Tag Archive for: internet video

OMG, Twitter is like so totally busted! “Twitter Whore” shows all…

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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

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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/

New iPhone Videos Better Than Ever

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I’ll leave the commentaries on Apple’s dramatic announcement of the iPhone 3G to others. I’ll only say that after holding out on buying an iPhone, I’m glad I did. Because now I’m ready! Half the price for double the speed (and all those new applications!) I’m going to get an iPhone 3G as close to July 11th as possible. That’s as strong an endorsement as I can make. And, I think the iPhone is truly the first, the leading and the most important mobile computing platform.

I also noticed that the videos of today’s announcement are better than ever. For example, here’s a nice little hightlight reel from the Wall Street Journal:

I also looked at a little of Apple’s streaming Quicktime version of Steve Jobs’ complete presentation, and the quality of that video looks better than ever at http://events.apple.com.edgesuite.net/0806wdt546x/event/

I also enjoyed and appreciated the excellent live blogging done by the TechCrunch crew. Their live blog posts included videos of key people and commentators pre-event (including a nice scoop that EBay would be announcing an application) as well as great photos during.

More Very Useful Explanations in Plain English

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I’m going to claim this might be the best resource for explaining Web 2.0 communication platforms to newbies ever! See my post below about CommonCraft, and if you’re someone who would like a better understanding of stuff like blogs, RSS, social networking, podcasting, Twitter and more, there are easy to understand and remarkably clear and enjoyable CommonCraft videos about each of these subjects on the CommonCraft YouTube channel. Enjoy!

Podcasting (and Twitter) in Plain English

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OK. I’m someone who has been doing his best to “span the Grand Canyon Gap between people and technology” for quite a number of years, so when I say this is impressive, I at least have some vague idea of what I’m talking about… 😉

I was trying to explain Twitter to my associate and went to Twitter.com and clicked “Watch a Video” Ta-da! A simple, cleverly animated, and impressively clear (and that’s the main thing) explanation. What a concept! No kidding. As I once wrote, “making it look easy is the hard part.” The creative production company is CommonCraft.com They say, “Our product is explanation.” I love that and I love their work.

I’ll let their work speak for them and maybe you’ll agree it’s impressive. Here’s “Podcasting in Plain English”:

Video Chat Portal, Seesmic Gets Celebs including Spielberg

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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?

YouTube Video Quality & Flip Video Illustrate Latest Dynamics on The Video Web

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One issue we’ve been dealing with that I think many people struggle with is how to get better quality video on YouTube. Here’s the most useful insights I’ve seen to date on this subject:

>> Read: “Hi-Res YouTube Hacks”

Some of you know that I’m impressed with the amazingly simple, little video camera called The Flip. Here’s why another thoughtful person thinks The Flip is important and perhaps indicates meaningful web video trends pointing toward our future:

>> Read: “Video Flips for the Future”

And while we are illustrating what’s cool about the rapidly expanding world of video on the web, here’s my son’s newest favorite short video, which clearly would not have been possible without “the video web” both in terms of production as well as distribution. Pretty cool, eh? Enjoy!


People in Order

Enhancements to the Video Web: The Mini-Camcorder Du Jour & Intelligent Video Conversations

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A couple of quick blog bites (vs sound bites) from the NYTimes website which indicate continually brighter days ahead for what I affectionately call The Video Web:

First of all, my fave tech writer David Pogue not only reviewed my Christmas present (see posts and demo video below), The Flip Ultra, but his latest “State of the Art” column, “Camcorder Brings Zen to the Shoot” pretty much nails it. It also informed me–and I had no idea about this–that the Flip is now garnering a rich 17% of all US camcorder sales and “has been the best-selling camcorder on Amazon.com since the day of its debut. For Pogue’s finely articulated perspective, click here.

The other item is what appears to be a new feature on the NYT website, which is Bloggingheads.tv “diavlogs.” Language-wise this is a double-derivative term. I’ll bet most people don’t even know that the term “blog” is derived from “web log” let alone that a “vlog” is a video blog. Just the same I welcome this combination that creates a new kind of conversation. (kind of rolls off the tongue) I’ve been thinking and occasionally saying that the use of webcams and the ease of the current state of video conferencing should be put to more use. Little did I know that this kind of video dialog, oh OK, diavlog was being so widely distributed. And then imagine my delight when I found at least these two commentators talking about the Barak Obama race speech being more articulate and interesting than most of those duds on cable TV news shows. Right on. It was also nice to see the NYTimes editing down and providing a solid 4-minute excerpt of what appears to be an almost hour-long original conversation on BloggingHeads.TV At least the whole thing is there for you if you want it.

Click here to watch the NYTimes-BloggingHeads edit: “Obama’s Grandmother” which asks the scintillating question: “Is everyone missing the whole point?”

I have to add that the intelligence of this BloggingHeads conversation is in stark contrast to my experience experimenting with the Seesmic.com video “conversation” website which is mentioned in the Davos post below. That turned out to be an interesting attempt from a technological point-of-view, but extremely boring overall. Even Seesmic’s specially produced (and apparently funded) posts were disappointing (to say the least). Sorry. I liked their bushy-eyed enthusiasm, but there’s good web video and a lot that is not so good. Like everything else…

Quality Video Programming is On Now

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On my less optimistic days, I feel like we’ve gone from “nothing on” crappy TV programming, to “too much on” kitchen sink internet video programming. But fortunately those days are few because of how much uplifting and inspiring stuff is out there.

Recently, rather than bottom feeding, I’ve been top feeding with some of the best online video programming anywhere.

Tonight I was browsing some great Talks at Google on YouTube (from obvious Google execs, to fascinating authors, to presidential candidates). And earlier this weekend, I caught a link (on an Amazon author blog no less) to yet another amazing one of the extraordinarily inspiring TED talks. Truly great stuff. These are also available via iTunes and, for me, has made having a video iPod worthwhile.

Here’s the latest TED talk that blew my mind. If you’ve ever wondered the meaning of all the left-brain, right-brain talk this will clear it up and uplift you as well, at least it did me:

By the way, if you’re interested in getting a full taste of the TED conference, I highly recommend the DVD, The Future We Will Create: Inside the World of TED. It’s a kind of greatest hits, behind the scenes look at the 2006 TED conference. Also, inspiring and uplifting.

See there’s lots of good stuff to watch. 😉

My Virtual CES Report

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No, I didn’t go to CES (the consumer electronics mega-convention) in Las Vegas, but here are a few tidbits from the web that I’ve found worthy:

Scoble‘s doing Qik videos direct from his cell phone including this interview with the guys from YouTube:

And CNET picked this astoundingly innovative and open source BugLabs platform as its CES Awards winner for “emerging technologies.” I even like their video. Cool.