I have been experimenting with this Blog:Beautiful Sitka Alaska (http://beautifulsitkaalaska.blogspot.com) for the last few months.

My goal is to develop some kind of video/blog/website to promote tourism, economic development in my community here in Sitka Alaska.

I'm still not sure how I should go about it. I might add, I will receive no monetary rewards for my efforts. This is a give back to my community, from me.

All of my footage is HDV, about 60 hours worth, and is centered around nature, wildlife, and the environment. I plan to provide new video/content weekly.

Should I stay with Youtube? or Vimeo?

Should I stay with a blog format? or a combination web page & blog?

Content idea's?

Any idea's how to best promote the video & Blog?

I'm seeking advice, so don't be afraid to speak bluntly.

Dave Rice
Sitka, Alaska

On one point at least:

I prefer Vimeo because I feel like overall, it has classier content than YouTube. However, both provide a good player and HD options. If you embed, like you have already, then it really doesn't matter. YouTube is more widely known and used.

Hi Dave, I was in Sitka last sept, nice area and it was even sunny ! You may want to also check out exposureroom.com,it is much classier than youtube or vimeo. John

I have tried Youtube, Vimeo, and Exposure Room, and happy with a three. Any of the three will work for me.

I guess where I am at now is, what next? With a emphasis on Nature/Wildlife footage, should I use a Blog format like this one: Sitka Alaska (http://beautifulsitkaalaska.blogspot.com).

or design it around a website? Someone told me to forget the Website or Blog format and use Facebook. I was wondering what other people were using.

any idea's in how to better reach the world with video, and or a message?

There are several different blog formats, and you'd need to look around to see how they all work.

I find blogspot is very limiting. It's great for just updating information, but it's not easy to find old information when you want it. And I'd guess for this project you do want people to be able to access anything you've written/filmed about the Sitka Alaska. Using the search function is fine when you have only a few posts, but doesn't always search to the early posts when you have accumulated a lot of posts.

I've been playing with squarespace.com, which seems to be more flexible, though I haven't had time to work out all the things you can do with it. You can use it as a conventional website as well as a blog. And it will import blogs from other sources.

It's important to tag individual posts, because that allows you to find related items posted weeks or months apart. Try clicking on the tags on my website www.naturewatcher.squarespace.com - everything on there is experimental (and probably a bit incoherent) as I've been trying, in what little spare time I've had, to find out how everything works.

Also look at Pembrokeshire Mammals (http://www.pembsmammals.blogspot.com) Here I've had to load all the species info at the same time in order to get an alphabetical list that anyone can select a species from. When I've had time to update the maps, I'll have to do the same thing again - and erase the old posts - in order to maintain this index.

Good luck with your project.