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Time Magazine: “For seizing the reins of the global media, for founding and framing the new digital democracy, for working for nothing and beating the pros at their own game, TIME’s Person of the Year for 2006 is you.”

BBC Nottingham: “Pizza delivery man Paul Knight has been taking the internet by storm from his kitchen in Annesley, having recently won an award for Vlogging in America.”

Just found the New Mediacrasy audio podcast. I’ve looking for a purely audio podcast about videoblogging for a while so that I can listen to the goings on in this space while I’m on the move. Kind of hard to find the feed from their site but it’s here in case you want to subscribe through a podcatcher. I’m off for a walk on Hampstead Heath to have a listen.

Really awesome line rider: Jagged Peak Adventure.

Another really long day at the office.

If you regularly have to work on several different operating systems at the same time, then make sure you check out Synergy:

“Synergy lets you easily share a single mouse and keyboard between multiple computers with different operating systems, each with its own display, without special hardware. It’s intended for users with multiple computers on their desk since each system uses its own monitor(s).”

This product has improved my work life by at least 5%. I need to work simulataneously on a windows and a linux machine and find myself constantly switching. I now have 1 keyboard and mouse and two flat screens, when I move the mouse from one screen over to the other, the keyboard automatically switches to work on the other machine. Get this you can even copy and paste between the two. It’s a little client/server system that is simple to install and really easy to configure and it works on most platforms. First software product in a long time that has made me very happy!

Al Jazeera English is hiring videobloggers to do pieces for them. Max Keiser of KarmabanqueRadio has one here: People and Power: Death of the Dollar [bad quality recording though]. I had a long conversation with a documentary maker who was working with the KarmaBanque over a year ago at a party I was at. Not sure I fully understood the project. Some interesting ideas in this piece though.

Another great Big Lebowski mashup: The Big Lebowski - The Dude’s Version.

I am comming up to the end of a long and pretty complex project at work and so posts will probably be less involved over the next few days. Mucho coding to be done…

BBC News: “The world’s tallest man has saved two dolphins by using his long arms to reach into their stomachs and pull out dangerous plastic shards”.

The dolphins had swallowed some bits of plastic and were very ill because of this but they couldn’t remove the plastic with conventional tools. So they tracked down the world’s tallest man, since he has the worlds longuest arms, in the hope that he would be able to reach down into the dolphins stomachs and remove plastic. And wouldn’t you know it the plan worked. Now that’s thinking outside the box.

Can you imagine the looks the person who suggested the idea got back from his colleagues when he suggested it?

Mashable: “As of tomorrow, you can register your own .tv domain on ChannelMe, but soon they’ll add tools for users to develop that site into a personal TV channel”.

Copyright issues aside, media mashups are just funny: The Big Lebowski - the F#$%@*G Short Version [Language not work safe].

TechCrunch: “AppStore will be the one-stop shopping place for on-demand software, starting in Q1 of 2007. Developers and partners will be able to sell their programs directly through the AppStore and Salesforce will make a referral fee, based on the performance of the product”. Ooh an iTunes for web services. Nice.

Jason Calacanis links to a report looking at a new breed of people turning up in organisations: the out there people. Jason adds some of his thoughts to the discussion. Interesting reading and good food for thought.

I’ve just listening to Richard Bacon on XFM. He’s asking his listeners to upload interesing video they make to YouTube and put the word ‘BacoFilm‘ somewhere in the title so that with a simple search they will all show up. At some stage in the future he will choose the best one who will win some award. Interesting to see MSM using these new technologies in their programming. If you’re a videoblogger might be a good way to get your name out to the wider population.

The world through Doc Searls tinted glasses. He always seems to find the best sunrises/sunsets.

NYTimes: “In utopian terms the great abundance of self-expression puts an end to the old, supposedly wrongheaded gatekeeping mechanisms: hit-driven recording companies, hidebound movie studios, timid broadcast radio stations, trend-seeking media coverage. But toss out those old obstacles to creativity and, lo and behold, people begin to crave a new set of filters.”

Reuters: “News Corp.’s Fox, Viacom Inc., CBS Corp.. and NBC Universal are in talks about creating a video Web site to compete with Google Inc.’s YouTube”.

Ars Technica: “YouTube quietly added a new feature today to its popular user-generated video site today called Quick Capture, which allows users to record video directly to YouTube from webcams plugged into their computers”.

David Cohn: “The strength of YouTube isn’t the mass of copyrighted material and television shows, many of which have been purged. Rather, it’s the loyal community of viewers and users who upload content. That’s what Google was buying and what other media companies don’t have.”

When I first heard about YouTube’s new offering I didn’t think that much of it. There was some discussion on the videoblogging mailing list and a link to this video by someone getting really excited about the possibilities for change that online video is making happen.

Now the guy does go on a bit and is no doubt suffering from a bout of over-enthusiasm but what’s interesting is the amount of video comments people have left: 57 in 2 days. Also notice the type videos people are uploading: they’re getting creative by editing things together, dubbing in audio, some are funny, some are serious, there are even parodies. Anything to make this process easier is going to work. YouTube are innovating and they’re doing it by closely following what their users want and then giving it to them.

How will the big studios fair in this brave new world? The fact is that this two way medium [actually it’s mutli-way because everyone can dialogue with everyone] is totally different from what they are used to. What people like to do in this new online world is pretty similar to what they like to do in the real world: they like to interact, to connect, it can be fun, it can be sad, it can certainly be ugly.

One thing is certain: you can’t control this sort of thing. The question is how much are the studios willing to let us interact with them, with their employees, with their media and with each other? I’m not sure they understand, I’m not sure they are ready yet. I hope they prove me wrong.

Steve Rubel: “The rapid pace of change will not only turn TV into an open content platform, but it will radically shift how advertising dollars are allocated and how the entire ad industry operates.”

Susan Buice: “I just want to make something that resonates because when I see something that resonates with me I feel connected. Feeling connected to the world and to other human experiences is what makes me feel alive and happy. When I don’t feel connected I feel like a meaningless blob of flesh and I want to die.”

I picked this quote from Susan Buice because it made my laugh. It’s part of an interview she did with Arin Crumbley with whom she runs Four Eyed Monsters. Go read the interview and pay attention to these guys because they are doing interesting things. Arin is responsible for the Open Source Documentary about Net Neutrality that I wrote about a while back. That piece of work and a few other things that were happening to me at the time all converged together helping me to form new ideas about film making, documentary making and more generally how the web is turning things on their head. Ultimately it lead to my mini-essay on the disintermediation of film making. Now while I think and talk about these things Arin and Susan are out there actually doing cool stuff. I think you should pay them some attention and others do to.

Andrew Baron: “I am very optimistic for TiVo’s future as far as his vision for seamlessly merging i.p. and broadcast content”.

The ProgrammableWeb is a site that keps track of all the web APIs that are sprouting up all over the place. There’s a blog where they review them as they appear, a mashup section for the best use of them, a mashup matrix, a place to share stuff and a place to learn about how the web is becoming a platform. Really Great Resource.

David Tames: “The qualitative difference in today’s media technology landscape is that innovation is becoming the domain of end-users and is being guided by human needs, creative expression, social activities, and intellectual pursuits; rather than sales goals, quarterly profits, corporate research agendas, and marketing initiatives.”

David Tames’ essay from which the above quote is taken is a good read. He touches on many of the most interestring topics of the day such as walled-gardens, the changing role of the audience, the web’s effect on community and the theory of the long tail all from the perspective of a film maker.

What I’m finding most interesting in all my readings and podcast listening recently is that people of all sorts of different backgrounds and proffesions from all over the world are starting to form ideas and views about the web that are very similar. How interesting the world becomes when people start to have conversations, and to think that only 6 years ago I thought that the web was a glorified sales catalogue.

Happy Saint Nicholas everyone!

When I was growing up I spent many 6th of December in Brussels opening presents and eating lots of speculoos biscuits. As far as I remember there were also oranges in your sox and generally it was kind of a pre-christmas. Always good to warm up this time of year.

Biggest Speculoos in the World! Thanks to Shauna MacAllister for the link.

You can find some Saint Nicholas songs here and this is one of my favorites, that I’m sure I must have sang a primary school:

Ô grand Saint Nicolas,
Patron des écoliers,
Apporte-moi des pommes
Dans mon petit panier.
Je serai toujours sage
Comme une petite image.
J’apprendrai mes leçons
Pour avoir des bonbons.

Venez, venez, Saint Nicolas,
Venez, venez Saint Nicolas,
Venez, venez, Saint Nicolas, Et tra la la…

Ô grand Saint Nicolas,
Patron des écoliers
Apporte-moi des jouets
Dans mon petit panier.
Je serai toujours sage
Comme un petit mouton.
J’apprendrai mes leçons
Pour avoir des bonbons.

Shopping till you drop is no fun

I was shopping this past Sunday all up and down Oxford Street. It was awfull. I’m no fan of shopping normally and of course the Christmas rush just highlights a point which just has to be right: shopping is just so inneficient. I don’t think you could make it a worse experience if you tried: 99% of the stuff that is there is not what I want and when you do miraculously find something you like, they don’t have it in your size. It’s physically and mentally exausting and it just takes so long. Imagine having to navigate the web without google and without hyperlinks - that’s shopping.

It’s just a shame that online shopping isn’t up to scratch. Business Weeks new Cutting Edge podcast have a piece on shoping, I’ll let you know if they figured out a better way.

Doc Searls and Dave Winer are pushing the Vender Relationship Management (VRM) idea. Probably something to watch.

CNN Money: “Buzz from bloggers, viral videos, instant messaging, and subtle product placement in TV shows and movies are proving to be just as effective for some products […] The Internet is an interactive medium, of course, and toymakers are also tapping fanboys for product ideas they can turn into must-have gadgets”.

I had an Amazon delivery this morning of the Cluetain Manifesto. I’ve been reading Doc Searls‘ blog and listening to him on podcasts for so long, I thought it was high time I found out what the fuss he and the other 3 that wrote the book created was all about. The preface is very good. So far I’m liking it a lot.

The 1K project II is a short generated entirely from digitally combining over 1000 car races in the driving simulator Trackmania. Sounds majorly geeky but it’s actually pretty cool.

Techcrunch reports that Amazon may have inadvertantly let slip that they are releasing a new web service called SDS - Simple Data Service…or maybe not.

One of the most frustrating things for that I find with itunes and the ipod is the whole way the syncing process works. The whole idea of syncing is appealing to me since like most people on the planet I’m a pretty busy person. The ability to be able to wake up in the morning plug the ipod into the laptop for a minute while your latest podcasts load up and then skip off to work listening to your favorite mind snack is a killer feature.

Unfortunately the apple implementation of this feature is pretty lousy. Out of all the settings, what I want is to only have on my ipod at any one time all the podcasts that I haven’t listened to yet. Now iTunes does have such a feature but according to iTunes listening to 1 second of a podcast equates to listening to the whole thing. Setting out on a journey expecting to continue listening to a podcast that you have partially listened to, only to find that it has been marked incorrectly as played and therefor has been removed from the player can do only one thing: it makes me mad.

Anyone thinking of making a podcast device needs to fix this. Please.

Something I realised today about the disintermediation caused by the web: if your profession has the word intermediate in it, start getting worried. For some reason this wasn’t obvious to me yesterday.