Introduction
What is blogTV?
Acknowledgements
Thank you to Liron Steinfeld for all your help, Sandy Doell for your
wonderful editorial eye and to Michael W. Dean, Matt Lawniczak and
James Brooks for your suggestions and time.
My blogTV show:
http://blogtv.com/people/fallofautumndistro
“I’m Live, Right Now! The Basics of blogTV”
Published by Blue Tape Media (bluetapemedia.com)
for ViralVideoWannabe.com
Author: Alan Lastufka
Editor: Sandy Doell
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-
Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License. To view a copy of
this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/
or send a letter to Creative Commons, 171 Second Street, Suite 300,
San Francisco, California, 94105, USA.
Contact Information
To contact the author, email alan@fallofautumn.com
or mail PO Box 254, Manhattan, IL, 60442, USA.
To contact the publisher, email contact@bluetapemedia.com
blogTV is a website that allows anyone with a webcam, an internet
connection, and a free account registered to broadcast live to a global
audience. With very few restrictions (discussed in the Rules section of
this article), any user can broadcast any type of show, from backyard
concerts to interviews, vlogs, and beyond.
blogTV not only provides the technology, but also provides promotion
of your show to a large pre-existing community and audience. I’ve
found the blogTV staff to be eager in wanting to work with me to pro-
vide the best exposure and support they can for my show.
Already utilized by dozens of hugely successful YouTubers, commer-
cial musicians, presidential candidates, filmmakers, and others,
blogTV is one of the best new, live platforms for reaching your audi-
ence.
So how do you get started?
This eBook is, first and foremost, a guide for beginner broadcasters
who want to understand the numerous features of blogTV. It is written
simply, by a daily user of the site, so you won’t find any technical
mumbo jumbo here. I am not employed by blogTV, and blogTV did not
have any editorial control over the content here. These observations
are drawn from my own experiences as I found my way around the
site.
2
This eBook will also help some experienced broadcasters who may be To register an account, navigate to the top of any page on blogTV and
searching for additional show ideas, or promotional help. After I ex- click on the Sign Up button.
plain how to use some of the technical features of the site, I will share
with you the techniques I and other popular broadcasters used to get
the word out about our shows.

I’ve included as many screenshots and examples as necessary to help
you along with each feature, but you may still have questions. My con-
tact information is listed at the front and back of this eBook, and you
are free to contact me with any questions that may arise while you are
getting started.
The Sign Up button will take you to the registration form. Enter your
desired screen name, an email address that you check regularly, and
the other requested information.

You may be a little nervous the first time you click that Start Broadcast-
ing button. I know I was, but being armed with all of the information
contained within these pages from both me and other broadcasters,
you’ll do a much better job with your early shows than any of us did.

Good luck, and happy broadcasting.

Registering
If you’ve visited blogTV before, you’ll know that you can watch shows
as a guest without giving up your email address or taking the time to
register an account. However, registered users have many benefits
that guests don’t have. Most importantly, guests can’t broadcast their
own shows. Also, registered users are given preferential treatment in
every area of blogTV over guests, including main rooms, operating
privileges, and more. (You’ll learn more about all these features in later Make sure you agree to blogTV’s Terms of Use before you click Go for
sections of this article.) It. Your registration information will be sent to the email address you
specified and then you’ll be ready to sign in for the first time.
Luckily, registering is easy and takes less than a minute.

3
 Now that you’re on your channel page, the large video window will say
“Click here to start broadcasting NOW.” Click anywhere within that
video window.
Screen names will make or break you online. A short, easy to re-
member screen name containing no numbers, dashes, or under- Clicking on the window will bring up
scores is best. Use proper spellings to make it even easier on your camera and microphone op-
people. You want an audience, so don’t make it difficult for them to tions. This dialog box will usually se-
find you by selecting an unpronounceable or difficult screen name.
lect the appropriate settings for you,
but can be changed at any time.
Now that you have an account, you can start adding friends, subscrib-
ing to your favorite shows, leaving comments on other users’ chan-
nels, and much more. Each of the above will be covered in future
sections, but for now, let’s jump right in and start broadcasting.

Broadcasting
Click Close, and you’re ready to start broadcasting. You can simply
While some users are only spectators, bouncing from room to room, click the video window again to begin broadcasting, or click the Start
watching others, and joining in on the text conversation, most join Broadcasting button under the video window.
blogTV to broadcast. Live shows can take on many different forms,
from concerts, to vlogging, to interviews using blogTV’s co-hosting fea-
ture. You don’t need to decide now what your particular show will be
about before you begin broadcasting.

Let’s start by walking through how to go live and set up your camera
and microphone options. Once you are signed in, you should navigate
to your channel page; this will be at the following address:

http://blogtv.com/People/YOURSCREENNAME

Replace YOURSCREENNAME with the screen name you selected

while registering. This will be the link you send to other people when
you want them to watch your broadcast.
4

Streaming video requires a lot of bandwidth. I recommend you
close all other internet applications (email, IM, etc.) so that your
broadcast is as smooth and uninterrupted as possible.
Congratulations! You are now broadcasting live. Send your channel
link to a few friends via IM, Twitter, and MySpace, and as your room
grows, you may even land on the front page of blogTV, where you will
pick up many additional viewers.
While your audience may be limitless, you can only interact with the
first 150 registered users who make it to your room. This chat room is
located to the right of your video window (as shown above), and is
called the Main Room.
Main Room
The text chat you see to the right of your video window is called the
Main Room. The main room can hold about 150 registered users be-
fore a waiting room is created. Main rooms only hold 150 users so that
you, as the broadcaster, can attempt to read the text chat and interact
with your audience. Any more than 150 users and the chat can be-
come very hard to keep up with and even unreadable. Once you reach
the 150 max for the main room, viewers will be put into a waiting room
(more on that in the next section).
Main chat rooms make it possible for you to title the chat. You can use
this area (found directly above the chat) to post a link you’d like view-
ers to visit throughout the show, or announce any special upcoming
events, etc.
Main rooms also allow for some moderation in the form of Operators,
which we will discuss in an upcoming section. The ability to read and
reply to viewers in the main room and your ability to choose operators,
are the two most important ways in which the main room differs from
waiting rooms.
Waiting Room
Waiting rooms are created automatically by blogTV once your viewers
total over 150, as mentioned earlier. Each waiting room is allowed 150
registered users and guests before a second, third, forth, and so on is
created. While an average blogTV show usually only has about 40
viewers, some more popular shows have been known to have up-
wards of 2,000 or 3,000 viewers.
Guests are moved to waiting rooms as more registered users visit your
show, the waiting rooms are typically filled with spam, hate comments,
and other undesirable posts because there are no operators to kick
out the bad eggs. These guests and users would typically be dealt with
by the operators you appoint, but, at this
time, you cannot appoint ops in the waiting
room.
Ops
Ops is short for Operators; these are the
users you personally select in your main
room to “police” the chat. Ops have the
power to remove people who are spam-
ming or otherwise being inappropriate via
5
the Kick function. Ops can also grant Operator Privileges to other Here you could also choose to only allow your Ops to chat, or only
users. To grant someone Operator Privileges, simply click on their people you’ve added as a friend (we’ll cover adding friends in a later
name in the chat list, and choose “Add Operator.” section).

I recommend you only give ops to users who you personally know and Co-Hosting
trust, as these users have the power to kick others from the room.
Some broadcasters limit their number of operators, while others Most blogTV broadcasts consist
choose to have none at all. of a single broadcaster. Musi-
cians, vloggers, artists, and oth-
ers looking to interact with an
audience. However, if you’d like
If you find yourself in a waiting room with a ton of spam or hate to interview, debate, or just audi-
posts, Flag the broadcast by clicking the Flag option under the bly chat with another user, blogTV
video window. This will typically bring in a blogTV staff member
has a co-hosting function. The co-
who will, most times, op a few individuals in the waiting room to
help keep things in order. hosting function will allow you to
add one additional broadcaster to
the main video window that everyone watching the show will be able to
Turning Guest Chat On/Off see and hear.

If your Ops become overwhelmed, or you’d just rather not deal with
unregistered users, you can set your chat room to not allow guests to
chat. Guests will still be able to view your show and read what regis-
tered users type, but they won’t be able
to type. Not all guests are bad, but the
majority of spam and hate you see will
come from unregistered, guest ac-
counts.
To turn the Guest Chat feature on or off,
click on the pencil icon below the list of
users in the chat room, as pictured.
To invite someone to co-host with you, click on their name in the right-
hand chat pane, and choose Invite Co-Host.
I recommend using headphones while co-hosting to cut down on the
chance of runaway feedback and lag echo problems.
You can use the co-host option to debate a topic with another user, to
interview someone, or to allow someone to entertain your audience
while you pause for a bathroom break, dinner, or any other reason.
I recommend you only co-host other users you know personally.

6
Show Activities
The co-hosting for interviews and debates mentioned in the previous
section are just some examples of ideas for activities within your
shows. While some broadcasters go on without a plan, shows tend to
run much more smoothly and be more entertaining, if you have an
idea of what it is you might do while on screen.
I asked the viewers in my room one day what they enjoyed most about
the shows they watch on the site. Here were some of the activities and
events they most loved watching, and participating in:
• Q&A – If you don’t go live often, or if you have a number of
interesting projects going on at once, you could devote a portion
of your show to answering viewers’ questions.
• Songs – Numerous broadcasters also happen to be pretty
entertaining with an acoustic guitar. If you write your own songs,
or enjoy playing covers, take requests from your audience.
• Prank Calls – Some broadcasters have a knack for prank calling
random stores or other broadcasters. Ask your viewers for
suggestions on whom to prank, or for topics for the call.
• Pictionary – Various software programs will interact with your
webcam, allowing you to draw directly on the video stream you’re
broadcasting. You can use programs like ManyCam and CamTwist
to play Pictionary with your viewers.
• Cooking / Hobbies – Have a signature dish? Why not prepare it
live for your audience. Provide details of the recipe so others can
cook with you if they want. Short, tasty treats work the best. You
could also teach songs on your guitar, knit a scarf, or demonstrate
one of any other talents you may have.
• Painters Tape – Okay, this one might leave you scratching your
head, but in some of my live shows I’ve created artwork on my
bedroom wall using painters tape.
It’s fun, people enjoy watching
and suggesting subjects for the art,
and it’s easily removed when the
show’s over.
There is virtually no limit to the things
you can do during your show, espe-
cially if you have a wireless signal and
can broadcast from outdoors. Be cre-
ative and try to come up with ideas that are fun and entertaining for
everyone watching.
While you can get away with broadcasting all kinds of content, there
are a few rules blogTV has put in place to protect both themselves and
their viewers.
Rules
blogTV has a full page explaining their Terms of Use, which you
agreed to when you registered. But basically, while broadcasting, there
are three rules.
• No nudity, sex, or copyrighted content. Keep your clothes on and
keep TV shows out of your video window, and you’ll be ok.
7
 • Must be 16 or older to broadcast. Most sites only require their
members to be 13 and up, but blogTV has chosen 16. Please
respect this rule. I’ve personally seen users kicked off solely
because they lied about their age.
• Harassment of any kind is forbidden. Don’t drink the Haterade!
If you follow these three simple rules, you’ll keep your account and
have a very good chance at building a decent sized audience. If you
don’t, it’s likely your broadcast will be flagged.
Flagging
The flagging function is primarily used to report broadcasts that break
one or more of the above stated rules. blogTV staff personally check
out each flagged broadcast, so don’t abuse the function.
To flag a show, simply click on the
Flag link located beneath the video
window as pictured to the left.
You can also flag a broadcast from the waiting room to bring in blogTV
staff who should then op someone in the waiting room.
Recording Shows
blogTV offers a wonderful built-in recording feature that allows you to
easily capture, not only your live broadcast, but also the main room
chat! The main room chat is played as a lower-third overlay on
recorded videos and may be hidden by the viewer at the push of a
single button.
Once you hit a certain level of viewers, blogTV will begin recording
your shows automatically. You can also, at any time, choose to start
and stop recording on your own.
To begin recording, click on Start
Recording; the button is located
right under the large video window.
Recorded videos are limited to 10 minutes each. In the earlier days,
blogTV allowed recordings up to one hour so you may, occasionally,
come across longer recordings.
You can restart the recording process as many times as you’d like
while broadcasting though, to capture your whole broadcast, even if
you are on for more than 10 minutes.
Most broadcasts last between one and two hours and are scheduled
beforehand.
Your shows need structure and some planning. Record these spe-
cific moments and events. Don’t simply record your room while
you’re walking around getting set-up, or while you’re on the phone
and asking your audience to just hang-out and wait. If someone in
the room asks a particularly interesting question, hit record before
you answer, and then stop recording as soon as you’ve finished an-
swering; don’t just let it run while you ramble.
Scheduling Shows
Random shows can be fun, but they are rarely as well-attended as
scheduled shows. Scheduling your shows allows your audience to fit
8
your show into their busy lives.
If I know one of my friends has a
live show every Thursday at 7pm,
then I know not to make plans for
that time if I want to attend the show. If that same friend decided to
hop on whenever she felt like it, I would miss a lot of what she broad-
casts because my time would simply already be spoken for.
In addition to helping your view count, scheduling shows also helps
blogTV promote you.
Believe it not, blogTV loves to promote your shows. Most sites pick
only special broadcasters or users to spotlight, but blogTV does every-
thing it can to help you get the word out about your show no matter
who you are. One thing you can do to help blogTV know about your
show is to schedule it using their scheduling service.
To schedule a show, navigate to the front page, where you’ll see a
large “Broadcast Now or Schedule a Live Show” button. Clicking this
button will take you to the scheduling page.
From here, you can schedule additional shows or edit the details of the
shows you’ve already scheduled. I like keeping a weekly schedule,
same day and time each week. Something different might work for you
and your audience though.
One last benefit of scheduling your shows rather than just broadcast-
ing whenever the mood strikes is that subscribers to your channel will
be sent an optional reminder email 15 minutes before your show be-
gins. This will greatly increase your viewership. And subscribing is
easy, so you should encourage viewers to subscribe at the end of
each and every show, so they don’t miss any of your exciting broad-
casts.
Subscribing
If you run across a new show on blogTV that you enjoy, you should
subscribe to that show by clicking on the Subscribe link, found right
below the large video window. When you subscribe, you will be given
the option to receive email re-
minders about that specific
show. If you choose to receive
these email reminders, blogTV
will send you an email about 15 minutes before any scheduled shows
happen. This is a great way not to miss any of your favorite broadcast-
ers.
Subscribing on blogTV is not the same as subscribing on YouTube.
For instance, blogTV doesn’t keep any Most Subscribed lists, like
YouTube does, so there is no incentive for broadcasters to ask you to
subscribe aside from not wanting you to miss any scheduled shows.
As a subscriber, you’ll also get notices when unscheduled or surprise
9
shows happen. Any time a broadcaster goes live without first schedul-
ing it, you’ll receive an email about ten minutes into the broadcast,
while others who have not subscribed receive no notice at all.
If at any time you wish to unsubscribe from a show, you also have that
option.
Friends
Your friends are given preferential treatment over other users when
moving from the waiting rooms to the main room.
Also, if you’re friends with another user, you can chat in a private tab
with them, even if you both aren’t watching the same show. This is
convenient for chatting with friends while waiting for a particular show
to start.
You can add friends by clicking the Add to Friends link found next to
the Subscribe button on each broadcaster’s channel page.
Lighting/Camera Angles
I am not a professional videographer, but I know it’s annoying to watch
a poorly lit or badly framed show. If it’s dark in your bedroom, turn on a
lamp or three. If you have a tripod, use it. If your camera is built in to
your laptop, put your laptop on a steady surface rather than have it
bobbing around on your lap.
Steady shots with a good amount of light will make your broadcast
much easier to watch.
blogTV will use whichever video source you tell it to, if you have a
miniDV camera, I highly recommend you connect it via USB or
Firewire and broadcast using your miniDV cam as opposed to a we-
bcam. The quality of your broadcast will be much higher.
Making a Banner
blogTV allows you to brand your show with a fairly large banner across
the top of your channel page. If you’ve never made a banner before,
don’t worry; they’re not difficult to make.
I use an older program called Macromedia Fireworks to create my
banners. I also create banners for other blogTV broadcasters such as
LisaNova and BuckHollywood using Macromedia Fireworks. For a
small fee, I can create your banner, or you can create one yourself.
Even a free program like MS Paint will suffice.
Important items to include on your banner are a picture of yourself, the
topic of your show, and your schedule in more than one time zone if
possible. I have a fairly large audience in the United Kingdom, so in
addition to my local time zone I include my schedule in GMT, the
United Kingdom’s local time zone. If you notice that the majority of
your fans are from California, or Australia, or wherever, try to include
their local time in your banner schedule.
10

I designed the above banner for LisaNova and it illustrates a pretty
good utilization of banner space. The banner includes her image, her
schedule, and her username. It could be improved by including a sec-
ond time zone, but the majority of her viewers are in her timezone so
this makes sense for her.
Finally, you should include your show name and tagline in the banner.
Not your name, but the name of your show. I interview others on my
blogTV channel, so my show is called YouTalk. It allows others to ref-
erence your show with something short and catchy, rather than trying
to remember or pronounce your screen name. (although if you fol-
lowed my pro tip in the first section, you should have a kickass screen
name)
The Playground
In addition to branding your show in your banner, blogTV also offers a
space on your channel page known as the Playground. The Play-
ground will accept most html code you insert. This allows you to
embed one of your YouTube videos, or photos of you and your friends,
or statcounter images, mp3 players, etc.
I STRONGLY recommend you do not put anything on autoplay in the
Playground. Viewers to your show will be highly irritated having to
scroll down and turn off any video or music that begins playing every
time they visit your channel, and eventually, they will just stop visiting
altogether.
To edit the contents of your Playground, scroll to just below your chat
window and find the section labeled The Playground. On the right
hand side will be a link to Edit the Playground. Make sure the images
you enter aren’t so wide that they break the page layout, and again,
please do not include anything that autoplays any video or audio. Be-
cause you can link the images you put in the Playground, this would
be a great place to insert a few linked buttons to your other projects in-
cluding YouTube, Twitter, or your personal site. Not only is blogTV a
great way to drive traffic to your other projects, but your other projects
are a great way to drive viewers to your blogTV broadcast.
Promoting Your Show
While the occasional small live show can be fun and more intimate
than a well attended show, the goal of most broadcasters is to reach
the largest audience possible. To that end, you will need to promote
your show. Keeping a schedule helps more than anything else, but
here are some other obvious places to start:
YouTube. Your subscribers on YouTube signed on because they enjoy
watching you and your videos. Those same subscribers should also
enjoy your live shows. Some broadcasters post a video on YouTube
every time they go live on blogTV. This is a great way to drive viewers
to your live broadcast. Some only make videos for special live broad-
casts, or when they plan to be on longer than usual. That approach
works as well.
Twitter. If you have any number of followers on Twitter, let them know
about your live show. Twitter updates get sent to cell phones, email in-
boxes, desktop widgets and all sorts of other places where your follow-
ers will see them immediately. Take advantage of that mass IMing tool,
and tweet about your shows when you go live.
11
Facebook. I don’t use this approach as often, but when I have a spe-
cial event (perhaps once a month) on my live broadcast, I will set up a
Facebook event and invite my Facebook friends to attend the live
broadcast.
MySpace, Friendster, etc. all have similar features to the Facebook
events I mentioned above, with similar invitation functions.
The following section has some recommendations of live shows. This
is by no means a definitive list; it is simply a list of shows that I have
personally attended and enjoyed. The following shows will demon-
strate how to properly interact with an audience while remaining enter-
taining and watchable. If you have any additional shows you’d like to
suggest to me, my contact info is located at the front and back of this
eBook.

You could also start an email list on your personal website. This ap- Appendix: Recommended Shows
proach has worked well for LisaNova, who sends an email out to her
list about three hours before her live shows each week, as a friendly YouTalk: Interviewing Viral Video creators:
reminder. http://blogtv.com/people/fallofautumndistro

Schedule your shows and then stick to that schedule; this will increase What The Buck Show!
your viewership. If someone comes by and expects to see your show, http://blogtv.com/people/buckhollywood
you should be there. This is also true if you wish to continue receiving
promotion from blogTV, which Twitters about shows and places large Charlieissocoollike
graphic banners on their front page to advertise upcoming shows. If http://blogtv.com/people/charlieissocoollike
you fail to show up for one too many scheduled shows, blogTV will
stop promoting you. Nerimon
http://blogtv.com/people/nerimon
Interaction
LisaNova Live!
Now that you have an audience, don’t neglect them! You may have http://blogtv.com/people/lisnovalive
pre-planned topics or activities for your broadcast, but if the audience
has questions, or politely asks you to perform, say, one of your more ShayCarl
popular songs or comedy routines, or whatever, you should probably http://blogtv.com/people/shaycarl
oblige them. While they might be there to see you, you wouldn’t be
having any fun broadcasting to an empty room, so don’t ignore or neg- Lorax1515
lect your audience. http://blogtv.com/people/lorax1515

12
 Also by Alan “fallofautumndistro” Lastufka: Visit the blog:

ORDER NOW:
http://tinyurl.com/youtubebook
Want to make a splash on YouTube? Even go viral? You've come to the right http://viralvideowannabe.com
place. This book is written by two veteran 'Tubers who live their art and know
what they're talking about -- especially Alan Lastufka, a.k.a. "fallofautumndis-
tro," whose videos get millions of views. He and co-author Michael W. Dean
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-
show you how to make a quality video, and how to optimize, encode, upload,
Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License. To view a copy of
and promote it.
this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/
or send a letter to Creative Commons, 171 Second Street, Suite 300,
YouTube: An Insider’s Guide to Climbing the Charts is published by O’Reilly
San Francisco, California, 94105, USA.
Media, Inc.

13