SUSHISAMBA, a world-renowned restaurant that serves up a unique blend of Japanese, Brazilian and Peruvian cuisine, has added our Custom Player Widget to their site. If you want to learn a few things about sushi, check out this delicious playlist of Howcast Production sushi videos, staring Koji Kagawa, the executive sushi chef at SUSHISAMBA in New York City. This is a great example of how any business can bring a little snappy how-to entertainment to their web site with our custom player! Interested in making your own custom player? Check out our widgets, and get the right player to fit your needs.
Introducing the Alliance of Youth Movements Summit
Join Whoopi Goldberg, Host of ABC’s “The View”, key members of President-Elect Obama’s New Media Team, Dustin Moskovitz, Co-Founder, Facebook, James K. Glassman, Under Secretary for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs, U.S. Department of State and Oscar Morales, Founder, One Million Voices Against the FARC, as they engage inspiring leaders of youth movements from around the world to discuss how to change the world by building grassroots movements on the web at the first annual Alliance of Youth Movements Summit.
Watch & Discuss Live
With so many challenging events unfolding around the world, the Summit offers a unique chance to meet the inspiring young leaders who have truly changed the world around them by bringing together their fellow youth with the help of the web – leaders who continue to make a difference.
Streaming live from Columbia Law School December 4-5, you and people from around the world can watch the Summit and join the discussion live at http://youthmovements.howcast.com.
Here’s just a sample of the compelling keynotes and discussions you’ll be able to watch and discuss at the Youth Movements Hub on Howcast:
Facebook co-founder Dustin Moskovitz will reflect on the origins of Facebook and share his perspective on how the organization has grown into one of the world’s most important tools for social and political change. Dustin will also be fielding questions. Dec 4, 8:40-9:20am: Join the Discussion | Watch it Live
Whoopi Goldberg will lead youth leaders who have used online platforms to address domestic violence at home in a discussion Addressing Violence at Home. Dec 4, 1:45-2:45pm EST: Join the Discussion | Watch it Live
… and so many more inspiring, interesting panels and keynotes. Check out the Summit Schedule and be sure to tune in and join the discussion.
Join the Summit Conversation. Share your thoughts, ideas and questions — for specific sessions or any topic related to building strong grassroots movements.
Spread the Word:
Update your Facebook Status: “I’m watching Tomorrow’s Leaders Change the World at http://youthmovements.howcast.com.”
Invite all of your friends and colleagues to join the Hub at http://youthmovements.howcast.com
About the Alliance of Youth Movements
Brought together by Howcast, Facebook, Google, YouTube, MTV, the U.S. Department of State, Columbia Law School and Access 360 Media, leaders of the organizations will travel to New York City with the mission of crafting a field manual on how to effect social change using online tools. These young leaders will form a new group, the Alliance of Youth Movements, which will produce a field manual for youth empowerment. The field manual will stand in stark contrast to the Al-Qaeda manual on the basics of terrorism, found by Coalition Forces in Iraq.
The gathering was inspired by the success of the One Million Voices Against the FARC, a group started on Facebook.com by young people in Colombia. The Colombian group, along with Save Darfur Coalition, Genocide Intervention Network, Burma Global Action Network and Invisible Children will share their ideas with leaders of other groups that use social and mobile technologies to promote freedom and justice and oppose violence, extremism and oppression.
Want to comment on your own great idea of “How to Butter Corn,“ but haven’t created a Howcast account yet? Good news: Starting today, you can sign in via your Facebook account. Yep, the very same account you use to intensely ponder why that special someone’s status went from “single” to “it’s complicated,” can now be your direct line to Howcast heaven.
If you don’t have a Howcast account, simply log in with your Facebook user name and password by clicking the “Facebook Connect” button at the top of Howcast.com home page. Your information and profile picture will automatically be pulled over, and you can start commenting, voting for, and suggesting your favorite Howcast videos. Let your friends know you liked “How to Avoid Giving Terrible Gifts” by choosing to publish your vote directly on your Facebook news feed, ensuring you don’t get a half-eaten slice of pizza this year.
If you already have a Howcast account, simply:
1. Sign in to Howcast using your normal Howcast account credentials
2. Visit http://www.howcast.com/my_account
3. Click on the “Facebook Connect” button that appears under the “About’ module on this page
4. Supply your Facebook credentials and grant access
* Here’s the Facebook Connect button:
We’re excited to be one of the first sites to incorporate Facebook Connect, so give it a whirl and let us know what you think!
One of the first things we launched after going live with howcast.com, was the Howcast Google Gadget - an easy way for iGoogle users to learn something new every day by adding a little bit of Howcast to their start page.
Introducing the Howcast Player Widget
Now, with our new Howcast Player Widget, anyone who starts their day by checking out a “start” page like iGoogle, MyYahoo or Netvibes (amongst many others) or a social networking page on Facebook, MySpace or Friendster can learn how to do something new, every day with Howcast at their fingertips.
With the Howcast Player Widget, you can:
Search for a how-to video that’ll show you how to do just about anything
Watch our crisp, high-quality videos in our mini-Howcast Player
Share any video with friends by email or by posting them to your blog or favorite social networking site
Discover something completely new to learn how to do by browsing Howcast’s Featured, Most Popular and Most Recent videos
…all without leaving the comfort of your start page, desktop, or social networking profile — anywhere on the web you choose to embed the Player Widget.
(If you’re already using iGoogle, switch to the new Howcast Player Widget for sleeker addition to your start page.)
Check it Out
We’ve embedded the Player Widget right here to give you a chance to take a look for yourself:
Like What You See?
Click “Get and Share” to add the Howcast Player Widget wherever you’d like.
P.S. We also just launched the Howcast Video Bar which lets anyone showcase a whole bunch of Howcast’s finest how-to’s in an easy to customize widget that can fit just about anywhere. But more on that next week.
We love making it easier for people to watch and share the best how-to videos on the web. While we’re always making Howcast.com better and better, recently we’ve been thinking of ways to bring a little bit of Howcast to people wherever, whenever they need to learn how to do something. Sometimes the urge to learn how to do something comes when you’re checking out a web site or blog on that topic.
Howdy Publishers (and bloggers and social networking peeps and …)
So, we’re making it easier for publishers – from regular folks with blogs and networking profiles to large web site owners – to show their visitors relevant, quality how-to videos using simple yet powerful tools from Howcast.
Of course, we’ve always offered a simple, embeddable player that shows videos complete with the step-by-step instructions and navigation available on Howcast.com. Recently, you might have noticed that you can pick your own color scheme and resize the player when you go to snag the embed code for your latest Howcast video faves.
Lonely No More: Introducing the Howcast Custom Player
Recently, we’ve noticed that our videos look a bit lonely when embedded all by themselves in separate players. How-to videos really are often best shown together. So, we’ve come up with a great way to show a bunch of useful, relevant videos to any web site or networking profile in a single easy-to-program, -customize and -embed video player: The Howcast Custom Player.
Showcase any collection of videos on Howcast – from your own video uploads to videos from Howcast Studios – just point the player to show one of your playlists, all of your video uploads, your list of favorites or pick an entire category of videos (e.g. Yoga or Dating)
Match the Custom Player to your site or profile’s look and feel by adding a banner image and selecting the perfect color combination
Embed the player on your web site, blog or networking profile in seconds
Here’s a Custom Player I built to showcase some our favorite videos from Howcast Studios:
Your Site + Howcast Video = Happy Visitors
Some of our other favorite contributors are getting into the act:
How-To Girl was one of the first to take the Custom Player out for a spin, featuring it on howtogirl.com.
Elizabeth Chamberlain aka SpaceLift has whipped up a Custom Player to feature her stylish secrets on how to feng shui your home on space-lift.com.
Of course, you don’t need to have your own video to make a Custom Player.
Give your friends a hand. Share your playlist of favorite Howcast videos on your Facebook or MySpace page. You can embed the Custom Player the same way you embed any other Flash video player. No fuss, no muss.
Blogging about the latest ways to stay Green? Or, got a site featuring Travel tips? Why not add a little video to spruce up your site? You can create a Custom Player to showcase all videos from Howcast Studios in any one our 25 top-level categories. Instant, relevant video in seconds.
Howcast Playlists + Custom Player = Must See Playlist TV
We’re so excited about the Custom Player that we’ve added it to our own playlist pages to let you sit back, relax and watch all videos in a playlist without ever leaving the page. Check it out for yourself. Watch one of our latest playlists: Happy Camper or Summer Olympics 2008 Beijing.
Honestly, signing up for a new website (and even signing in to sites you’ve been visiting for years) can be such a chore.
So, we’ve tightened things up to make signing up and signing in to Howcast as quick and easy as possible…
Sign In in Seconds
Now, whenever we need you to sign in to mark a favorite or add a video to a playlist, we show you a quick little dialog where you can type in your username and password and sign in — right on top of your current page. (There’s nothing worse than clicking on something, being taken to an anonymous page to sign in, and forgetting why you bothered in the first place.)
We even remind you why you need to sign in, with a custom message on each dialog (e.g. “Get updates on new videos from this contributor…” if you clicked Subscribe).
Goodbye census-like questions. Hello, four easy steps.
Of course, many of you might not have had a chance to join Howcast as of yet, so we’ve also tightened up that sign-up experience as well.
We gave our video experience a bit of a face-lift last week. Nothing too drastic. Just a few changes here and there to freshen up the page and make it easier for you to watch and share our growing collection of how-to videos.
Over the next few days, I’ll post about each of these little changes.
Check It Out
But, before I bore you with the details, you might want to check it out for yourself. Watch How To Be More Courageous on our new video page…
Today: Steps At Your Fingertips
You can now keep track of detailed step-by-step instructions in a handy console right next to the video you’re watching:
Want to skip ahead to another step?
Just click on a step to jump right to it.
Rather watch something else?
Channel surfers (you know who you are) can click Related Videos to find what they’d like to watch next.
Just want to watch the movie?
No worries, just click on Hide to close the console.
Need a hard copy?
Click Print Guide just above the video player to print out full step-by-step instructions.
