Cartoon Videos

Learned a New Video Technique

I found a fun site this afternoon  and I made my first cartoon.

That’s right … a cartoon!

I saw a cool video on Facebook today and then I had to checked out how they had made it.  My research led me to this awesome site that allows us to create our own cartoons.

Best thing, its free for videos under 2 minutes and there are a variety of templates to choose from.  The dialogue, however, is what we enter as text.

It was so simple.

First, you choose the “setting” from some templates of a kitchen, an office, a restaurant, and many more.

Next, you choose the characters you want, male or female, young or old.

Lastly, you enter the text you want the people to speak. That’s it.

Told you it was simple to make a fun cartoon.

Let’s take a look at my first attempt:

Here is my very finished video.

Dad gets lost on Facebook by Erica Fath

So did you like it? Create your own fun videos at GoAnimate.com.   I think I created this in about 20 minutes and then I had to open an account – for free – so I could save it.  That’s right, this site even hosts the videos for us.

I think I’ll play with this for a while as I can see lots of uses for this.  For now, it’s OK to start with a limit of 2 minutes, I don’t think I’m quite ready to start writing “movie scripts”.  I’m not sure if there’s a limit as to how many we can create, but I’m sure I’ll get a warning if there is.  Then I might just have to upgrade.

I see lots of fun videos ahead, don’t you.

Leave a comment and let me know what you think and then be sure to share the videos you create.

My Focus for Final Six Months

And suddenly we’re into the last half of 2011.

That sounds so “final” …  wish there were more halves to go before 2011 is in the history books … but then I guess they wouldn’t be halves,  would they?

I’ll be honest – I’m not thrilled with my progress.  If I’m going to get near the goals I set for this year, I’m going to have to really stay focused the next 5 and a half months.

Focus

I Need Some Focus

Looking back though, I think the best thing I’ve achieved is that I do have more focus.

So let me do a quick review of what I’ve accomplished in the past six months.

1. End of May I competed the coaching series I had purchased in March 2010.  It was not what I expected and did not show me how to work with local businesses.  Most of the training ended was learning the tricks of optimizing WordPress sites (which I did need), and SEO and back-linking.  Working with my coach, I developed I site I’m proud to say is mine.   Check it out at PricelessPotential.com   It has the basics of becoming a great authority informational site so now it’s just a matter of keeping it current.
2. I’ve discovered the world of video and plan to utilize them on my sites.  I know I have a lot to learn yet, so am thrilled to be part of a video mastermind group.  Who knows where this will lead me.
3. I’ve decided I want to focus on the social media arena.  This has several areas I can develop:
   1. Teaching others how to use it, especially other baby boomers and seniors
   2. Offering services to other users – such as with their graphics
   3. Develop a service of helping local offline businesses develop their online presence.  I’ve actually enrolled in a social media certification program that will teach me exactly how to become a consultant to business owners.  (My goal is to finish the course by the fall.)
4. Since my ultimate focus will be to provide services to businesses, I spend most of June not only developing my new website for that purpose, but also creating my first product.  Check out my Facebook Offer at OurBusinessSolution.com.  I’ll make you a great profile photo so your Facebook page can bring focus to who you are.
5. I have made several sales online all of them as an affiliate of a product … but it’s a start!

Let’s review the focus of the past 6 months

We are half way through 2011, so it’s time to step back and evaluate my progress.

First, let’s consider my social medias effort.  As of July 1 these are my statistics.

Twitter Status

I haven’t spent any time in the three months to find new followers, but I have tweeted on each account.  I even created a new account which I originally planned to have more of an MLM focus.

1. Startingafter50 – 3,365 followers and I’m following 3,340.
2. EricaFath – 3,114 followers and I’m following 3,104.
3. PricelessAlways - 2,789 followers and I’m following 2,783.
4. CashGiftingWork - 767 followers and I’m following 767.
5. TOTALS: I have 10,035 followers.  (Remember, Jan 1 I had none)

I may not have been using Twellow to find new followers, but the lists are growing.  I do have my Twitter links on most of my sites and in my autoresponder emails. In the past two months, I’ve added 2,257 Twitterers to my lists, and I’ve done that without a major Twitter push like I had in January and February of this year.

Facebook Status

1. On My Facebook, I have 740 friends and love connecting with them.  I get friend requests daily with most of them coming form the various groups that I am active in.
2. As for groups, there are lots that interest me.  I’m active in about 12 of them, ones the mostly focus on video creations, MLM/networking, or home business.

List Status

1. Using only three giveaways the past two months, I have grown my list to 278 people on my original list – that’s up from 236 from the last report.
2. This does not include the list I have in my video email system, but currently the focus of this system is for family and church family so I’m not including it.  I haven’t decided how I’m going to use this system for my business as of yet.  Right now I’m thinking I’ll reserve that system for clients and customers but that’s still “up in the air”
3. At the end of last month, I found another auto responder system that has no monthly fees, just a one time life time payment.  I had spoken with the owner at length and was impressed with his system.  The system offers me different options from my original AR system, some features I was looking for, so I decided to get a system before the price went up.

Setting my focus for the 2nd half

Missing Blog Posts

It’s already July … and I was going to come and do an update and just post some thoughts of what’s happening.

So I’m looking over my blog posts from the past few months … and I can’t find any.  I’m thinking – what????

I know I wrote something.  I remember writing about the videos I did for the Mother’s Day fund raiser but where are they?

Searching for the blog posts

Off in cyberland somewhere?  I’m searching all over the place and I can’t find any blog post for April or May and yet I know I wrote them … or was I just dreaming?

Call it a “Senior Moment” or whatever.  I can’t believe what I did.

I finally found the missing blog posts – they were in my drafts folder and for some reason had never been published.

Please don’t ask how I did that because I’ve have to say “I have no idea”.

So I did set them to publish today and they do now show up in my archives for April and May.

Lesson Learned from Missing Blog Posts

• Check the draft folder more often.
• Check the live site to make sure the post actually shows up  - don’t just click “View Post” from the inside of  WordPress.  (Just because you can see it there it does not mean the world can see it live.)
• Write more regular blog posts so it’s not two months before you discover you messed up last time.

Well, I was originally going to write an update post and report, but this search for the missing posts had taken all the time I had today.  I’ll try to come back tomorrow to write the 6 month report.