Web has been a revolutionary invention in many respects. One of the more significant online developments in recent years has been the explosion of online videos. Small video clips are as old as the web itself (they are easy to imbed into HTML), but in recent years there has been a tidal shift in terms of availability, accessibility, and social interconnectivity of video content. The rise of YouTube, as well as myriad other video sharing websites, as well as the widespread reach of broadband internet, have fueled the growth of amateur video production. Most of these videos have very poor production quality, and rely mostly on quirkiness and idiosyncrasies of their content for their reach to the wider audience. However, with just the right kind of time and effort it is possible to create really good professional-looking video that will attract wide audience and help you promote your video creations. "Professional Web Video" aims to do just that, and give enough information to amateurs and aspiring professionals to create high quality video for the web.

This book has a lot of useful, actionable advice. It doesn't waste any of the space on useless rhapsodizing about the importance of various video techniques and approaches. It is peppered with insightful tips, most of which appear on the margins. As expected from a book on visual arts, it includes plenty of pictures and diagrams that really drive home the points that it's trying to make. The topics covered in the book are presented sequentially in terms of difficulty and the place they occupy in a typical video production workflow. It is possible to read them non-sequentially, but for the best results going through this book in order will make for the best learning results. Topics covered include: "Essential Production," "Audio is Half Your Program," "Telling Your Story with Visuals," "Podcasting and RSS Essentials," "Monetizing Your Video," and many others. Many of these topics are relevant for all forms of video production, but this book really tries to present them from the web-centered perspective.

The only issue that I have with this book (and many similar ones) is the amount of space that is spent on discussing technology and equipment. This is fine for the standard mechanical equipment that hardly changes over the course of many decades, but otherwise technology changes so rapidly that any attempt to give a fair amount of detail makes any such book feel dated relatively quickly. This doesn't really diminish all the useful information that you could learn from reading it.

Overall, this is a really good and instructive resource that will be valuable to anyone interested in creating video for the web.

E" (San Francisco, CA) - )

As an amateur video editor with several music videos under my belt, I was hoping that this book could "ground" be in some solid principals. For the most part, this book delivered.

I already knew a lot of the information delivered in this book... and most of what's in here is covered in other books. However, "Web Video" strayed away from techno-babble for the most part; and when it was used, it was justified.

But, to the major point of the book, Professional Web Video: this book is no different from any other book covering the top of digital video production. I suppose that could be taken as a good thing, though, because this book does tell you some key pitfalls to avoid and some essential techniques that you must learn.

Wanna take your YouTube videos to the next level? This is your book. (Except Nataly from Pomplamoose... she doesn't need this book.)

This is a very good how-to guide about video production that is perfect for beginners. The book is easy to understand, it contains tons of examples, and also provides advice on what NOT to do. If you're a video novice and are looking for a good book to help you get started, this is it.