Student Tablet User Group Update

I spend most of my time outside of working for GE on my first co-op on STUG and Tablet Tips.  My last big project on STUG was doing a complete redesign of the intro and credits of Tablet Tips.  Not to sound self content with myself, but I feel like the new style of the video makes Tablet Tips look far more professional.  Our current weak point of the podcast is now the audio.  We are using the built in microphone and have not found any way to improve our quality without spending money, which we don’t have.

The next project that I really want to work on is a total redesign of our website, but I just haven’t forced myself to undertake that challenge.

In the past few weeks there have been some major milestones reached.  The primary way to judge the success of a video podcast is by number of views.  We have accumulated 7,463 views on YouTube and 2,719 views on Blip.TV.  While these numbers are not that low, I still hope that Tablet Tips can expand its audience and accumulate more views in the coming months.

The metric that I have consistently been proud of is gleaned from Google Analytics.  While our number of views hasn’t been very high our Average time on Site has consistently been hovering around five minutes.  Coincidently this is approximately the same length as one episode of Tablet Tips.  Using a slight jump in logic, it can be concluded that people are watching about one episode on our website when they visit.

The other metrics that I constantly follow are the Google search results for terms that directly relate to STUG and Tablet Tips.  After some quick Google searching of my own I have determined the following:

Search Term	Rank in Google Search Results
STUG	9
Tablet Tips	4
Speed School of Engineering	13
Student Tablet PC	6
Louisville Tablet PC	7

The big accomplishment here is getting Tablet Tips in such a high standing.  It is a rather vague term and had to overcome a lot of references that didn’t have anything to do with Tablet PCs.  As for STUG, we still have to overcome the Sturmgeschütz III, but the fact we are now on the first page of the search results is exciting.  There are some other search terms that are important but they are typically some combination of Tablet PC, Speed School, Engineering, and University of Louisville.  Most of those in any combination yield some reference to STUG’s website in the first page of results.

 

The next steps for STUG includes the possibility of having to make a poster for an upcoming conference on Tablet based learning.  Our focus in on using new media to educate students on the use of Tablets in the classroom.

Also, STUG will be attending Podcamp Ohip next weekend in Columbus Ohio.  I hope to enhance my understanding of the podcasting and the podcast community along with some networking with other podcasters in the area.  Expect lots of pictures, some video, and a few blog posts relating to the Podcamp.  If I can I’ll be posting while I am at the conference, but more likely I’ll be posting a lot about the unconference after I get back.