Tech Topic 54: Google Vids Videos, Sill Compiles Popular Links, Imporance of Photo Metadata

on

In this first Tech Topic for 2025, Nina, Peggy and Bob shared tips for creating videos, keeping up with your social media feed, and making sure your photos have the right metadata. 

Nina Trankova: Use Google Vids to generate professional videos

Nina showed how you can use Google Vids to create professional-looking videos. Vids is part of the Google Workspace suite of tools in Google Drive, along with Docs, Sheets, Slides and Sites.

It can generate an editable video from your own photos and text, and use AI to generate a voice over.

Screenshot of Google Vids welcome screen. Hello, OnEBoard, Let's start creating.
Google Vids start screen. You can use AI to "Help me create". 

Editing the generated video for OnEBoard's Tech Topics of 2024.
Editing an AI-generated video draft. It shows the video timeline, script and selected "Professional" voiceover voice.

Watch this week's episode to see the video output.

Nina says she has used it to create reports, recording her own voice, noting "it's a very natural way to be present to humanize the presentation."

Learn more: Create a video with AI in Google Vids

Peggy Kolm: Sill compiles the links people are talking about in your Bluesky feeds

Peggy suggests signing up for Sill (sill.social) to keep up with your social media discussions. You connect your Bluesky and Mastodon accounts, and it finds the most shared links in your feeds. 
You can also see what the people you follow are posting about those links.
Snapshot of Sill feed showing the top links and settings
Peggy's Sill feed, as this post is being written.

You don't even have to visit the Sill site, as there is also an option to get a daily digest email or RSS feed post.
Sign up for Sill. The service is currently in beta, and may change in the future.

Bob Danley: The importance of photo metadata

Bob explained the importance of photo metadata, and shared a tool for detecting metadata and even checking an entire webpage with multiple embedded photos. 

International Press Telecommunications Council: Get IPTC Photo Metadata

Background reference information: 

ScoreDetect: The Importance of Metadata
Creative Commons: About Creative Commons Licenses
Wikipedia: Copyright Law of the U.S.

Listen to a recap of this information, generated by NotebookLM.

OnEBoard will be back with 3 Tips in 10 Minutes on January 19, with special guest Priya Chandra.

Comments

Post a Comment