Smile for the Camera
ARTICLE DATE: 11.01.06

By Sebastian Rupley

Unless you live under a rock, you're aware that user-posted video content at sites such as YouTube.com (just acquired by Google) is all the rage. But recorded video, live video, and audio content are also gaining traction on social-networking sites. Companies such as Juice Wireless and sites such as Stickam.com and TalkShoe.com have developed extremely simple ways for anyone to share media.

Juice Wireless's new JuiceCaster 3.0 application is a free download at www.juicecaster.com. It puts a software application on your camera phone and lets you send videos and photos to a "Media Box" area on your page at MySpace, Xanga, Blogger, Google Page Creator, Friendster, BlackPlanet.com, or other sites.

"We give you a line of simple HTML code that you can cut and paste into your page, and that gives you a Media Box on your page," explains Nick Desai, chairman of Juice Wireless. "Then when you take pictures or videos on your phone, they'll automatically post to all the places you created a Media Box."

Stickam.com supplies users with a free line of HTML code that lets them incorporate video in their personal pages, but it focuses on live video. At the site, you can view all kinds of webcam content, and the cut-and-paste HTML code makes it simple to have the webcam applications on, say, your MySpace page.

TalkShoe.com isn't focused on video, but the site makes it very easy to host an ongoing online podcast on any topic (the episodes are archived at the site). TalkShoe hosts get paid if they attract a big enough audience, or for referring talk-show participants. At all these sites, the star of the show is you.