Archives for February 2006
Dream Host Rocks
You may have noticed the little dreamhost banner in our righthand sidebar. It’s there because dreamhost rocks. For $7.95 a month we get 20 Gigs of storage and 1 Terrabyte of transfer. With those numbers you can host your own videos on your site.
With dreamhost you can host as many websites as you want for that same $7.95. Yep, that’s right, Room 132, I Make Things, We Are The Media, Pinkbunny, and Magic Monkey Bob all on the same hosting plan plus I host sites for my friends Eric Borgesen and Clark Ov Saturn. Even though I Make Things, Zip Zap Zop, and We Are The Media are pretty popular, we haven’t even broken past 1% of the bandwidth capacity.
Dreamhost also makes it really easy to make a blog. You can have a wordpress blog installed on your site with one click and it doesn’t stop there. You can also install forums and a bunch of other cool stuff with one click too.
If you need awesome hosting, please click on the link at the right to sign up or use the code “grassrootsmedia” when asked who referred you. Or hey, you could click right here.
When you click on the dreamhost link on this page, we get a little kickback. Besides helping us pay for our own hosting, we hope to make enough money to sponsor a We Are The Media keg at vloggercon.
Published by Bre Pettis on February 24 .
4 Comments.
New Video Podcast: Something To Be Desired
Justin Kownacki is the writer/producer/director/editor/cameraman for Something to Be Desired (or STBD), a comedy video podcast about a group of DJs at a struggling radio station in Pittsburgh.
The series isn’t for kids due to language and sexual content, but it’s got great production values and is watchable. I promptly went to itunes and did the search for STBD and subscribed. (Subscribe to STBD in iTunes)
Through email, I asked Justin about his workflow and the process he went through to make it a podcast and he sent me back such a great response, that I’m printing Jason’s reply right here:
Our workflow is always in a state of tinkering, but in general our approach
has been:
1. I conceive of the outline for a season, and the individual subplots within the overarching story.
2. We audition for any new recurring characters we’ll be adding to the cast.
3. I write the individual scenes for the various story arcs.
4. We film until we collapse.
5. I edit.
Published by Bre Pettis on February 23 .
1 Comment.
Vloggercon 2006
On June 10 & 11 the largest gathering of videobloggers will take place in the Swedish American Hall in San Francisco California. The event is still in the planning stages, and is being organized by a team of people affiliated with Node 101. Workshops, panels, hanging out and much much more are planned for the vlog-centric weekend. The ticket price for the 2 event is $40 for one day and $60 for both. So keep your calendar’s open, and start searching for a cheap flight to the vlogger party of the century!!!
Published by Josh Leo on February 23 .
No Comments.
Steve Garfield’s Vlog Soup
Since we’re all giving tours af the vlogosphere, take a look at my most recent episode of Vlog Soup.
Join me on this trip around my favorite vlogs in the vlogosphere.
Published by Steve Garfield on February 13 .
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Vlog Digest 10 Feb 06: Kids!
VlogDigest is finally back from black sabbatical vacation rehabilitation and detoxification. Well I liked the sound of that anyway. And this time we take a look at three kid-friendly vlogs! Mom’s Brag Vlog has some nice new videos since they moved. KityKity gets her Vlogger t-shirt, but oops! look what happened! A great moment. And a fairly new one on the scene, made by kids, The digiKID explores Sony’s PSP, stop frame animation of the Star Wars ilk and other stuff kids will love! Check them out or subscribe to their feeds:
Mom’s Brag Vlog Feed
KityKity Feed
the digiKID feed
Published by Clark Saturn on February 10 .
1 Comment.
Videobomb not a blast for vloggers
Looks like Videobomb is trying to be the Digg of videos. Trouble is that the service is not very vlogger friendly.
When you upload a video they ask for “The URL of the file itself, not a webpage.”. So if any vloggers gets “videobombed” they can look forward to people watching their video without really knowing where it came from.
True, there is a spot where you can include webpage info but a viewer would have to go digging to find it.
Published by Graham Walker on February 9 .
2 Comments.
Vlogging gets personal at Zip Zap Zop
Some vloggers put on a persona in front of the camera, but Clark ov Saturn is putting his personal life out in the world for others to see like few others. Clark is gem of a person as well as a professional actor and video blogger out of nyc. Today he had his biological mother on his video show, “Zip Zap Zop.” Among other personal topics, they talked about why she put him up for adoption. Clark is one of the bravest vloggers I know. He’s not afraid to share his life and family with the world. I’m watching his feed with desperate anticipation and looking forward to seeing more of Clark’s family and friends on his show.
If you aren’t a vlogger, I’m curious about what you would share with the world on your imaginary future video blog. If you are a vlogger, I’d like to hear about what your level of intimacy is with the camera and the audience. How much do you share of your life on camera?
Published by Bre Pettis on February 8 .
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Online Video Pushing Vlogging?
Glen Dickson writes for Broadcasting & Cable, NYT Makes Online Video Push:
“The New York Times Company has signed a multi-year deal with Internet TV firm Brightcove to enable the distribution of broadband video content across all of the Times Company’s online properties, as well as the syndication of content to other sites.
The first NYT business to use the Brightcove service is About.com, which already offers more than 1.2 million pieces of original content, including Video Guide series on the Style, Home & Garden and Gadgets channels.
With Brightcove, About.com plans to continue to expand its library of “how to” video content to include consumer-submitted expert video content beginning in the first half of 2006.”
EASY TO WATCH
The Brightcove interface is FLASH based and really easy for web surfers to select and watch videos. There are no players to download, and no plug-ins to install.
NO FEEDS WITH ENCLOSURES
If you’re used to having your video content automatically delivered to you via RSS, you might be disappointed that there are no RSS feeds with enclosures built in. Brightcove supports RSS feeds to notify subscribers of new episodes, and they are looking into enclosure support.
Video content providers will have to decide if they want to maintain an RSS feed to distribute their content as a download. A lot of the big media companies entering the online video space are protective of their content and want to capture as many online eyeballs as they can. Some might choose to send out a partial RSS feed notifying their viewers that there is new video content online.
CAN I GET A COPY OF THAT VIDEO?
Josh Kinberg has written a Greasemonkey script for downloading video from Reuters but that script is specific to Reuters and won’t work with Brightcove.
Kinberg says, “Currently, using Brightcove for a videoblog would be like a text blogger posting every blog entry as a read-only PDF that could only be viewed in the browser.”
ENABLING A CONVERSATION
I’ve worked with the Brighcove back-end and set up a BETA Brightcove site for the videoblog It’s JerryTime!
You’ll notice that at the bottom of the player I’ve added a link back to the It’s JerryTime! videoblog so viewers can head over the Jerry’s WordPress blog to add comments. This player takes up the whole screen, but it could be part of a larger web presence which might include a comments area or message board. Check out this MediaStorm page, featuring the portraits of Martin Schoeller, for an example of the Brightcove player embedded within a site.
As new methods of video distribution are brought online, we’ve got to be watchful that the things we’ve grown to embrace as part of our daily lives, such as subscriptions, downloads, and comments, don’t fade away.
Published by Steve Garfield on February 8 .
2 Comments.
DIY Satellite in a Suit and NASA’s Video Podcast
Today astronauts in the space station will jettison an old spacesuit that they have outfitted with a radio. They have hacked it all together from a kenwood radio and an old cosmonaut space suit. The suit sports an antenna on the helmet and will be in orbit for a few days before it runs out of batteries or gets incinerated in the atmosphere as it plumets earthwards. The “suitsat” as it is called will be transmitting a message in multiple languages for young people to decode. Besides audio, it will also transmit a slow-scan television signal. Because it’s going around the earth super fast, you can only listen for a 4-6 minutes as it cruises overhead. If you listen in, you can report that you heard it on the suitsat website! Check out the suitsat video (WMV)! While your at it, subscribe to the NASA video podcast.
Published by Bre Pettis on February 3 .
No Comments.
Josh Leo on NPR
WATM’s very own Josh Leo makes an audio appearence on Public radio talking about the addicitive qualities of watching vlogs and being a vlogger.
To listen to the interview click Josh Leo Interview
Published by Graham Walker on February 3 .
No Comments.
