Momentshowing

Music by: Laura Viers

I made this video to introduce the new FireAnt.tv. Each month we want to feature an interview with a videoblogger to make sure people can see that regular people are behind most video being produced for videoblogs.

Check out the mention we got in TechCruch:

The website and clients fully syncronize, so any videoblogs added or
removed from your que on the site will automatically sync up with the
client (users may use the website at work, and have the client
installed at home along with their PSP, video iPod or other device).The result is an extremely versatile, file-type-agnostic
videoblogging ecosystem. A tool like this was needed to allow
videoblogging to expand to more users.

FireAnt.tv is the result of several months of nose-to-the-grindstone work. Hats off to Daniel Salber(mac client), Erik Radmall(PC client), Clint Sharp and Josh Kinberg (Directory). It’s been amazing to see these guys come together to create 2 native desktop clients that sync with an online directory. Talk about teamwork. Lots of late nights and long weekends. An open version of iTunes.

My favorite quote from the article comes here:

FireAnt works closely with other videoblogging services like Mefeedia (a directory and aggregator) and Blip.tv
(a service which, among other things, provides a great platform for
videobloggers to host their content) to ensure that they are all
launching compatible platform and application services. This
coopetition is good for the industry. Let’s see how long it can last.

It’s important that we all have open standards so videobloggers can be seen over many systems. Already some companies are coming into the scene to block each other out and "control" the videoblogging space.

We all know that video on the web is coming fast. In a year, video will be everywhere…whether it be "IPTV", paying for episodes of "Lost", the locked-down flash video on the social networks, or all the video that people place on their blogs. No one company can control it all.

More and more I believe people will catch on and move away from the closed systems..and move towards the systems that let them move their stuff around. At FireAnt, we don’t "own" anyone’s work. We take all the info from your RSS feeds…and centralize it in one place. A Videoblogger needs to simply change the info in their feed to change what gets pulled in by FireAnt. The power of the decntralized network. We want to help you organize and share the video you find on the web.

I’ve been amazed by the amount AND quailty of video that has been produced in just the last year. Anyone who thinks that videoblogging is just people in their bedroom just talking about their cats is blind. If you want TV shows, watch TV. If you want to see the new style of media being created right before our eyes, then….

Try out FireAnt.tv.
Download the desktop appplication, and use the directory to find and subscribe to new channels.
FireAnt will then download any new video automatically and let you watch it, sync and share the videos. Unlike iTunes, we play almost ANY video format you throw at it: WMV, QT, Flash, Real.

It’s a work in progress, so we’ve set up user groups for feedback(Mac and PC).

Ryanne and I started dating a year ago.
We had a whirlwind romance with videoblogging…and with each other.
I now live with her in the middle of Harlem. We have fast wi-fi, desks side by side, and a kitchen full of our favorite food.
As we each work, we talk about the things that excite us, make us angry, and gossip.
We get to build things.

When we met online a year ago, she lived in Boston and I lived in Manhattan.
After she commented on one of my videos, we started watching each other’s work.
One day Ryanne asked if I wanted to ‘collaborate’…so we set up our own private videoblog.
Almost every day we posted videos about our lives, where we worked, things we did, what we thought.

These are two videos when Ryanne and I told each other how we felt about each other.
Together, they are about 10 minutes long.
They are extremely hard for us to watch because we are so vunerable. It’s that moment when you take a chance and say, you mean a lot to me.

Emails would not have captured the craziness of how we felt. We couldn’t be so intimate in phone calls because of the immediacy of the moment and fear of the other person judging you.
But making recorded video allowed us to open up.

There is a running thread in the Videoblogging community about "talking head videos" and the "need for an audience".
In a certain context, these arguments make a lot of sense.
Talking heads can be boring. And why videoblog if you don’t want a lot of people to watch?
However, it all depends on what you want to accomplish. There is a danger in thinking a videoblog is simply a TV channel.
A videoblog can be many things.

The videos we made over a three month period changed my life.
Very quickly Ryanne learned of all my craziness and was/is cool with it (so far).
I believe we got to know each other very fast and deep not only because we were ready to share…but also because of the rich information that comes through video.

Ryanne’s talking head meant more to me than anything else going on at the time.
Also, these videos were meant only for us. We did not want anyone else to be a part.
I share them here because, after talking it over, we agreed that they were a good example of how people can share themselves online through videoblogging.

Why didn’t Ryanne and I just email videos to each other?
It was important for us to post them to a blog so we could see what we were building.
It’s also great that we now have an archive that we can go back to and see.
It’s was real then and it’s real now.

Anyway, happy anniversary Ryanne.