Free QR codes and Short Links are Big with Bitly

Ever get links inside emails that are so long they wrap around and around? All too often they don't work.  If you want to shorten a web page address, use bitly.com.  Unlike some  other url shorteners, bitly tracks click-throughs and creates QR codes too! And for more prolific or public entities, bitly lets a corporation brand its own shortener.  While that gets technical, here's two introductory 60 second videos to get you started.

 

 

First, an on-screen demonstration of how to use bitly to shorten long webpage urls:

 

 

And, this second video shows how to get a QR code from the shortened link. 

 

 Organizations can use QR codes on business cards, ads, and brochures for example to allow people with smartphones to quickly get online to the business's offer page, video or website.

 

With Bitly, shortening links and making QR codes are simple, fun and free to do!

Businesses don't need an advertising agency to create a QR code.  To learn more, read my previous post on QR codes.

 

 

To create these videos I used the Camtica Screen Recorder Software which is the webpage url featured in the bitly video above. I downloaded the software and put these together intuitively without reading more than the page featured above -- so it's really simple to learn and use.  I did have to do a few takes though to get it right because I was ad-libbing! And Camtica can also take a video of the presenter speaking as part of the screen shot, but I chose not to do that for this demonstration. Maybe next time!

Basically, Camtica easily lets you record any desktop activity with voice, webcam and animated mouse clicks.  I really liked the yellow highligher around the mouse. A nice feature.  The resulting video can be saved in various formats including AVI and WMV.  I also uploaded these two demos to YouTube.  So Camtica is a great way to:

• To create professional screen recordings, demonstrations, presentations, screencasts, tutorials and more
• To generate effective videos that help you train, teach, sell and more
• To create demonstration videos for any software programs
• To show customers how to use your product
• To create on-demand interactive training, tutorials for school or college class
• To create a set of videos answering your most frequently asked questions
• To share your recordings on YouTube, Screencast.com and other videos sites

It also:

• Records entire desktop, selected rectangle region, dynamic region around mouse cursor, webcam
• Records anything on the screen including windows, objects, menus, full screen and rectangular regions
• Records desktop screen with audio and webcam together - personalizing your videos by including a webcam movie of yourself over * your desktop at any position
• Records video chats, Skype video calls, games, flash movies played on sites
• Offers Free lifetime updates and upgrades

I am looking forward to using it more in the future, but now I need to turn my attention back to work!  Thanks for reading and commenting, and letting me wish you a Happy 2012!

Lorelei