onto a live Webinar with you to finalize that bond you’ve been building. And you can make a lot of sales from these social interactions on Webinars – or just lead your followers to the next step, which is the sales funnel.
Larry King retired a year ago last month. He left a gap in the market. Why shouldn’t you be the next Larry King and fill it?
Let me know when you have your next online meeting planned. I might just pop in and see what you’re up to!
