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Archive for December, 2004

I have seen it…and I am now officially old

Thursday, December 30th, 2004

Today was a rough one in the videoblogging group.
We talked about how to make money videoblogging.
Yikes.
It’s like our Abortion issue.

Yes, videoblogging can be anything.
It’s just a video attached to a blog.
So there you go. We can end the conversation there.

But here you still are….
The Brand of videoblogging that I encourage is a Conversation.
You show me something in your world…in your head…and Ill do the same.
We do it through video.
No geographical or cultural barriers come between us.
This is the first time we’ve been able to do this.

Now if you want to regularly post video that 10,000,000 people will see each day…slap some ads on it…and get paid…great.
Theye’ll be a handful of these.
Like "Must-See TV" videoblogs.
The barriers will be raised…we all just watch…like we watch TV now.

The Brand of videoblogging I encourage is made for an audience of 10.
I make my videos for basically 10 people…anyone can watch…but those ten people are the ones I care about.
And now imagine 10,000 videobloggers…each with an audience of 10.
Now this is a real ecology.
It’s a thick jungle of our lives and fantasies and ideas IN VIDEO online.
Anyone new is welcome to jump in and respond with their video.
The most amazing videoblog lifeforms will emerge and die away and emerge again.

And yes, videoblogging costs some money….not much.
A computer. a camera. and an internet connection.
(Bandwidth, I believe, is a temporary problem once we figure out Bit Torrent or rely on the Archive.)
But it’s like talking on the phone…I pay to talk to you with nothing in between us.
I dont expect to get paid to talk on the phone.
The Conversation…this is the Brand of videoblogging that I encourage and am interested in.

For instance, here is that latest video by Dylan Verdi…who’s cool father, Michael, has been walking her through instant fame.
(i just saw her on ABC World News Tonight because of this video.)

Dylan shows off the new record player that she got for Christmas.
She explains how to use it like it’s an antique.
She then plays her parent’s old records…the Smiths…Sex Pistols…haha I watched her entry and suddenly realized that at 31…haha…i am from another era where the Smiths are like "classic rock".

But look at what she does…she talks into the camera…she shares these moments…she is herself.
Not everyone can pull this off so entertainingly, but it’s a simple style.
this is my Brand of Videoblogging.
And hopefully her friends will make videoblogs and they will talk to each other…
You see how this works?
It has nothing to do with what exists now.
There’s this a new language fo video forming that doesnt have much to do with business models.

Talking to the camera is the easiest thing.
This is the minimum.
But you can also, record an event.
Interview someone.
Give a tour of your neighborhood.
Edit an incredibly detailed story.
Make a flash animation.
In my Brand of Videoblogging…I learn about you.

There are other ways to do this.
Go ahead by all means.

Posted in Other's Videos, Problems | 7 Comments »

2 New Videobloggers

Wednesday, December 29th, 2004

I have had an intense past couple weeks…mainly in my head.
Tonight, I looked up and see that a couple of really strong videobloggers have arrived and are here to stay.

First, this woman popped up.
Lesley James out of Washington DC produces Phatalspin.
Here’s a classic video post:

It blew me away…read the text she wrote with it.
She’s amazing.
Come on…where else can you find this stuff?
Im keeping an eye out on her work.

The next videoblogger to arrive on the scene is Raymond out of Norway.
He produces a DLTQ.
In the past week, he’s posted like 10 videos.
He uses limited tools…a digital still camera that takes short videos…and edits with Quicktime Pro.

He’s been documenting his discoveries in short videos.
You can sense his excitement and see the "Click".
Raymond is also very politically active in Norway and may be the first to use videoblogging to organize for a political agenda.

When Peter and I first started the videoblogging group back in May 2004, we really didnt know what to expect.
I never could have imagined so many cool, diverse people coming together so quickly.
I can’t believe I can jump on the internet and see people talking to me. (this is how it feels)
This is not TV.
These are videos made by people who are trying to start a conversation.
Videobloggers expect you to answer back.
It’s a whole new style.
Usually short videos under 5 minutes. Creative and personal.
What I realize is that many of us have been working towards this..and now we’re coming together.
It’s just so obvious:
Use inexpensive digital cameras to record life around us.
Use the simplicity of blog software to regularly post video to the web.
Use RSS feeds to easily distribute your videos.
Use an RSS reader like me-tv to bring it all into one place.

We are now free of geographical limits.
Videoblogging is truly an active example of free speech.
And the community that is growing around videoblogging is what makes any video valuable.
We can, and are, talking to each other on much deeper levels.
No exaggeration.

Posted in Cool People, Other's Videos | 4 Comments »

VIDEO: How to make a collaborative video

Wednesday, December 29th, 2004

I’ve been quietly, slowly blown away by me-tv…which is only 2 weeks old.
The tool itself is cool blah blah…..but its the videos I’m seeing that gets me.
I use me-tv like any Blog reader…browse through blogs i subscribe to…except Im not reading text blogs…Im watching videoblogs full of original creations.
They aren’t movies or TV shows or rambling home video.
These are videoblogs…you got to watch.

me-tv conveniently tells me when there’s a new feed to subscribe to.
It also tells me when there’s a new video in a feed.
I click and watch.
And I realize that our small, passionate group is coming up with cool ideas going in different directions.
These are people from all over the planet.

So where are we?
Anyone can post a video to a blog.
Anyone can add a blog feed into me-tv.
Anyone can join our group of creators and watchers.

Anyone can also create a Playlist.
Playlists are also a cool function of me-tv.
On the inspiration of Mica and Charlene, the playlist queens, Peter created a way that we could make video together.
He uses keywords.

For instance, here is a playlist in me-tv called "Who are you?" that I created.
I want people to post videos telling me who they are.
The keyword is hereiam.
So anyone can get their video in this playlist by putting this keyword somewhere in their blog post.
Here is a video I just made:

Then, i write: hereiam.
This video now shows up in the "who are you" Playlist.

Click on "watch entire playlist" and it plays all the video back to back.

Why is this amazing?
Because eventhough all the videos are hosted in different places…we can still link them together.
I can’t wait to see what people come up with.
The crazier the better.

Posted in MY VIDEOS, Process, Projects | 3 Comments »

Solutions to the Bandwidth Bottleneck

Saturday, December 25th, 2004

The Problem:
Ever since Michael Verdi’s daughter, Dylan, posted her first video blog and had 1600 downloads in 24 hours….Ive been thinking a lot about bandwidth issues.
In the near future, watching video on the internet will be part of our daily web process.
I see no reason why 10,000 people won’t watch a simple video post.
But there is NO way current bandwidth allotments can handle this traffic.
Even 50 gigs of bandwidth is not enough…and that’s the max bandwidth that most servers allow.

Solution #1:
One solution is using the Internet Archive.
Started by Brewster Kahle, this service has been around since 1995 mainly for archiving web pages…so we could have a record of what the web looked like in the past.
But now they are opening it up for video and audio.
Brewster Kahle, who got rich off the web in the 90′s, says he wants to have all human knowledge on the internet.
This is the motive behind giving us free bandwidth and storage for our videos.
Ourmedia.org, the Creative Commons, and the Archive.org are teaming up to create a network for original content.
So you can upload your video to the Archive, slap a Creative Commons license on it, and use Ourmedia.org to join a community of other people who are sharing their videos.
The project officially starts in mid-January.
(though you can use the CC Publisher to upload video to the Archive now and have them store/serve your video for free)

Solution #2:
But is the Archive the solution?
Can any place serve up thousands of videos being downloaded thousands of times?
Maybe Bit Torrent is the answer.
Bit Torrent is a file sharing system…kind of like Napster or Kazaa…but perfected for large video files.
How does it work?
Many computers are "always-on"…using cable modems/DSL to connect to the internet.
Why not make each of our computers servers?
(You’d have to be serving A LOT of video before your ISP started complaining.)

Though Bit Torrent is easy to download, it’s been difficult to serve…though some people are making heroic efforts to make it easy.
One of these people is Gary Lerhaupt of Torrentocracy who I met at BloggrCon3.
He created a new service called "Prodigem".

If you haven’t already heard of Prodigem, it’s a new peer to
peer hosting service and content management system. It makes
use of bit torrent to enable you to distribute your content
regardless of how large your content is. It removes all
complexity of distributing via bit torrent by automating the
entire process from uploading your content to actually having
the Prodigem servers seed your torrent so that it can be
distributed.

To make a Torrent:
Gary invited me to test his service a couple weeks ago…but i hesitated….until today.
Gary’s sevice will host the file and makes the torrent for you.
I just followed the empty boxes he gave me.

In 10 minutes, I uploaded the video about me-tv to Prodigem, which is now seeding the torrent file…ready for anyone to download.

How to download a Torrent:
Go here and get the torrent file.
There will now be a torrent file on your desktop.
This is a simple file that tells your computer where the real video is. (on Prodigem right now)

You must have a Bit Torrent application to download the real video…just like you needed the Napster/Kazaa/Limewire application to download music.
Download Blog Torrent…its easy to use.

Open Blog Torrent.
You just drag the torrent file into Blog Torrent and it starts downloading the video.
The video will download directly from someone’s computer…so no server bandwidth is used.
Once you download the video, you start seeding it automatically…meaning that the next person to download the video will get it even faster….etc.

This stuff is really easy…it’s just new.
I could sit down with anyone and walk them through it.
But the goal is to make bit torrent should be completely invisible.
We’re getting there. It can be even easier.
It’s going to work.
We should be able to post a video and never worry about too many people watching it.
In fact, with Bit Torrent… the more people who download it, the faster the download is.
Think of it like Napster…but better…and it’s all about distributing original content.

Posted in Projects, Resources, Tools | 2 Comments »

Video: Peter explains me-tv.com

Friday, December 24th, 2004

Watch this video and see how Peter has done it.
He has made me-tv.com into an awesome working tool in less than 2 weeks.
Ro busted ass to help code the site.
What is me-tv?
It is an RSS reader for video.
We can now see all our videoblogs in one place.
Just subscribe to RSS feeds with videos and watch.
But this is underplaying the power.

Tagging Video
Peter has put in some advanced funtions that make videoblogging the shit.
You can now tag video with people’s names.
Simply watch a video in me-tv and type in the name of the person in the video(if you know it).
Then, you can click on "people" and see all these tagged names.
Click on a name…and you can see all the videos that person is in.
In this way, we can start making some kind of sense of the work we’re doing collectively.

PLAYLISTS
This is my favorite.
Making video is sometimes better when you can work with other people.
But when each of us are posting video to our own blogs, how can we make video together?
In me-tv, you can make playlists that grabs the video you want.
To make a playlist….
Go to "Create Playlists" in me-tv.
Give the Playlist a name.
Describe the Playlist. What kind of videos do you want?
Then, give it a "keyword". This is the most important step.
Now you’re ready.

When you make a video, you can now add this "keyword" in your blog post.
If your feed is in me-tv, this video will appear in the Playlist.
In fact, anyone can put the "keyword" in their blog post…so their video will appear in the Playlist you created.

Once your Playlist has some videos in it, you can then watch all the videos back to back automatically.
So even though the videos live all the web, me-tv plays them all together because you told it what videos are in your playlist.
This is the tool we always wanted for collaborative video.
Look at the different playlists already created and join in.
Videoblogging doesnt need to be a solitary experience.
The video in this post will show up in the "About Me TV" playlist simple because i write aboutmetv.
This is the keyword.
Make the craziest playlist you can imagine and people will join in with their own videos.
me-tv is you.

What does this all mean?
It means you got to play with me-tv to really get it.
If you’ve been putting off getting involved…now is the time to start posting video.
Peter made this tool for us to have fun with our video. To talk to each other.
Do you get the "click"?

Posted in MY VIDEOS | 6 Comments »

I’m Banned in China

Tuesday, December 21st, 2004

So Im trying to cross boundaries here guys.
Im having a conversation with this guy in China who has recently joined the videoblogging group…..

I say:

how can I convince you to have a videoblog?
i would love to see parts of China through your eyes.

He responds:

Warm-hearted videoblogging evangelist…
I had checked me-tv.com out, and also signed my own account up there days ago.
Seems momentshowing.net has been censored by the Great Firewall, at
least I can’t get access to it now, and I’ve been used to it…
And, which may disappointing you, I really don’t have a webcam,
though it’s very cheap now, haha.
Many of my friends are dating girls online with webcams.
I’m not interested, so it was useless to me.
However, I’m thinking of buying one now,heh.

hahaha
It makes me laugh that there is this country that thinks my videoblog is a threat of some kind.
Weird.
But what this also shows me is that we are really becoming citizens of the Internet.
My Chinese friend (will remain unnamed) identifies himself as:

I’m a geek in China
I reached this group through some hyperlinks,
and subscribed to see what’s happening and what’ll happen to videoblogging!
I’m very interested in videoblogging, as well as podcasting, but as a
college student, issues such as hosting, equipment and bandwidth are all problems to me.
Anyway, I’m watching, and I’ll make my own videoblog as soon as it becomes possible

See, I probably have more in common with this geek in China than with my next door neighbor.
Geographic location doesnt mean as much these days.
It’s our state of minds and personalities.
But yet, we all got to subscribe to our respective physical locations…except when we roam around in here.

In the end, I sent him this link.
"How to Videoblog for Free".
We are going to get him to videoblog.
Anyone want to donate a webcam for a fellow netizen?

And if you want me to see if your videoblog is banned by a government-controlled nation…send me the link and I’ll have our friend check.
It’s cool to be banned.

Posted in Cool People, Problems, Process, Projects | 4 Comments »

How to help someone

Tuesday, December 21st, 2004

So you’re new to something.
Like videoblogging.
How do you figure all this stuff out?
You ask. and someone helps you.
Steve Garfield let me post this IM chat he recently had.
(his original post is here.)

IM Session: How to start a blog
Chip (12:32 PM): i thought you’d be the best person to ask about starting a blog!
Steve Garfield (12:32 PM): I am
Steve Garfield (12:32 PM): shoot
Chip (12:33 PM): ok
Chip (12:33 PM): where do i start?
Chip (12:33 PM): is it easy to upload images and video?
Steve Garfield (12:33 PM): do you have a hosting service
Chip (12:34 PM): not any more
Steve Garfield (12:34 PM): ok so there are a few options
Steve Garfield (12:34 PM): if you want to try out a blog for free you can go to blogger.com
Steve Garfield (12:35 PM): then you can use a free web app to load images and post them to your blogger blog
Steve Garfield (12:35 PM): flickr.com is a great way to do that
Chip (12:35 PM): cool
Steve Garfield (12:35 PM): then when you want to host video, you’ll need to decide where, archive.org is a free place for video
Steve Garfield (12:36 PM): and they are going to be coming out with a new url for video ourmedia.org in the next few months
Steve Garfield (12:36 PM): so that’s the free way of testing the waters
Steve Garfield (12:36 PM): other things to consider would be typepad.com
Steve Garfield (12:36 PM): and blogware.com
Steve Garfield (12:36 PM): those cost money and I use both of them too
Chip (12:37 PM): damn, you’re good
Steve Garfield (12:37 PM): clear and consice
Chip (12:37 PM): you saved me many hours of surfing

Steve was the first person I contacted on the web about videoblogging.
I didnt know anything either.
In March 2004, all i knew how to do was edit video and send emails.
I got a lot of help from a lot of people.
Just like the example above.
But I also had the will to post video and spent that one required night where nothing works…and you learn everything trying to figure it out.

so the next time someone ask you a question, help them.
This is how we all figure this stuff out.
Can you imagine if one day there was more videoblogs than porn?
And I wonder what happend the Chip, the guy who Steve helped?

Posted in Cool People, Process | No Comments »

Welcome my first guest videoblogger

Monday, December 20th, 2004

Eric Botticelli and I have spoken for several months about the emerging world of videoblogs and freespeech.
This is fitting since Eric is the guy behind Freespeeches.net.
This guy is doing interesting work by recording political speeches from CSPAN and the Internet Archive…and giving us choice clips.
He pushes for discussion.

Anyway, Ive pushed him to make a videoblog of himself for the group…promising him he would be my first guest videoblogger.
So here’s Eric.

He recites, he inroduces his cats, shows us how he makes tea…and wrote and performed the first song to videobloggers. Be honored.
It’s 7 minutes….

Posted in Other's Videos | 3 Comments »

The Youngest Videoblogger in the world

Monday, December 20th, 2004

My hats off to Dylan, the youngest videoblogger on the planet earth.
She is the daughter of Michael Verdi, one of the members of our group.
She qualifies with this videoblog.
Welcome Dylan.
Be yourself.
You are awesome.

She very unselfconciously disucsses her braces, her cello, her online groups, her clothes, her love of pop music (even though it’s not real rock)…
She gets it.
and it tells me two things.
One: the female species seems to get videoblogging much more intuitvely. (mica. charlene. ryanne.)
Two: Once young people figure this stuff out, videoblogging is going to be the best.
Big up to Dylan’s father, Michael, for showing her the way.
Will she post more…and teach her friends to post video?
We are building the second world one person at a time.

Follow up…
This post was reblogged by Unmediated.org, which was reblogged by eyebeam.org…which was reblogged by Waxy.org…
and looked what happened.

> Wow, this is crazy. Waxy.org and Metafilter posted a link to Dylan’s
> video (along with lots of others) and it’s been downloaded 1885 times
> in the last 60 hours (1657 in the last 24). It’s used up 25GB of the
> 50GB monthly traffic I have for my website. I guess it’s time to move
> it to internet archive. I guess she’ll have a good answer when she
> gets back to school for "What did you do over Christmas vacation?"

Awesome.

Posted in Other's Videos | 9 Comments »

VIDEO: Videobloggers invade the TV box

Friday, December 17th, 2004

MOV

I do a live call-in show each week on Ch. 56 at 11:30pm in Manhattan.
A while ago, my friend Kenyatta suggested doing a live show using webcams.
So I decided to try it tonight.
I put out an email to the videoblogging group an hour before the show and got crazy response.
The Videobloggers represented.
Who are these obsessed people?

With webcams and iChat AV, I networked in 6 different people who were spread out across the country. (could have been global)
Taking live phone calls, my guests could speak directly with the viewers in Manhattan.
Because MNN streams all their shows, my guests could watch the show on the internet.
Using this simple technology, we basically did what a Network does with satellite feeds.
We did zero planning for this show; it kind of just happened as an experiment while I was eating dinner.
Imagine if we had a plan.

Honestly, it is extremely comforting to find other people on this planet trying to connect.
Wanting to make change and have fun doing it.
Changing the world is the coolest thing you can do.
And it starts by us just getting to know each other better.
We can do this using inexpensive cameras, the internet, and the force of our will.
Then the real work begins.
Check out our modest beginning at me-tv, our new little project.

All thanks to Chris, Daniell, Adam, Ryanne, Josh, Shannon, and Charlene for showing up tonight.
Enjoy the show.

Posted in MY VIDEOS, Projects | 23 Comments »

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