Several SMUGgles anticipated my devastation at today’s news that Cisco is shutting down its Flip camera business.

Or at least they thought I would be interested, since I have written so frequently about the Flip, starting with this review in 2008. I had posts on:

• Using a Flip as an alternate audio source for podcasting and to get still images
• A peek at the Mino
• Video of my son-in-law channeling Ariel from The Little Mermaid and demonstrating the rapid temperature drop when I backed the car out of the garage on a January morning
• A Super Bowl Ad I produced using the Flip
• A Chancellor’s Choice award presented to the Flip
• 8 Steps to Sustainable Blogging
• Meredith Gould’s status as a great humanitarian for returning my Flip after I left it on the podium at a presentation in Philadelphia, and
• A comparison between the Flip HD and the Kodak Zi8

You get the idea. It’s no secret I love the straightforward simplicity of the Flip. Others have cited the external microphone jack on the Kodak. I don’t hate the Kodak, but the flippy thing feels flimsier, and you need to buy a flash memory card. The Flip just comes ready to go.

Or at least it used to.

So what do I think?

First, this is a classic case of the disruptive technology being disrupted by others, in line with what Clayton Christensen writes about in his Innovator’s Dilemma series. The Flip “wasn’t good enough” for the best customers of Sony, and so Sony ceded the low end of the market. Eventually Pure Digital (which Cisco bought for over $500 million) kept improving the Flip until it became, for most people, more than good enough, including HD video. And certainly a better value than the old tape-based cameras.

Now the Flip has all sorts of competitors to provide video on the go, including various smart phones for which the “not good enough” stage is quickly passing.

I’m not going to get into the business decisions of Cisco, and whether it could have spun the business off or sold it to someone. I’ve got to believe that if Cisco management thought they could gain something by selling the business instead of laying off 500 employees, they would have done it.

One upshot is the Flip is going to become the generic term for this type of camera. Instead of a Flip camera that’s a brand, we will refer to flip cameras.

What will I do?

First, I might buy another Flip Ultra HD while I still can. It’s not like they wear out or will magically quit working because production is shutting down. Batteries are rechargeable, and you can also use standard AAs.

I also might consider upgrading my iPhone. I’m on a 3G. I didn’t get the 3GS and haven’t taken the plunge for the iPhone 4. My phone doesn’t take video, and since my AT&T contract expired almost a year ago, I’m free to explore options. I might just wait for the next version, since they seem to come out in the Summer.

But mainly, I’ll probably get a little nostalgic. The Flip made a huge difference for me. I’ve recorded a lot of my kids’ basketball games, first in SD and then HD. I’ve had a great experience with the Flip, and it has made turnaround on video shoots almost instantaneous. It seems odd that the most popular video camera in the world isn’t going to be made anymore.

One thing I know for certain, though, is that the demise of the Flip isn’t going to make flip video any less prevalent. Low-cost consumer-grade video is going to continue improving in quality and getting cheaper. It will just be done under a different brand name. And flip will become the generic term.

What’s your favorite Flip story?

That may change, but for now here is the first post in what might become a series.

I didn’t start with 101 for the course number, because I can think of some lessons that would be more introductory or basic than this one. But this is something you should learn early and take to heart:

Always use a tripod when shooting video with a consumer-grade video camera.

The videos below show the difference a tripod makes. The first is a compilation of highlights from my son Joe and nephew Tom, in their first few games of the high school basketball season. I’m using a WordPress.com blog as the team booster site. I used a Facebook group a couple of years ago to do the same for my daughter’s team. All of the video from these first games was shot using a tripod:

Last night, however, when the Austin boys played John Marshall High School in Rochester, I realized upon arriving at the game that I had left the camera base that connects to my tripod attached to my other camera. So I had to shoot the whole game holding the camera in my hand.

And while I haven’t yet edited the highlight video for the whole game (which Austin won by the palindromic score of 74-47), here’s one snippet that was particularly fun for me as a dad:

I really wish you could tell that was my son, Joe, but because I had a hand-held camera, it’s considerably more blurry than the earlier games. So please just take my word for it.

I think the other factor is that I was a little closer to the court than usual, and therefore had to move the camera more quickly to keep up with the action, which increased blurriness.

So, to summarize the lesson:

1. Always bring a tripod.
2. If you goof up and forget to bring a tripod and are shooting action footage, get some distance away to avoid introducing extra movement.
3. If you are shooting an interview or something at close range, find some other surface (a box, a stack of books, etc.) upon which you can set the camera.
4. Don’t mess with the Austin Packers.

Seriously, it was pretty cool to get to see and capture my son’s first dunk in a high school basketball game. And I always try to turn these moments into teaching opportunities.

It’s the life of a Chancellor.

Hi Lee! Love the Keynote this morning you did for Life Science Alley. One question, would you go Flip Camera over the new iPhone 3Gs? I have an iPhone 3G and was not planning to upgrade, but if the cost is similar and I did not have to carry another gadget…

Thanks again for all the info. Looking forward to checking out SMUG.

Here’s my answer:

I think the one reason for concern about iPhone 3Gs video would be whether you can use it with a tripod. Keeping the camera steady is extremely important, and you can’t do that without a tripod, no matter how steady you think you are. So unless you can use the iPhone with a tripod, I still think you need some other kind of camera, whether it’s a Flip or something else.

I’m going to be taking my daughter to the Apple store tomorrow to get her a MacBook Pro as she goes off to college, and I will ask there about whether Apple has a tripod option for the iPhone 3Gs. If not, I think that still means if you want to use video professionally within your blogs or YouTube channel, you need another video camera – whether it’s a Flip or something else.

Does anyone else know whether there is a tripod option for the iPhone 3Gs?

It’s always fun for the SMUG Chancellor to visit a real university for which students pay tuition. But they’re not going to give me an honorary doctorate or anything. Hopefully they’ll at least politely applaud.

Here are some of the videos featured during the presentation, including one of our professionally produced Mayo Clinic Medical Edge segments:

Here is one of the physician interviews captured with a Flip video camera:

Here is a patient story,

Among its Advantages:

Strong video quality, particularly in relatively low-light conditions. 

Speed. Using a camera with miniDV or other tape, you have to play the tape to feed into your computer for digitizing, which takes just as long as the original shoot did. The Flip, by contrast, creates a digital file directly and saves to its memory card, and with the built-in USB connector that flips out (hence the name), you can transfer the video file to your computer for editing and/or upload to YouTube, Facebook or another video sharing service within seconds after shooting. 

Simplicity. It’s literally a point and shoot device, with a single red button to start and stop recording. So easy, even a caveman… (er…uh…sorry guys)

Savings. Ranging from about $70 for 30 minute standard definition to $230 or so for an hour of HD, these cameras are quite affordable. (More details on that below.) I’ve purchased miniDV cameras previously for $400 or so, and for many uses the Flip quality is just as good.

Situational (OK…that’s stretching the alliteration too far.) There’s an old saying in video that you can’t edit what you don’t shoot. Because the Flip fits easily in your pocket, purse or laptop bag, you can have it with you in virtually any situation. This enables you to catch those moments you’d miss if you had to remember to bring your video camera bag. I carry my Flip almost everywhere I go.

Weaknesses:

Sound. There is no external audio jack, so you can’t use a remote microphone for better sound quality. The built-in microphone picks up ambient noise, which can detract from your production. This can be mitigated by shooting in a relatively quiet room and (if you are interviewing someone) having the camera within 5-6 feet of the subject.

Digital instead of optical zoom. The Flip lets you zoom to 2x, but only by enlarging and distorting the existing image. It doesn’t have a variable lens that zooms while protecting image quality. I would completely avoid using zoom. Just get closer to the subject, which will improve your sound quality, too.

Bottom Line:

The video below, from our recent trip to see the my granddaughter, Evie, illustrates both the benefits and the one main drawback of shooting video with the Flip.

 My only experience with the Flip has been with the standard definition (640 x 480) Flip Ultra. For the sake of research, I probably should get the HD version, don’t you think?

You can buy the Flip at Best Buy or Walmart (and if you want instant gratification and a hands-on shopping experience you can go to one of their stores to get one right now), or for your convenience (and to support SMUG) you can order below through SMUG’s virtual store on Amazon.com.

And by the way, I discovered the Flip through Twitter, by asking for recommendations on a good camera for video blogging. Another benefit of tweeting!

We’re about to begin Day 3 of our Christmas gatherings, with Lisa’s side of the family joining us here at Old Main. Last night we were at my parents’ place with the Aase clan, and on Christmas night we had our six kids, our “adopted” son Jeff, and our granddaughter, Evelyn here to open presents. Here’s a picture of Evie and her Grandma Aase:

Evie’s Dad, my son-in-law Kyle, deserves a special mention, for many reasons. We’re glad he’s been brought into Rachel’s life (and therefore ours), and that he will be starting seminary classes next month. For SMUGgles, this relationship between Kyle and Rachel is an illustration of the power of social media, as they met through Facebook. So in some sense, Evelyn is here today because Mark Zuckerberg decided to start a social networking platform.

Kyle inadvertently demonstrated the power of another tool in social media, the Flip video camera, on Christmas night as Rachel unwrapped a gift — a Little Mermaid songbook — from her sister, Rebekah:

As I’ve said previously, one of the main benefits of the Flip is that you can always have it with you, and so therefore you are much less likely to miss capturing that priceless memory.

This is Exhibit A!

This video may yet make its way to Facebook, where Kyle can be tagged so that all of his 926 friends can see his musical expression. Somehow, I think Kyle’s brothers and sisters-in-law will take care of that. In the last couple of weeks, I’ve uploaded some video highlights of their youth directly to Facebook so their friends can see them. And because Facebook now defaults to sharing video with everyone (although it lets you limit who sees them), I think you SMUGgles can see them too (and I’d be interested in having you confirm in the comments below.)

Here’s one of my son, Jake, in which he shows immense bravery (at least for a few seconds) after suffering a foot injury, and another in which he displays an interest in botany.

Here’s Ruthie giving her newborn brother Joe “a swoppy kiss.”

And here are Ruthie and Bekah (but mostly Bekah) singing one Sunday morning before church.

It’s time now to go make and capture some more memories, as the Wacholz clan is about to arrive.

Merry Christmas to all of you from all of us!

I was asked to provide six suggestions, and the other four panelists also are responsible for a similar number. We get a minute to describe each idea, so I’m writing this post to provide links to mine. I’ll likely add links with some of the other panelists’ suggestions after I hear them.

I’ve also included more than six ideas because I don’t know what the others will be offering, and if we have duplicates I don’t want to be left without something valuable to recommend. Besides, I can’t limit myself to just a half dozen.

1. Get a Flip video camera. This is the only recommendation of my main six that costs anything. You can get a Flip today at Wal-Mart or Best Buy or some Target stores. The Flip provides miniDV quality video and is completely portable. You copy files to your computer via the built-in USB instead of having to digitize tapes. And you can have video uploaded to YouTube within minutes, as I did with the David Pogue musical parodies. The cost of buying a Flip is less than a quarter of the cost of hiring a professional videographer for a single day, and you can use the video you shoot to pitch stories to journalists. Even better, you can make the video available directly to consumers.

2. Become a SMUGgle. In the Harry Potter books, a muggle is an ordinary mortal without magical powers. A SMUGgle is also an ordinary mortal, but one who wants to accomplish really amazing feats using social media tools. You become a SMUGgle by enrolling in SMUG. This will be a gateway to your learning about lots of other social media tools you can apply to your work.

3. Try Yammer. Yammer is Twitter for the enterprise. It offers a way to take advantage of the functionality of Twitter, but to limit the participants to employees of your company. The big value is trying before buying, so you can see whether you get user adoption before you sink a lot of money into a tool that people may not use. It seems to have potential for powerful collaboration, allowing coworkers to opt-in for e-mails about subjects they find interesting, and also can serve as a massive General Reference database of facts, links and other information employees have found helpful. I did a Yammer 101 course and expect to be doing more on SMUG.

4. Start a WordPress.com blog. It’s free and you can do it in 5 minutes or less, as my Dad did. If you’re a coward, you can make it a private blog invisible to anyone except users you invite. Then just invite your communications colleagues to have access. Getting this hands-on experience will show you how easy it is to publish content to the world. You also could use WordPress.com to publish your Web site, having it serve as your content management system. The SMUG blogging curriculum will help you learn.

5. Create your own free personal podcast. The SMUG Podcasting curriculum takes you from the very basics to having a podcast listed in iTunes. When you’re familiar with the process, you will have complete confidence to recommend doing podcasts for your organization with higher production values, better microphones, etc. The mystery will be eliminated.

6. Join a Social Network such as Facebook or LinkedIn. Or both. It’s essential for professional communicators to understand how social networking sites work.

Bonus Items

• Build your own on-line newsroom. See our Mayo Clinic News Blog for an example.
• Get a YouTube account. If you’ve only watched YouTube videos, you haven’t understood full potential. And if you work for a nonprofit, starting a branded YouTube channel is a no-brainer – it’s free. A Flip camera makes it easy for you to produce and upload videos
• Get an iPhone. This is another one that’s not free, but professional communicators need to understand potential of phones and applications.
• Try Dropbox. Its main purpose to sync files across multiple computers, letting you store your precious documents and files “in the cloud” so you have safe backup. The neat feature, though, is that it is a way for you to have the equivalent of an FTP site without the annoying hassle of log ins and passwords. You get two GB of storage free, and the paid option is something like $50 a year for 50 GB.
• Read a good book. Here are three must-read books that will change the way you work and live, and you could perhaps read one by the end of the weekend.

Rules to Break and Laws to Follow – Don Peppers and Martha Rogers. I haven’t reviewed this yet, but plan to do so soon. I have been listening to it through Audible.com. It’s an excellent book about how a focus on short-term results can’t be the only measure of business success, because you may be draining or harvesting customer equity, and therefore actually reducing the value of your business.

Getting Things Done – David Allen. I have several related posts about the GTD subject matter.

The Reason for God – Tim Keller

Updated: My fellow panelists are

• John Mims, Altyris
• Becky Graebe, SAS
• Bruce Johnson, Davis Wright Tremaine, LLP
• Mark Ragan, Ragan Communications. CEO@ragan.com

Here are some of their ideas:

• Becky – Embrace individual customization on the intranet. Let employees upload and display their own photos instead of the staff photos.
• Bruce – Look for Alliances. AP came from this concept. Use a similar approach to find like-minded sites with which you can share.
• John – Have interns start a blog. “Outsiders’ view from the inside.”
• Mark – use LInkedIn journalistically. Send out requests for quotes or sources.
• Becky – Don’t overlook interns. They understand these technologies naturally and can give you insights. SAS has a student intern site.
• Bruce – Anonymity is dead. Make identity work for you on the internet.
• Customize your name. There are 266 John Mims in the U.S. The guy to my left uses his middle initial to identify himself. Good thing Lee Aase is relatively rare.
• Mark – Sign up for Google Alerts on your name or your company.
• Becky – Google your stuff to see if it shows up. If not, use titles and tags to optimize your content.
• Bruce – Get blog aggregator/RSS reader.
• John says you should have your posts published on days when people are reading. Write on the weekends, but set them to post on the weekdays. Here’s how.
• Becky – Use blogs to come together during difficult times. UNC Chapel Hill with student body president being killed. Created a blog to share special memories. Print all the comments and share with the family.
• Bruce – Create a wiki approach to document creation. Bruce had a colleague create a wiki certiori petition in the 9th Circuit.
• John – Comment on other people’s blogs. Make meaningful comments which will get people to visit your blog.
• Mark – Try Blog Jamming. Spend 48 hours in intense blogging about a particular issue. Then have the blog go away.
• Becky -Hand over the reins for Web 2.0 video. SAS hands employees Flip cams. Let them duct tape to handlebars during bike to work day.
• Mark – Search for Bloggingheads on NY Times.
• Use RSS feeds for internal news, just as you do for external.
• Mark – Check out everyblock.com. Everything that has happened on your block. It’s in beta now in 6 cities. News at the block level.
• Bruce – Beware the privacy trolls that may require encryption through legislation that is being adopted in various states. This will slow down all of your on-line transactions on your Web site. So what can we do about it?
• Mark – If you’re an editor, use Bullfighter or mystery matador.

As I count it, that makes for 34 ideas including my two extra books, which means we exceeded our quota by 13.3 percent. And I know I didn’t get all of my fellow panelists’ ideas recorded. I hope you see some things here you can apply immediately in your work.

I’m happy to have participated in this event, and would love to connect with others who are interested in these issues. You can get in touch with me on Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn.

I’d also welcome any comments you have, or other ideas you’d like to share.

I just thought I’d forward this information on to you in case any of you might want to take advantage of this offer. The only thing you need to do is sign up for a Discover Card and then when you receive it, make a purchase with it to validate it and your FREE Flip Video Camera will be sent out.

I’ll give you a bit of background on my purchase. I waited on sharing the information in case I was signing up for some sort of a scam and I’m very pleased to say that I didn’t. I signed up for the offer on 7.28.08 and received it in the mail on 8.4.08 (very quickly). I made my first purchase with it on 8.7.08 and received an email saying that I should receive my FREE Flip Video Camera sometime within the next 10 weeks. That would have been a long wait, but I received another email on Monday saying it has shipped. It came yesterday and within 20 minutes of opening the box, I was videotaping (and I’m by no means technically savvy!!).

I was able to view the little bit of video I made on my TV this morning and I couldn’t believe how clear it was and how easy it was. The only issue I might say with it, is that the volume seems quite low – Lee am I missing a setting on this?

Anyway, if you decide to take advantage of this offer, I hope you have as much luck with it as I did – I’m very pleased with it, and of course, you just can’t beat the price!!!

My response:

Thanks for sharing this.

You are correct that there is no audio setting on the Flip. As you are playing it back on your computer or TV, you can adjust the volume on those devices.

The built-in microphone actually picks up sound fairly well within 10 feet or so, if people speak at a reasonable level. The only real problem is that you get all of the background noise too, so it’s best if you can record in a quieter environment.

Of course, the beauty of the Flip is you can always have it with you in your pocket or purse, so for instance when we welcomed our new grandchild we had the camera right with us and could record and upload to YouTube.

If you click the “watch in high quality” link it’s even better.

Her response, which led to this post:

Would you recommend getting the tripod for it? I plan on using it a lot for taping my daughter to share with out-of-town family, really just doing activities – reading, drawing, playing games, etc. I’m thinking the tripod might be useful for that sort of thing – what do you think?

Thanks again for your suggestions – and for the information on youtube, etc. I’ll have to get signed up for that now too. That reminds me of another question – I think it says that you can take still pics from the video – does that work well and is it also easy to do?

Answers:

I definitely recommend getting a tripod. You don’t need to get the one Pure Digital sells; any standard tripod will do. A tripod is particularly important if you are uploading to YouTube or Facebook, and will greatly reduce the pixellation you can sometimes see with Flash video players. We will probably get into a series on videoblogging later, at which time we’ll have more detail on Flip video do’s and don’ts.

That said, sometimes you’ll have experiences like the birth of a grandchild when you won’t want to carry the tripod along. But when you’re at home (or if you can get a really small tripod that is convenient to carry), you’ll be glad you used it.

As for getting still images from a Flip, that’s certainly possible, but with limits.

First, the screen resolution of a Flip is 640 x 480, which is about 0.3 megapixels. That’s the resolution of a standard definition TV (and of most miniDV cameras), but it’s not great for producing color prints on paper for a scrapbook.

But it’s just fine for use on a computer screen. So if you want to capture a frame from your Flip video and upload it to Flickr, Facebook, or your blog, you’ll probably be really happy with the results.

For instance, this picture of my son John came from a Flip screen grab:

So if you want super-high megapixel photos because you are taking a group picture or a scenic vista (not Vista the computer operating system! I hear that’s anything but beautiful!), a dedicated still camera would be a better choice. But there are some advantages to the lower resolution and greater frequency, particularly for individual close-ups. At 30 frames per second, you’re going to find one in which the smile is natural and the eyes aren’t closed.

Steps to Getting a Flip Still Photo:

1. Shoot your video, and get reasonably close to the subject.
2. Transfer the video to your computer, and open it in QuickTime Pro or Windows Media Player.
3. View the video at Actual size, and select the frame that’s just right.
4. On the Mac, use the key combination shift-command-4, which will turn your cursor into a crosshair. Then you can select a portion of the screen to save as a picture file. Once you have the photo file, you can upload it to Facebook or another photo-sharing site like Flickr. See the screencast demonstration below.
5. For Windows (not my mother tongue) see this link on how to create picture files from your screen. Then you should be able to open those files and crop them to the desired size.

Here’s a quick screencast showing you how to get still photos from a Flip using a Mac with QuickTime Pro, and then how to upload a photo to a Facebook group.

So here’s some video I shot of Rick’s Mino, using my Ultra.

Here, for comparison, is some video of me handling an Ultra. I shot it using my webcam and did a direct upload to YouTube, so it was optimized for speed instead of quality. But you can get the idea of the relative size and design aesthetics of the two models.

Of course, you can see a more elegant view of the Flip at the company’s site, but I’m betting they used a higher-end camera to produce it. Just a hunch.

Here’s an example of one of those files, from Podcasting 109. You’ll note some hum and a bunch of background noise.

This course, Podcasting 201, is about a MacGyveresque hack that enables you to get much better sound quality.

One of the limitations of the Flip as a video camera is that it doesn’t have an audio input jack, so you’re stuck with its built-in microphone. That means that in a noisy environment, such as I experienced at the U.S. Transplant Games, background noise can be bothersome.

But if you’re not concerned about the video you’re getting, the Flip can actually be a pretty nifty audio recording device.

Here, for example is the audio from Podcasting 110, which I recorded using a Flip Ultra.

So how do you do that?

First, because you aren’t concerned about the picture, you can hold the Flip right next to your mouth to get maximum pick-up of your voice. Here is a frame grab from when I recorded Podcasting 110.

Using the Flip for close-range audio recording

Nice angle, huh?

At any rate, once you’ve captured the audio by holding the camera nice and close to your mouth, all you need to do is open the .AVI file from the Flip in QuickTime Pro (for Mac) or a similar Windows program, and export the audio as a .WAV file.

Then you can open the file in Audacity and edit in the same way as you would in Podcasting 103, saving your edited file as an mp3.

It’s that simple. It does require the purchase of a Flip, but you really should get one of those anyway. But because this method does involve some expenditure (a Flip costs about $150), this is a 200-level course instead of 100-level.

If you have another kind of video camera, such as a mini-DV, that also could be used to capture audio, but the steps involved would be much more complicated. With the Flip, it’s just about as easy as using the built-in computer microphone, but with much better quality.

Don’t get me wrong: I’m still going to be mostly putting the Flip to its intended use. But until I get another source for audio in my personal podcasts, it will be my digital audio recorder too.

For more fun with podcasting, check out 10 Steps to Your Own Free Podcast.