The social media industry may be very young but we have come a long way in the past few years. A few years ago, it was impossible for folks to imagine having 10-50K friends online, but now thanks to the power of Twitter you can gather that many friends in a snap. These days we are seeing more people join the social media revolution and participate in all kinds of events (e.g. tweetups, twestivals, fb-events, …). But if you think this is as good as it gets, think again. The younger generation is certainly adopting the new technologies faster than some of us older folks. Creating a video-cast seems to come natural to kids today whereas some of us are pondering whether we should put our videos online. In reality, everyone should! That’s the beauty of this revolution. Your goal is to participate, and you can’t do that 100% if you are not willing to share information with others. Your videos don’t have to be earth-shattering, but they certainly can show your dedication to get involved and add value. Some sites even allow you to leave video comments on blogs. What a better way to communicate with others that taking advantage of these services?

Creating a video cast is not that hard. The equipment has gotten more affordable. A few years ago, you’d have to spend will into thousands to get a decent camcorder. Nowadays, you can get one for a few hundred dollars. And let’s not forget about Flip portable camcorders that let you record high quality videos when you are on the go. There are plenty of cheap software packages that you can choose to edit your videos. Hosting videos can’t be more simple if you use YouTube or Vimeo. So there is simply no excuse in not taking advantage of the video revolution to generate content for the social media. With that in mind, here are some of the tools that you can use to create your own videos:

Camcorders:

• Flip Camcorder: Flip Camcorder is one of the best solutions for newbie vloggers. It does the job and does it well. It’s cheap too!
• Logitech QuickCam Orbit AF Auto Focus System: a cool web cam that follows you wherever you go!
• Kodak Zx1 HD Pocket Video Camera: a new video camera by Kodak that promises major improvements over its predecessor.

Software:

• Apple iLife: an inexpensive software to create your video-casts.
• Adobe Captivate: a great software for capturing your screen.
• Camtasia: another cool software for recording videos from your computer screen.
• Avid: a cool free software to create your own video-cast.

Headphones/Microphones:

• Sennheiser RS120 926 MHz Wireless RF Headphones: a very convenient wireless headphone.
• Sennheiser HD-555 Audiophile Headphones: Sennheiser HD-555 is another fairly affordable headphone for your vidoecast.
• Audio Technica AT2020USB Condenser USB Microphone: a high quality microphone for your video/audio content. Expensive but high quality.
• Blue Microphones Snowball: a decent microphone for podcasting, and it’s cheap too.

Accessories:

• Flip Tripod for Flip Ultra: keep your Flip camcorder straight with this decent tripod.
• Lights: Bargains Camera and Adorama has some of the best lights and other accessories for video-casts.

Gadgets:

• iPhone: needs no introduction. iPhone 3.0 is going to be even better.
• Netbooks: netbooks are cheap laptops that are highly portable and let you record video and publish them from anywhere.
• Pulse Pen: great gadget that lets you record video demonstrations while you are on the go.

There you have it. There is simply no excuse for not creating your own videos these days. The early adoption period for video has expired a while ago. So the sooner you start putting up great content online, the less you will fall behind.