Howard Rheingold Parses the Video Language

Howard Rheingold was a thought-leader before the term entered the vernacular. For example, he wrote the original book on virtual community. Now, Howard is helping people to understand what he's calling the "video vernacular" by walking his talk ie by posting a video on his vlog (video blog).

Just like us videographers used to talk about the "language of film making," Howard is correct that the whole video language, along with all the various forms of interacting with video are going through a radical metamorphosis. Video will never be the same. Will we? Doubtful.

Howard does a tease at the end of his six and a half minute video clip for the relevance of these new forms of video to education. In any case, I appreciate Howard's effort to help those of us who don't swim in this cyber-crap daily to get some perspective on what's happening.

Live Video Streaming for Cell Phones Hitting, well, the Main Stream

Last week, a friend on Facebook (or actually an acquaintance... someone who I've never met in person, but within whom I've done a little work via phone and email) offered a link (via Facebook) to a live video stream of a techie industry party on a rooftop over-looking Washington, DC. The amazing thing was that when I clicked the link, it actually worked. Instantly, I was face-to-face, in a virtual sense, with party-goers who were saying things like "I just thought you were taking my picture..." to which this guy says, "No, you're live on the web" and a quasi interview ensued.

The Video Web is expanding more rapidly than even I realized... and cell phone video, live streaming cell phone video, is to blame.

If you want a more widely-respected opinion, The New York Times wrote up the whole scene in a Sunday Business section column called "Novelties." The article, "Capturing the Moment (and More) Via Cellphone Video," includes some even more compelling examples from the likes of LA's NPR radio leader, KCRW and mentions two leading live webcam video streaming website platforms (which are enabling these feeds): Kyte.com which calls itself "The Universal Digital Media Platform," offers ideas for "monetization" and offers the image above as part of its self-promotion, and Qik.com which appears to be a bit more popular with the blogging/social networking crowd, including my pal in DC.

Kyte also offers among other things, "The Kyte Premium Facebook application (which) is more than a simple widget – it’s a branded social communications platform, featuring live video streaming, multimedia chat, viral distribution capabilities and monetization opportunities." Don't we all need one of those?

OMG, Twitter is like so totally busted! "Twitter Whore" shows all...

I mentioned below the "In Plain English" Twitter video which actually explains Twitter to the uninitiated or un-techie amongst us. But, on the other hand, if you want to laugh a little, and sorta, kinda experience the frenetic experience of what I believe Twitter to be (and why I'm not a participant... go on, comment below about why I'm missing out!), then OMG! I'm sure you'll enjoy the Twitter parody videos below, produced by and staring one of YouTube's rising stars, Lisa Donovan (screen name LisaNova), a self-described "Twitter Whore" (video is in two parts below). As they used to say on Hill Street Blues, "Be careful out there."

Matt Makes Viral Video Delight & Super-Hit

Frank Capra used to say (regarding the requisite creative direction to make a movie), "One man, one movie." In today's world of viral video distribution, one man (or one woman) can make a super-hit all by themselves... or in this case with the support of one partner and a chewing gum company for a sponsor (no kidding). The story is well-written in this NYTimes coverage, "A Private Dance? Four Million Web Fans Say No" (although as of this writing it's been viewed 5.5 million times.) The Times calls it, "an almost perfect piece of Internet art: it’s short, pleasingly weird and so minimal in its content that it’s open to a multitude of interpretations." I like it for all of the reasons above as well as the fact that it's just plain fun and makes you feel good. :) (btw, clicking on "watch in high quality" is HIGHLY recommended, although you have to view the clip here on YouTube to do that.)



I also recommend viewing Matt's "Dancing Out Takes" at http://www.wherethehellismatt.com/

Video Chat Portal, Seesmic Gets Celebs including Spielberg

I fooled around with the social video site Seesmic--you might think of it as a video chat portal--some time ago, and I found it boring. But now that the likes of Steven Spielberg, Karen Allen and Harrison Ford are posting video clips there too, maybe I should take another look?

And here's a thread you can view (without signing on to Seesmic) from a UK Guardian Journalist who dialogged via video with Steven, Karen, Harrison & more: Spielberg Pops Up on Seesmic

I caught wind of this from a TechCrunch post: Don’t Screw Your Partners Over A Marketing Promotion which explains more background and some related technical issues. Most interesting to me, they refer to the appearance of these celebrities as a "promotion" without explaining that deal. Jemima Kiss, the UK journalist says "the guys behind the project" are the Picture Production Company. However, The Industry Standard's coverage of this says, "Seesmic’s founder Loic Le Meur claims that he didn’t even know it was going to happen until right before the videos went up."

Still, it's clear that these celebrities are not just posting. For one thing, they all have the same background (gold curtains) on their videos so they apparently all went somewhere together and recorded their posts. These are hardly the casual, usually at-home kind of chats most Seesmic users post. Just the same, I view this development as an interesting new kind of access to some very interesting creative, innovative people, as well as more evidence of how important "The Video Web" is becoming to more and more people, including top-level leaders in the entertainment industry.

Anyone out there using Seesmic regularly and care to comment?

Live from Davos via The Video Web

I'm presuming that most of you know about the World Economic Forum held in Davos each year and attracting a virtual planetary A-list who's who... from heads of state to Bill Gates & Rupert Murdock to celebs etc. etc.

As the video web expands, live person-to-person coverage is becoming quite interesting; and perhaps the best of that batch is Loïc Le Meur, the French self-proclaimed "serial entrepreneur and blogger." Here's a taste of "live from Davos" via the video web featuring Emma Thompson, Bill Gates and more...



Btw, Le Meur's latest start up is Seesmic.com "the dashboard for your videos" and an online video "conversation" platform that's still in alpha (testing, limited user base, etc.) Click here for a review/demo by BBC News' Dot.Life

Oh yeah... And then there's "The Davos Question" on YouTube:



And (drum roll) a darn good (IMHO) answer by "rock star" Bono :



It looks like the video web's conversations are heating up! ;)

My First Pocket Camera Video is on YouTube

I mentioned that I got a Flip mini-video camera for Christmas:

My favorite new gizmo is The Flip (Ultra), a pocket-sized, web-ready video digi-cam. No tape, just 60 mins of MPEG-4 video in Flash memory and a flip-up USB port.

This camera is about the size of a pack of cigarettes. It's easy to use and for what it is, it works quite well.

So, I took it out for a drive... my buddy Keith Bailey had a photography show open at a restaurant in San Francisco last week. I shot the following while in attendance, in a very noisy atmosphere, in some instances with virtually no light... and the results are not bad. I edited it in about 1 and 1/2 hours with iMovie and "borrowed" some music from a friend, Gary Malkin (his collaboration with Tito La Rosa will be for sale soon.)

Anyway, here's my quick first effort at pocket-cam event videography. It's about 3 minutes. Please let me know what you think:

Google Mail Video Best Viral Video User-Generated Video Marketing I've Seen

Geez, I'm always posting about how hot the online viral video space is becoming, and wouldn't you know it, here comes Google with not only my 2nd viral video post of the night, but one that leverages user-generated content to the max. Great stuff you all, and I really mean you all. And, oh yea, nice job Google for editing it all together in such a snappy fashion. More info here: http://mail.google.com/mvideo

A Viral Video with Massive Heart, Energy & a Difference

Sometimes I see something that moves me and is sufficiently "right on" that I feel I need to post it. This is one of those times:

O'Reilly Publisher's Conference Coverage by me

I was pleased to cover the scintillating O'Reilly Tools of Change for Publishing conference that was held last week in San Jose for eContent magazine. It was a worthy conference filled with leading edge thinking (at least mostly.)

My executive summary-style coverage is here: http://www.econtentmag.com/Articles/ArticleReader.aspx?ArticleID=36790

Enjoy.

Cool Convergence & Browsing Bonus: Great TechCrunch-NetVibes Mashup

For your browsing pleasure...

In announcing the new NetVibes roll-out of the ability to create public personalized pages, the marvelous Michael Arrington also offered his own personalized, customized TechCrunch NetVibes page "featuring many of my favorite news feeds and a few widgets."

I offer this to you because it is a cool convergence. From my limited experience, NetVibes is my favorite customizable "home page;" but more importantly TechCrunch is my favorite source of information about the bleeding edge of Web 2.0. Scroll down on this TechCruch/NetVibes page to see, for example, the Alexa Widget showing TechCrunch ahead of Business Week and CNet in online viewership; or enjoy the build-in video references; and on and on.

If you're reading this, you'll probably find things of interest on the Netvibes.com/TechCrunch page. If nothing else, it's a great demo of the plug-and-play nature of the ever-expanding Web 2.0 socially-networked Internet.

Enjoy!

Online Video Monetization Blooming

If you still don't believe that there's money to be made, not to mention good marketing buzz to be generated, with online video clips, then you better check out The New York Times coverage of the competition between video sites to make revenue sharing deals with producers and talent who can develop a following using online video. They call it, New Hot Properties: YouTube Celebrities.

Online Video Explosion Signposts

One nice thing about the online video explosion, revolution, or whatever you want to call it, is that it does have signposts. (FYI, I'm still waiting for some professional publisher to ask me to write more about all this... hello?!).

But meanwhile here are a couple of recent articles and/or posts that I found to be of interest and encouraging re: the re-emergence of my own "video-video" enterprises (videos about video and online communications) which are percolating in the background:

> VideoEgg Hits 3 Million Uploads -- TechCrunch insights on the growth of this online video leader vis a vis GooTube (Google-YouTube) who may have the best ad platform of the moment. I said "may."

> All The World's a Stage (That Includes the Internet) -- NYTimes writer Scott Kirsner offers a nice overview with examples of how user-generated content can and is making money, at least for a few leading edge folks.

Online TV & Video: "social revolution" No Longer an Exaggeration

Sighting a pressing TV industry need to monetize the "massive interest in online (video) content," eMarketer.com summarized an Informa Telecoms & Media research report (which I could not find on their site) including numbers that would make almost any venture investor salivate. For example, "In the US alone, revenues are forecast to rise from $538 million in 2006 to nearly $4 billion in 2012."

"These trends are now so pronounced, that the term 'social revolution' no longer seems too much of an exaggeration," said Adam Thomas of Informa.

Personally, today, I was checking out VideoEgg.com which boasts an easy to use video upload, Flash compress, and, yes, video editing platform as well as a pretty impressive online video ad network that's focused on social networking sites.

Does anyone have a good comparison of all these new Web 2.0 video platforms?

TechCruch seems to think that SplashCast may have the ultimate player platform.

I wish it was like the Videography days when I could get paid to research and write about this stuff. Who knows, if I can find a way to monetize it, maybe I'll be doing some video clips soon. Potential channels would include internet marketing, online video, and the joy of golf. But should I do SplashCast channels, distribute via the VideoEggNetwork, BrightCove, all of the above, or what?!?

Easy, Low Cost Solutions for Creating Websites & Podcasts

Here are a couple of interesting Web 2.0 style online user-generated content creation services I've come across lately:

> Weebly.com has an impressive video demo that makes it look (to me, at least) like Weebly may well be about the easiest way available for almost anyone to create a website. The video demo shows a drag and drop, practically brain-dead simple interface... and that's a good thing!

> Likewise, BlogTalkRadio.com has it's own push-button interface that takes the audio studio work, or even the GarageBand software production out of producing a podcast talkshow via the phone, complete with RSS feed. And some people say Web 2.0 is just a concept...

In both cases, no fuss, no muss, no independent hosting account is required.

FYI, I've also posted my first WordPress website, which was also a reasonably straight forward process. It's a bit more feature-rich and blog-oriented as compared to Weebly, but I'm pleased with the results (which are viewable at: TheJoyofGolfing.com). Not bad for a rare solo effort (professionally, I'm more of a team player).

Any comments or anyone want to share their experience with any of the above services?

Self-expression vs Professional marketing communications: There's room for both

I like it when I find a commentary that takes on something that I've been thinking about. Such a piece is Dorian Sweet's column, "Amateurism: The New Gold Standard" on ClickZ.com.

With the much-hyped (including by me) rampant exposure of new media platforms like YouTube and MySpace, professional marketers may be somewhat baffled. Sweet calls the content produced by these folks (normally labeled user-generated content) "digital amateurism" and he's right. It's not advertising or marketing. "It's self-expression." Two completely different things.

But, I was surprised that he didn't mention the LonelyGirl15 professional attempt to capitalize on the social video networks. Just the same, I have my own bottom line. Not only are professional marketing communications still completely viable, especially when they include an authentic sensativity to the medium as well as the intended audience; but (all back-handed references to Marshall McLuhan aside), the message is still the message. When you have something to say and when you say it well, you can still cut through the clutter. And if you really do your job well, you can even ride new waves of viral success.

The Birth of the "Social Video Network" (video blogging & social networking remixed)

You take a little MySpace, you add some YouTube, and mash 'em up. That's the latest in easy to use video blogging... er well, I mean video sharing/syndication... well, actually, I mean video "channels" based on MySpace social networking and YouTube video sharing type o' technologies.

The business model et al was written up on AlwaysOn or go straight to Dave.tv (the "social broadcast network") or vsocial.

LonelyGirl15: Viral Video Victory

If you search YouTube for "lonelygirl15," you get all kinds of debunking, profanity and other forms of extremely personal video reactions. Whether hoax or otherwise, the girl's got buzz. Personally, I'm with the crowd that thinks she's too polished not to be a professional production (and I am a video production professional). Regardless, she's the latest generation of viral video star; and, as New York magazine says, she's the leading edge of a new (albeit commercial) art form.