There are a LOT of new functionality.

Here are some of the highlights:

# 1. Many more player customization options!

# 2. Video Sitemaps: This is probably the most important feature in this release. S3FlowShield can now create a video sitemap that allows Google to index your videos so that they can show up in the> search results with a thumbnail of your choice! Video-based SEO is the next big thing and you now have the power to control this on YOUR site! Read more below on how to use Video Sitemaps.

# 3. Video ratings and View Counts: You can now allow your viewers to rate you videos and the plugin also keeps track of the number of times the video was viewed.

# 4. Ability to redirect to another URL at the end of a video or MP3. To use this function, add the “redirect” parameter to> the [S3VIDEO] or [S3AUDIO] shortcode.

Example: [S3VIDEO file='video.mp4' redirect='http://clicks.aweber.com/y/ct/?l=9VK1F&m=1cqMA075tZLS1P&b=85v> ckLXkP0AijjPh2GI1Vw']

Note: You must include a FULL URL, including “http://”

# 5. Every setting is now fully documented right under the setting itself in the configuration pages for the plugin.

The above are just some of the highlights…check the S3FlowShield settings pages for other configuration options.

You will never need another Amazon S3 plugin for Wordpress after installing this one on your Blog!

www.wpandamazons3guard.com – Click here to watch a demo video.

Kind Regards

Marc Liron – Microsoft MVP

# 1. After you activate this Wordpress plugin, you must also turn on the Video Sitemaps functionality in the “S3FlowShield -> Video Sitemaps” page in the WordPress Admin console. Once activated, this feature will be available and you will see the video sitemap URL on that page as well. You can use this URL to add it to Google Webmaster Tools.

# 2. Please note that in the settings page, you can define a default thumbnail for your videos which will be included in the Sitemaps, however, it is strongly suggested that you create custom thumbnails> for each of your videos. The thumbnail defined for each video is what will show up in the Search Results pages!

# 3. Videos are NOT included in the video sitemap by default. In order to include a video in the sitemap, you MUST do it explicitly in the embed code by adding the “sitemap=’true’” parameter, like this:

[S3VIDEO file='YOUR_FILE' sitemap='true']

By using this parameter, your video will show up in the sitemap. Please note that you should only add videos to the sitemap if you want Google to index them. Videos in the sitemap will be made public via the sitemap, so anyone will be able to get to your videos! In order words, do NOT add private membership content to the sitemap!

# 4. See instructions on the settings page on how to add a custom thumbnail to each video.

# 5. The sitemap includes title, description, category, tags, video URL, etc. Here is how these fields get filled in the sitemap:

Title: the post title is used by default. You can override this option by using the “title=’MY TITLE’” parameter in the embed code (i.e. [S3VIDEO file='YOUR_FILE' sitemap='true' title='My Custom> Title'] )

Description: by default, it will use the post’s except field. If this field is blank, it will use the first 55 words of text in your post.

Category: Since only one is allowed per video sitemap entry, the first one your post is filled under will be used. First one alphabetically from the list. You can override this by using the “category” parameter in the embed code (i.e. [S3VIDEO file='YOUR_FILE' sitemap='true' category='My Custom Category']

Tags: The tags from your post will be used. If you have more than 32 tags, only the first 32 will be used as this is the max allowed in the video sitemap specification.You can override this by using the “tags” parameter in the embed code, where tags are separated by commas (i.e. [S3VIDEO file='YOUR_FILE' sitemap='true' tags='My tag 1, my tag 2, my tag 3']

# 6. After you have at least one video in the video sitemap, you can access the sitemap via the URL displayed in the “S3FlowShield -> Video Sitemap” settings page.

This is a GREAT new feature, as the guy who created the worlds FIRST Google Video Sitemap Generator (back in 2007), I can fully recommend this Wordpress Plugin to you!

Grab your copy today: http://www.wpandamazons3guard.com and see your Google video sitemap SEO efforts pay off!

Regards

Marc Liron – Microsoft MVP

To often wordpress blog owners find that other website owners are linking to their videos and so costing the owner bandwith fees!

However, using a popular wordpress plugin, secure amazon s3 streaming is possible. NO MORE content & bandwidth theft for Amazon S3 users.

Amazon S3 Wordpress plugin S3 Flow Shield makes is simple to stream video and audio files from your Amazon S3 account securely – all via your blog.

The plugin also includes a custom Flash player for either embedding your videos in a post OR via a popup.

S3 Flow Shield is a must for Wordpress membership sites or popular public blogs!

Secure Amazon s3 streaming is only a few clicks away, so why not get started today?

Read more here:  www.wpandamazons3guard.com

Kind Regards

Marc Liron MVP

PS: Looking how to secure Amazon S3 downloads for Websites? …then take a look at: S3 Downloader

Data can be easily stored and retrieved at any time, from anywhere on the web.

Amazon charges in proportion to the amount of data stored and applies charges for sending and receiving data.

Amazon S3 uses the same scalable storage infrastructure that Amazon.com uses to run its own global e-commerce network.

It uses fully decentralized techniques to remove scaling bottlenecks and single points of failure.

Launched in March 2006, Amazon S3 is currently being used by Internet Marketing professionals, small businesses, small Internet start-ups and enterprise clients as a web hosting service, image hosting service, back-up system, and more!

Amazon S3 clients even include global companies like Microsoft, Xerox, Linden Lab (Second Life), WordPress and Webmail.us to name but a few.

Once an account has been setup with the Amazon S3 service you can then use free software like DataBucket Pro or the free firefox plugin S3Fox, to manage your files.

There is even a secure amazon s3 streaming wordpress plugin for those that want to protect their videos (and PDF files) from bandwith theft!

Got a website? Then if you want to protect your S3 hosted files from “hot linking” then software like S3 Downloader is a good solution.

Kind Regards

Marc Liron MVP

Once you successfully sign-up with a new account, Amazon will prompt you on your AWS Access Identifiers, which includes your Access Key ID and Secret Access Key. Keep them safe!

When you upload anything to Amazon S3, it stores YOUR data as an “object” on the Amazon network.

EACH object can be up to a maximum 5 GB in size, for MOST users uploading a file of less than 100 MB is normal.

Each “object” is contained within a “bucket”.  Honestly you DO get used to these terms after a short while!

Each Amazon S3 account can have a maximum of 100 Buckets. Each Bucket can hold an UNLIMITED amount of Objects (your data files).

If you need more Buckets, that’s no problem. Just create a second Amazon S3 account (you just need a different eMail address).

Software like Data Bucket Pro can hold and manage MULTIPLE accounts for you – so don’t worry about that!

In practice though most users will have only a single Amazon S3 account… And remember once a bucket name has been taken it is GONE for use by anyone else!

Kind Regards

Marc Liron MVP

A bucket is owned by the AWS account (identified by AWS Access Key ID) that created it. Each AWS account can own up to 100 buckets at a time. Bucket ownership is NOT transferable. However, if a bucket is empty, it can be deleted and its name can be reused by anyone else who wants it.

For instance I currently “own” the bucket names; entrepreneur / blogging / internetmarketing / socialmediamarketing. If I delete them from my account, they would then be available for others to claim.

Buckets have the following restrictions:

# Bucket names can ONLY contain numbers, periods (.), underscores (_), and dashes (-).
# Bucket names MUST start with a number or letter.
# Bucket names MUST be between 3 and 255 characters long.
# Bucket names CANNOT be in an IP address style (e.g., “192.168.5.4″).

To conform with DNS requirements, (basically if you want to create a URL to share the files), Amazon HIGHLY recommend following these additional guidelines when creating buckets:

# Bucket names should NOT contain underscores (_).
# Bucket names should be between 3 and 63 characters long.
# Bucket names should NOT end with a dash.
# Dashes cannot appear next to periods. For example, “my-.bucket.com” and “my.-bucket” are invalid names.
# Bucket names should NOT contain UPPERCASE letters.

This means that if you want to use the bucket with a URL, rather than for personal data storage that never needs to be shared, you MUST obey these last 4 points!

Kind Regards

Marc Liron MVP