Translated German Radio Transcript: Vlogs
Published by Josh Leo on 28 Sep 2005 at 11:05 am.
3 Comments.
Filed under Vlog News.
Yesterday, Graham posted about German public radio covering Vlogs. Well today, I give you the translated transcript of the feature, thanks to the mad-translating skills of Clark Saturn and Chris Ritke.
Vlogs im Internet
March 28, 2005 - Phil Hamilton a student from a suburb of Boston complains about the school cafeteria: 1. The food tastes horrible, 2. They always serve the same stuff and 3. it gets more expensive every year
“I think it’s quite a phenomenon”, says Stephan Seidel, the guy behind the videoblog rebell.tv, “people are putting weird stuff online on which pretty much every body, including the person who’s putting it online himself, agrees that nobody (no pig!) is interested in. But they do it.” And they’re kicking off the next step in a media revolution, which is being talked about everywhere.
First it was the weblogs that were competing with traditional web pages, then there was podcasting where you could publish your own radio shows on the internet - which revived “peoples radio”. People are talking about grass roots journalism and “me” media, a democratization of the public opinion. It seems that the hopes of the world wide web prophets of the 90s, who were looking for a force to oppose established media, are coming true.
Videoblogs are now becoming a problem for TV. (Rocketboom intro…) Sounds like real TV and even looks like it a little bit. When Amanda Congdon of Rocketboom reads the news, she’s in front of a world map that looks more like something from geography class than the evening news. But don’t be deceived by this low budget look. Rocketboom producer Andrew Barren has had a competitive concept from the beginning. Congdon was cast from hundreds of people. And being professional is paying off - 60,000 people are watching regularly, when Congdon presents a mix of internet news, current world affairs and political opinions five times a week. A constant joke/issue is the removal of President Bush from office.
Next question: are videoblogs the future of the internet? Or even the TV of the future? Christoph Neuberger, professor for communications at the University of Muenster is skeptical: “The videoblogs I’ve seen to date have not convinced me - it may be a learning process, similar to blogs - I think it’s much more difficult to transport quality information and that videos will be limited to a very small segment. It’ll be similar to the personal home pages of the 90s - where people talk about what is happening at home”. Neuberger thinks that text is still the best way to transport quality internet journalism, considering the current state of technology. Neuberger is responsible for online journalism in the “Grimme Prize jury”. Vloggers did contribute to the reporting of the London bombings and the hurricane catastrophe in New Orleans, but he hasn’t found a videoblog that is comparable to or has a similar reputation as the legendary war blogs of the Iraq war.
Most of the 524 vlogs that can be found on vlogdir are personal. But that’s not necessarily bad. Take Graham Walker, for example - a Canadian living in Prague, who puts vacation films from Tibet online in his Travelvlog. ” I’d like to show that vacation videos don’t have to be horrible. In Prague I always see tourists that are filming everything that they see, and I’m always wondering what they do with those videos. Most of it probably ends up in the closet, and is never watched again. I’d like to show that if you really invest time and creativity, then you can get something that people like to watch”.
Some politicians in the US have discovered videoblogs as communications tools. Take John Tobin from Boston for example, he may soon be getting Phil Hamilton’s vote - and who knows, if the politician someday visits the young vlogger colleague, he may decide to help in rolling back the 75 cent price increase for school lunches.
Bre Pettis on 28 Sep 2005 at 11:25 am: 1
Thanks for translating this Chris and Clark!
Graham on 28 Sep 2005 at 11:31 am: 2
many thanks indeed.
Phil Hamilton on 28 Sep 2005 at 6:26 pm: 3
o my goodness! i’m so excited/completely embarrassed… because of that post i havent since tried talking to the camera.