Well that sucks. My Business Pro Trial account with Screenr disappeared this morning, just moments before I started this blog post. I used the account earlier this morning and had just recorded a new screencast and it kept erroring out when I tried to upload it. When I tried to go back to my dashboard on the Pro Trial account, I was told the viewscreencasts.com site didn’t exist. I checked and double checked my address and… it’s gone.
My Screenr History
I’ve been using the free version of Screenr.com for at least a year now because it’s an excellent tool for communicating information to clients, and because it’s an easy way to make a video that goes with a script, but doesn’t require me to comb my hair or get the lighting “just right”.
Just recently I decided to bite the bullet and try out their Pro feature. I was willing to put in my credit card number and pay that day to try it out for a month because I had been so happy with it as a free version of software.
Lo and behold, there’s a 15 day free trial, and they don’t even ACCEPT your credit card details. Cool, I like trials, even when I’m 99% sure I’m going to buy the software. It would give me a chance to really test out the Pro version and see how I could use it to augment my company offerings.
Pro Account, First Hitch
The first thing I noticed about the Pro account was that I couldn’t publish to YouTube like I could with the free version. That sucked, I thought, but I could download the MP4 and upload it to YouTube so I did it that way instead.
Why upload to YouTube? Other than the fact that the rest of my video presence is over there? Well, because the entry-level Screenr Pro account doesn’t have analytics for its videos. I’m an analytics junkie (in fact, many of my Screenrs have me going over analytics), so YouTube won, hands down. My videos don’t get thousands of views in a month, but analytics are still important to me.
Reached Out To Screenr
I’m hoping that I haven’t run into an impasse, because I’m a HUGE HUGE fan of Screenr and I tell all my clients what software I use, and I encourage them to use Screenr, even just the free version, themselves as a way to communicate with me about their site or questions.
I am someone who is working with people using this new technology, exposing them to it when they wouldn’t have known it existed. I am sure some of the people I recommend to use the free version also buy the Pro version because it works so well for them.
I’d like to keep hawking Screenr to everyone I know.
I emailed my Screenr business rep, and Tweeted out to @Screenr a wee bit, just to see if I can find out what happened, if I did something I shouldn’t have and got suspended, for example. If so, it’s the first use violation suspension my business has faced!
I’ll keep y’all updated!
