Monkey Screen Monky Do

Often the greatest obstacle in the success of a project, application, or site is getting your audience to appreciate all of its features the way the creators do. After all, not everything can be as self explanatory and user-friendly as craigslist (nor can they employ such profound and beautiful design motifs).

Aside from having someone pull up a chair next to your desk and point everything out to you, screencasting is the best way to showcase features and the most effective form of how-to’s out there.

Complex professional software like Final Cut Pro or Photoshop would otherwise be staggeringly intimidating without help from (mostly independent) screencasters to guide me through the dark. I’ve learned techniques to sequencing music on Reason, saw how to create cool effects in Final Cut Pro, and realized that I suck at Photoshop.

Many current web 2.0 projects like Seesmic and Miro include entertaining screencasts that let new users in on how to get the most out of their products and to shed light on common snags.

Screencasting is allowing online tools and intricate software to be an attainable part of more users’ lives by presenting it to them in an easy-to-understand video made by people who were once in the shoes of the amateur. It’s an element of media that could only flourish in the days of the Internet and online video.

The inclusive, open-media beauty of screencasting is that anyone can create one. Jing is a solid, easy-to-use and free tool to capture video from your computer, add a narration track, and edit it to your liking. Go on, screencast it up!