BUY: Samsung's SC-X205L ($480; samsung.com), a diminutive dynamo that shoots in Web/iPod-friendly MP4 format, and auto-corrects when your grip gets shaky. It comes with a rubber-coated helmet cam that repels water. Just pack a spare battery or you'll have only enough juice for an hour.

SHOOT: Lee Crane, digital-content director for action-sports conglomerate TransWorld Media, offers these pointers for getting the money shots.
> Resist going all helmet cam, all the time. Multiple angles are key to compelling video.
> That said, shoot lots of close-ups.
> Make jumps look bigger by filming across steep terrain, rather than up- or downslope.
> Keep the sun on your subject, which means it's at your back when you're shooting with a helmet cam. (And be a bro and move into the sun when someone else is filming you.)

SHAPE: Your mantra: Cut. It. Out. The full film should be under three minutes. Do your editing with iMovie (standard on Macs) or buy a good, inexpensive suite like Adobe Premiere Elements 3.0 ($100; adobe.com). Create energy with quick cuts and smooth out transitions with music. But skip the Snoop Dogg soundtrack: Using copyrighted songs will get your clip yanked from video sites. Instead, browse ccmixter.org for free tunes licensed for sharing. Finish by sizing to the Web-standard 320 by 240 pixels.

SHIP: Upload to a sharing site like YouTube or the adventure-themed broadbandsports.com, then e-mail the link to everyone in your address book (subject line: "Hell, yes, this is me!"). If you have a blog—and if you've read this far, you probably do—slap YouTube's embed code into a posting, so your "fans" can watch and comment.
> Create a video podcast. A basic account ($5 a month) at hosting site libsyn.com lets you publish to iTunes.
> Send a teaser to friends with video-enabled phones by downloading a mini-clip (under a megabyte, or about 15 seconds) to your phone, then forwarding to multiple numbers at once for maximum spamming efficiency.