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YouTube Prediction

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With the news of YouTube’s $1.65 sellout to Google, I thought I’d take a look at an early email exchange I had with Steve Chen, one of YouTube’s founders. Back in July of last year I tried out YouTube for the first time, as I was hungry for checking out the emerging world of video sites. With in a couple of days, Steve messages me thanking me for trying out the service. This was a couple months before Webzine happened and I pitched Steve on YouTube being a sponsor. Here’s what he to say at the time:

Date: July 24, 2005

hi eddie:

good to hear back from you so quickly!

we should chat some more. i believe the next 6-12 months, we’re going to be experiencing a dramatic shift in personal publishing. i think similar to bloggers vs traditional journalists, similar to podcasters vs traditional broadcasters, we’ll be seeing a similar trend with videoblogging vs traditional media.

furthermore, i think YouTube is special in that it caters to a much wider audience than videobloggers. i see a lot of family videos of babies, friends videos of college, so on.

along these lines, i also think within the next 2 years, the web will become much richer of an experience. video codec incompatibiities will be a thing of the past. so on, so on.

in any case, i’d love to hear your feedback, on-going.

regarding the webzine 2005 — i know about the conference. however, as we’re very much still in a start-up mode that it’ll be difficult for us to drum up the funds to become a sponsor. but who knows, maybe things will change in September. 🙂

-s

Maybe Steve meant October. 🙂 I’ll be hitting you up next year, Steve. He’s right, the web is a much richer experience. Video codec incompatibilities aren’t quite a thing of the past yet, though Flash has done much to get us closer to that day.

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Touch the Felt

Beck, the ultimate epic genius freak, dropped in for a show on the downlow at Yahoo!’s campus in Sunnyvale on Friday to kick off Yahoo Hack Day. Check out this video of Beck puppet haxx0ring into Yahoo. Freaking hilarious.

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One Year Ago

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This weekend one year ago, there was this rad event called Webzine 2005 that a lot of us worked our asses off to make happen. As a result of that awesome weekend, I have many new friends, I followed a passion that’s now become a job and the independent web is still alive and kicking. Since so much crazy shit is happening right now, Ryan and I decided to skip doing Webzine this year. We’ll be back next year. Promise. Oh yeah, revisit the spot we did last year.

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Radically Honest Politics

If I still lived in Virginia, I would so vote for this guy, Brad Blanton. He wrote a book called Radical Honesty that a lot of people say good things about. I am really suprised to see someone from my old home state that isn’t a tobacco farmer, lobbyist, corporate whore, televangelist or some other occuptation that puts them far right of reality. There is hope for Virgina yet. Check out Blanton’s ‘uncampaign’ video.

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Building Bridges

Jet Setters meet GETVers

The past couple of weeks has been quite the blast. After returning from Burning Man, my new videographer friend from Seattle, Ali and I schemed on some video together. The Fighting Kite GETV episode is the result of such schemeing. Ali taught me plenty of new Final Cut power moves for my arsenal. The pen tool! Who knew? You probably did.

This past week I was down in LA with Irina to capture a bunch of interview material for a bunch of upcoming episodes. Thanks to Micki who got us access to the Revver Hollywood style launch party for the new 1.0 version of their service. Revver is a video hosting site much like blip, veoh or ourmedia with the added benefit of revenue sharing for content creators. They tag on a single still frame ad to the end of your video and split revenues with you 50/50 for all clicks. Popular vlogs like Ze Frank and Ask a Ninja use Revver and do pretty well for themselves from what I hear. Blip.tv is planning on offering something very similar soon, though they’re not quite there yet. The idea of giving video content producers a way to make money, even small amounts of money, is a huge incentive for lots of independent creative types.
Read More “Building Bridges”

Desert Bound

Pray to the dogs of hot

I’m off to frolic in the desert and put first life on the back burner, so to speak. I’m bringing video gear so I may even try to capture a sliver of the madness. In the meantime, check out the daily video updates over at Current TV.

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Vote for my panel at SXSW 2007

SXSW 2007 The good peeps over at SXSW have a nice interactive proposed panel picker thing up now. I submitted a proposal for a web video panel titled ‘What Does the Future Hold for Video on the Internet?’. Please go vote for me and pick 9 other proposed panels (of a possible 173) that look interesting to you. Mine is under ‘web audio / webvideo’ and looks like this:

What Does the Future Hold for Video on the Internet?
We are on the cusp of a sea change in how video is produced and consumed. Cameras, processing power, bandwidth keep getting cheaper. Broadband is ubiquitous, hosting is free. Editing tools are cheap and easy to use. Can this last? Will a two-tiered Internet emerge and stifle innovation of the past 2 years? Will incumbent big media companies figure out what the Internet generation wants depriving independents from access?

Vote for me and I’ll buy you a beer next time I see you. It’s all about freedom and democracy, just like beer.

Have Money Will Vlog

Have Money Will Vlog

HMWV is a really, really cool project that some of my friends are involved in. It’s a grassroots way for creative vloggers or would-be vloggers to raise money and execute a project they’ve been itching to do. It’s a way to pay for the resources to get the video done by allowing community members (anyone who comes to the site and takes an interest) to buy into the project. A fundraising goal is set and a time period to raise that money is set (usually 30 days). If the goal is reached in time, then the project takes off. So far, HMWV has funded two projects and is on the cusp of funding a third.

This third project is called The Sustainable Route and is the brainchild of Ashley Hodson. Ashley wants to drive around the country and find out from regular people how they are engaging in sustainable practices. This really is awesome because there are a lot of people out there living sustainably in ways that most people have never heard of, much less engaged in.

The questions Ashley asks are “There is a lot to chew on these days when it comes to making simple decisions. Where is our food coming from, how do we get electricity, what is the impact of our lifestyles on the world around us? What are average people, like our selves, doing in their communities to define and work towards ’sustainability’? If you are interested in helping Ashley discover how people are answering these questions for themselves then please donate. She’s 87% of the way to the $2000 goal. I just threw down a Jackson and so should you.

If you have a project you want to get funded, check the HMWV guidelines for more info. This really is the power of the people (on the Internet) to make good shit happen. A little bit from many adds up to a lot.

UPDATE: The Sustainable Route has reached their fundraising goal and will be on the road soon.