Are you tired of hearing about it yet?  Well that is unfortunate because it is not going away in our lifetime.   As the cost of video production continues to head towards zero, more and more videos are being uploaded to the web.

Why is this important for you?

If you’re business (or blog) plans to compete in this space, you need to embrace video.

So, are you going to do some video blogging or are you going to put some video on your blog.  There is a huge difference.

Video for your Blog (Meh).

What I’ve done below is put some video on my blog.  It happens to be a very cool video called, The Machine is us\ing us.  It is a 5 minute clip that sums up the coolness of the Internet.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Normally, you would want this video clip to have some significance for being in your post.  In this case, I just thought it was a cool clip.

However, video is great for demonstrating your point, talking about a current event, showing and explaining a complex point, conveying humor, etc.  There’s no shortage of great video clips for you to include in your posts.

Adding video to your site will increase user engagement, and make your content even more valuable (provided you are finding great clips).

Video blogging (winner!)

If you’ve got the chops, video blogging is a great play for you to make.

Text is great.

Video is great.

Combine the two.  That’s awesome.

For bloggers and site owners, combining the power of well written text with a great, unique video cannot be beat.  The stuff is content gold.

The real trick is to produce the video yourself.  It is getting easier and cheaper to do with $150 cameras and free video editing software, but the prospect of being on camera intimidates most people.

That’s ok.  If it were easy, everyone would be doing it.  However, you still need to seriously consider it.

There is also an added search value when you create and publish video.  Users will find you through YouTube, Vimeo, Viddler, Facebook, etc. because of your videos.  They’ll eventually find their way back to your blog.

Keep in mind that most content can be made better with video.

Practice what you preach.

I know.  We don’t do much video (at all) here at BlogCraving.  But that is something we are quickly working to remedy.  We are planning on releasing some video training series on commonly asked questions when it comes to WordPress.  The goal will be to create a video based user guide for WordPress functions.

Each little lesson will be less than 60 seconds.  Just enough to show you what you need to know, and get it done.

More on that coming soon.

So what’s the best video plugin to handle all of your video embed needs?  Viper’s Video Quicktags is the absolute best.

I’ve been using this plugin for years now.  It is regularly updated and improved.  Each time WordPress itself is updated, the plugin is always compatible.

The plugin is so good that the creator was just recently hired by Automatic.  (He’s made many other plugins as well.)

If you would like to start embedding videos from various major video hosting providers, get Viper’s plugin installed ASAP.

Video embed possibilities with this plugin include:

• YouTube
• Google Video
• Daily Motion
• Vimeo
• Veoh
• Viddler
• Metacafe
• Blip.tv
• Flickr Video
• Spike
• MySpace Video
• Generic FLV or Mov files (self hosted)

Click here to view the embedded video.

Watch, enjoy, and learn.

There’s a little camera that has made some noise in the media lately.  It’s called The Flip Ultra.

It’s a stupidly simple camera to use…I just picked one up.  It has 3 buttons.  Play, record, and delete.  That’s it.  You litterally point it and start recording.

It holds up to an hour of video.

Then, it has a little flip out USB plug that inserts right into your computer.  Then, you download your clips.  It even has editing software built right into the camera itself, so no matter what computer you use, you’ve always got your software on hand.

The best part is the price: $150 or less through sites like Amazon.

So you can have a video camera in your pocket at all times for just $150.

All you have to do then is open up your own YouTube account, and get posting.  Comes in a bunch of colors too.