This is a free upgrade for existing users but if you fall outside that category they have a full list if upgrade options and details of improvements at their site.

Just click on the links in the following excerpt and you will be whisked away to upgrade heaven… or at least their website anyway.

We are happy to announce the release of ScreenFlow 3.0.6. We continue to fight the good fight – squashing little bugs and annoyances, and making ScreenFlow the best it can be.

Version 3.0.6  addresses a number of  issues. You can read the release notes for a full list of changes.

This is a free update for existing ScreenFlow 3.x customers and a $29 paid upgrade for ScreenFlow 2.x customers.

If you’re already a 3.x user, the easiest way to update is to “Check for updates” from within the ScreenFlow application. Alternatively, you can go to our website, where there are instructions on how to upgrade.

If you are wondering about what all the hooha is you can take a look at this post extolling the many virtues of ScreenFlow not just as a screen capture program but as a very, very good editor.

Since that time Google have been working on functionality and stability and just generally getting the whole shebang cleaned up and ready for prime time.

Yesterday Google+ released Hangouts on Air to all Google+ users.

I guess to really understand the ramifications of this pretty amazing service it’s best fully understand what exactly it does!

By using this service you can extend the functionality of a Google Hangout so that when you start your hangout you can choose the Enable Hangouts on Air option and your hangout can then be streamed live to your Google+ stream, your YouTube account or even on to your own website.

So instead of the hangout being used as a sort closed meeting or gathering the entire "show" can be broadcast live to as wide an audience as you can attract.

Bit as they say in marketing… but that’s not all folks!

Apart from getting real-time stats on audience numbers while the broadcast is underway you can choose to record the entire thing and once the episode is finished, the video recording will be automatically uploaded to your YouTube account and/or to your Google+ account.

Ok so that’s how it works… what’ the big deal?

First up what Google has done is taken the entire process of creating webinars and made it not only automatic but free as well.

One thing that you may or may not have experienced is that creating or even attending webinars is dependent on technology that is at best is shaky. I don’t know how many times I have heard of people conducting webinars on various platforms and spending endless amounts of time getting the webinar going.

Then at the conclusion of the webinar discovering that the recording aspect fell over somewhere in the process and they now have nothing!

The Google system presents a workflow that is simplicity personified and the beauty of it is that your attention can be completely focused on the event itself rather than all the technical details involved. This goes for setting the event up and taking care of the recording archive.

And on top of all this the entire platform handles mobile devices just as well and any other type of connectivity.

Take a look at this video introducing the service from Google:

The uses of this are not just restricted to your personal handouts although they could be used as quite effective blackmail fodder for your closest friends given that you now have a permanent record!

In house meetings, consultations, collaborations and just about anything of a nature that would benefit from being able to revisit the original can be recorded for later reference.

Image by mauritsonline via Flickr

When most people upload videos to YouTube I guess in the back of the minds of many is the hope that somehow the video will go “viral.”

What most people don’t really look at is what it takes for something to go viral in the first place.

Of course if you happen to be a huge corporate entity and have megabucks to contact and pay all the big bloggers of the world to promote your videos I guess you could send it viral!

Unfotunately for the rest of us that isn’t an option!

Before I go any further it bears inspecting as to what virality actually means in this sense.

When something, anything, “goes viral” on the internet it simply means that a growing number of people begin to share that item. Then in turn, those that see it, like it and send it on to their own circle of friends and on and on it goes spreading further and further.

The real truth behind viral videos is that they go in that direction to a greater or lesser degree by which they are shared by others and it is a simple as that

This brings us to a vital point in getting your videos online and seen by others other than the fact that you have to produce something that others feel is worth sharing!

YouTube, and perhaps to a slightly lesser extent, the other video sharing sites are not jUST video sharing sites. In fact if you continue to treat them as such you are missing the point totally.

YouTube is a social site. Just like FaceBook, Twitter and on and on.

Whilst the key activities of YouTubers are to upload, find and watch videos, the key interactive aspect to YouTube is social engagemment with others in the form of voting, commenting and sharing interesting videos they find.

If you think that you can just upload a video to YouTube or any other service for that matter, sit in the corner by yourself and wait for it to explode into the consciousness of the greater public by just “being there” I am afraid you may have disappointment coming your way!

The key to virality on YouTube is that you yourself become involved with others and their activities first before you can expect others to begin sharing your offerings.

What this literally translates into is finding videos you like, “liking” them, sharing them, commenting on the and subscribing to video channels that interest you.

YouTube themselves have just done a blog post in this very subject and is well worth taking a look at to get you started:

In our goal to help you find great channels and videos you care about, we created Topics on Search to narrow your search results using commonly-used phrases. We took this a step further by auto-generating whole channels of topics in the ‘Top YouTube Collections’ tab, giving you constantly updated and uniquely-focused channels. Now, you’ll start seeing these channels more broadly available around YouTube, like in ‘Recommended for You’ section of our channels page and on a video watch page.

…More at Finding and following new channels you love

In fact one of the best sources of information on “care and feeding” of your presence on YouTube is the YouTube blog.

Image by Manuela Hoffmann via Flickr

One particlular style of video making that I personally find very useful is screencasting.

Screencasting can used used for many different things and probably the only limit on what they can be used for is your own imagination.

I have used them myself for tutorials mainly but also pesonal demonstrations of both products and techniques for various online activities.

Both the Mac and Windows platforms now have a good range of video editing software that includes the ability to capture in real time what is happening on your desktop as well as on any webcam you may be using.

These are just about the only tools you need but getting the job done well is not just a matter of firing up the software and setting off into the sunset!

In the article reference below, one of the more successful screencasters around who uses Screenflow as his tool, Andreas Zeitler, discusses some of his techniques and offers some good tips and tricks for making a standout screencvast video.

What other programs/accessories do you use besides ScreenFlow to create your screencasts?

Actually I want to buy a camera. I haven’t made a decision on a specific model yet, but it’s going to be a DSLR.

For my own voice I use an external audio interface from M-Audio with a MiPRO headset. MiPRO is a small Taiwanese company probably no one has heard of yet, but the microphone I got sounds fantastic.

My most used apps are really MindNode, Scrivener, ScreenFlow, Final Cut, Motion, Acorn, ScreenFloat, OmniFocus, and OmniPlan. I’m still able to make screencasts without these tools, it just takes longer.

One of my secrets, I have a folder where I keep all the various UI elements of the OS X and iOS frameworks. People don’t realize how much is faked in the final screencast.

…More at Meet the ScreenFlow-er: Andreas Zeitler

Just a couple of quick pieces of information I came across today that may (or may not!) be appropriate to you.

First up is Magix, the makers of Magix Movie Edit Pro MX and Video Pro X.

They have recently begun uploading a series of approximately 1 minute tutorial videos showing various tips and tricks for using their products to create better looking videos.

Even if you don’t own, or intend to own one of their products the videos contain some great information for any user.

Be warned though that the Magix video channel on YouTube is a little confusing due to their mixing videos of all languages together under different categories.

If you go to the link below it will take you directly to the English language 1 minute videos. Given the aforementioned confusing nature of the site you may want to subscribe, bookmark or grab the RSS feed just so you can get back there at a later date… unlike me who had to wander around for a while to work out where I started.

Actually that may be more of a comment on me than Magix!

A Minute with MAGIX Video Channel

The second piece of news I though may be of interest is this article on ReelSEO.com concerning embedding videos on your site.

Now I know this won’t apply to everyone but I also know there are those of you out there that are using video to promote your businesses or some kind of activity online.

In the past there has been some confusion as to whether you should host your video yourself on your own site/server, host them on a cloud solution like Amazon AWS or host them on YouTube (or similar) and them place the embed code on your site.

The reason for the confusion being that just how you did it greatly affected the way the search engines viewed your video content and in turn that affected rankings and traffic numbers.

The real answer to this question has been similar to the answer to the question, “How long is a piece of string?” Of course the answer being, “Which piece of string?”

Well it seems that…. wait for it, Google made the whole thing much easier! You have to understand how bizarre it is to type a sentence like that, Google made it easier… Google made it easier… still can’t get used to it.

It seems now that if you host your videos on YouTube, Google will crawl, discover and index that video unto itself, which is nothing new.

However if you use the new YouTube embed code to embed your video (or any other for that matter) and the video is relevant to the content (text/imgaes) accompanying it on the page Google will also crawl and index that unto itself.

To get the complete picture take a look at the entire post here over at www.reelseo.com.