First video for Videobloggingweek2008.
Videoblogging week started in 2004 with less than ten videobloggers
as a participatory way to raise awareness of videoblogging and welcome
new videobloggers. Over the years Videoblogging Week has grown to be an
exciting yearly event that encourages people to push themselves
creatively.
I’m also posting this to Semanal.
This for week 12 of Semanal. A game suggested by Daniel of Pouring Down. Join in.
Schlomo and I are co-moderating a panel at The Politics Online Conference on March 5, 2008. We’ll be joined by Richard Bluestein (aka Madge), Jim Bray of Why Tuesday, and hopefully someone from The Uptake. Our goal is to highlight the growing ability for grassroots web video to affect the political conversation we have in this country.
I’m especially realizing how important an online community can help raise money.
From a recent article in the London Telegraph:
Last month, for example, Mr Obama raised an astonishing $32 million
(about £18 million). Of this, all but $4 million was donated online, by
hundreds of thousands of small donors (90 per cent gave $100 or less).
That’s huge money and can only happen because Obama has been the one of the few candidates (also Ron Paul) to reach out online in a big way. Web video can help build this relationship. Anyway, here’s our panel info. We’d love to see you come by.
Title:
How web video changes the political conversation – http://polc.ipdi.org/Agenda
Description:
Regular people are increasingly making media that adds
to the political conversation, lugging small (and big) cameras to political
events and telling their own stories. They post their own commentary on issues
using webcams. They use video clips to influence their own communities. They
don’t stick to talking points. What’s a campaign manager or issue advocate to
do?
Day/Time:
Wednesday, March 5 from 3:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m.
Register at https://www.online-donation
Ryanne and I will be in Europe from Jan 8-Feb 6. We’ll be staying with friends in London, Brighton, Edinburgh, Amsterdam, Antwerp, Paris, and Barcelona.
Our main impetus for traveling is to present at these two video events: Video Vortex and VXmission. Discussions of the rights of online creators are at the center of discussion. Plus the need to really encourage creative work parallel to the commercial entertainment industry. It’ll definitely be different from all the video conferences in Silicon Valley.
If you’re in any or around any of these cities, we’d love to meet up with you. Just email me since we’ll be hanging out along the way. We’d love to get the local skinny.
And if you’re looking for something to do this year, join the Semenal video project. We’re all posting one video a week for 2008. You know some cool, weird stuff is going to be popping up.
This video settles my debt to two projects at once. It’s Carp Caviar Promo month (see my past contributions here and here). It’s also the first week of Semanal, where everyone is posting a video every week for 2008. I like these group video projects. Come join the fun.
FireAnt, a video aggregator that I helped create back in 2005, was sold this week for $400,000.
Read about here and here.
It’s kind of a bittersweet ending.
Glad that our work found a home and all bills paid off, but wish we could have done it all differently.
In 2004, the small Videoblogging group began intentionally using video to document our lives and then distribute them through blogs. A question quickly arose: "How could we more easily follow lots of different videoblogs?"
Peter decided to make Mefeedia. Josh and I decided to make AntNotTv (later renamed FireAnt).
We hooked up with Daniel Salber and Eric Radmall who singlehandedly developed the mac and PC versions.
(First version of FireAnt, Dec 2004)
It’s the old story.
Four guys working full-time jobs, making software in their bedrooms at night.
The Videoblogging group was our main testing peeps, giving such great feedback and urging us on.
Remember, this was a time when 99% of humans couldn’t conceive of RSS…let alone a video aggregator.
When iTunes enabled RSS subscription and video playback, we felt totally validated.
When Apple launched the video iPod, we thought we had arrived.
We worked ourselves to the bone for 18 months for no money.
The old story continues.
Now we felt we needed to become "serious".
We needed "money".
So we got a couple "business guys" to solve all our problems.
I remember how naive we were.
"You’re excited about what we’re doing? You know about business? Cool, we’ll share this with you!"
Suddenly we became a "corporation" and voted on "board members" and issued "stock".
We went to VC meetings looking for "investment".
After a while, the Bizness guys said they couldn’t get money because the technology wasn’t good enough.
We said they needed to be businessmen and get business…and then realized they had no contacts, the currency of dealmaking.
Reality set in. Lots of phone fighting.
I was forced out of daily decisions in the summer of 2006.
Josh was the only founder who stayed on with the biz dudes.
FireAnt racked up tens of thousands of dollars in expenses, development costs, and legal fees.
Infighting seemed to bring any momentum to a halt.
To Josh’s credit, he was able to get things organized enough to sell the good technology that FireAnt developed. The $400,000 basically pays off all loans and debt the company had. The story ends.
So I guess I become one of many software entrepreneurs who pass on this advice:
Do it for as long as you can on your own.
Success is definitely about good ideas, team, and execution…but it’s also all about contacts and luck.
Don’t believe the hype of quick riches.
haha and trust yourself.
UDPATE: Josh was worried that I made him look bad. He and I definitely had core disagreements over the past couple years, but he deserves the credit for sticking with FireAnt and saving it from the dead startup graveyard. Hopefully he will take time to share his experiences on his blog. FireAnt started as a community project and I know people would really benefit from hearing what he learned.
UPDATE: In my rush to write a port-mortem, I forgot to mention all the work that Clint Sharp did. He was with the project for a relatively short time, but created the entire website directory that had a huge impact on the public seeing what FireAnt could do. Clint always was able to bring reality to all our conversations. He has a great blog post here about how it all went down.
Tomorrow night (Wednesday, September 12th), I will be on Jonny Goldstein’s "Par-tay show" at 6pm PST.
Info on how to join us is here at jonnygoldstein.com Just show up and start chatting.
Jonny is spearheading the world of live web casting with audience participation.
It’s really a pretty incredible effort on his part with unlimited possibilities.
I love videoblogging and its documentation….but there is something really powerful about all of us being together at the same time. Anywhere in the world.
In my 30-minute slot with Jonny, we’ll be covering why web video is different from TV (and how it’s alike). I’d love to hear from you about what you think we’re doing with these videoblogging projects. I remember working lots of media jobs where I dreamt of all the things I would make if I had the freedom to do it. Well, now that we have the freedom…are we making the things we want? Is a need for money the only thing holding us back? How can the community better support each other?
Anyway, see you Wed, September 12, at 6pm PST here.
You don’t have to sign in or anything…just watch and participate.
When we were in Thailand making videos for PreventHumanTafficking, we were invited to teach a videoblogging workshop for Thai bloggers. All thanks to super-connected Jiew from Prachatai for hooking it up.
Ryanne and I are spending the next three weeks in SE Asia to videoblog for PreventHumanTrafficking.
This non-profit is led by the incredibly progressive, Christina Arnold, who realizes that videos on her website documenting their work will help raise awareness and encourage donations.
While we’re in Cambodia, Vietnam, and Thailand, we are also running some videoblogging workshops for local bloggers. Video cellphones, Blogger.com, and all the free video hosting sites make it so much easier now. Check out this video where we put together $100 camera packages to give away.
Big shout out to Beth Kanter for helping us making these connections, and to Doug who donated the 50$ cameras. This is all in the spirit of helping get regular people around the world to post video about their lives. Broadband internet and access to computers are really the only barrier. Many people in developing nations are still just struggling to survive and eat, but this is changing. Every country we’ve been to has a segment of the population getting online because they want to be connected. We all find our own reasons and resources to connect. This is a citizen journalism group we’ll be teaching in Thalalnd. The world is getting closer.
