I decided to start compiling my thoughts about developing my online presence (OLP) as blog entries on this site to get them of scattered pages and into a centralized location. The current status is that I have essentially four active projects that predominantly relate to this topic. Website 1: gregshoemaker.net; Website 2: letspracticemusic.com; YouTube Channel 1: Greg Shoemaker - Music; Livestream Show 1: To be determined. Each of these will be summarized later. Then there is the additional research that I need to undergo to prepare for future expansion that will include Facebook, and possibly, Twitter, Instagram, and Twich, primarily for expanding live streaming when I get that ready but there may be other applications that I might want to use with those platforms.
For most of the active projects I am still riding the learning curve and will need to spend several hours getting up to speed with using the technologies. This will be done using the LinkedIn Learning series 'Joomla 3: Essential Training', 'Creating and Managing a YouTube Channel', 'Learning Video Live Streaming', and 'Live Streaming on YouTube'. Eventually I will also go through the series 'Getting the Most Out of Video on Facebook' but that will be after I have completed a basic implementation of the currently active projects.
I am happy to report that I have made sufficient progress using OBS as a multi camera video capture tool and do not expect the technical aspects of jumping to live streaming over YouTube to be that difficult. Still, prior to launching, which I am targeting for sometime around the beginning of June, I will want to create good graphics for alternate scenes and streamline my video production processes. The current thinking is to start by creating several (5-10) five minute video segments that demonstrate those techniques that I have found most useful for learning music. I probably should go ahead and begin to compile a list of those ideas in a manner similar to the project listing in my The Music Management System (MMS). Maybe I'll call it my VMS (Video Management System). The primary tasks I want to do as soon as possible for both the YouTube project and the Streaming project is to create an appropriate splash screen to provide a consistent introduction to each video and both a trailer and message banner at the bottom when warranted. I also need to script a introductory video that describes the purpose of the channel or show.
Some other things I will need to do include setting up a SoundCloud account, explore WireCast and Livestream products and platforms, .png graphics, getting a more stable and higher speed internet service (my current AT&T service has frequent service interruptions and the upload speed is sub optimal), explore chat boxes and slide shows, set up a discord account, look into ticktok, reddit, and subreddits, develop my growth plan, and decide how I want to set up my video production studio in terms of lighting and equipment. All this will be deferred until sometime after school ends this semester.
I also need to rethink my formatting for my videos on YouTube in terms of size and resolution and creating thumbnails and additional metadata. In the past when using Premier Pro I mostly standardized on creating content at a 400x400 resolution for reasons I won't get into now but it appears YouTube uses the 16:9 aspect ratio for most things. I'll also need to look more into compression techniques and other technical aspects of video that I've been avoiding for a while.
Another area that will require some attention over time is compiling the content that I have acquired over the years and formatting to post on the appropriate platform. That about wraps up the summary of my current efforts for getting online.