Category Archives: Video

Video embeds, recommendations, and things worth watching.

Screencast and Videoblogging

Tech, Themes, Video, ,

The Show in a Box project has made a screencast called How To Install And Setup WordPress. According to Jay Dedman, “Showinabox.tv is our new project to help videobloggers simply download a folder, install, turn on plugins, and choose a theme. All open source. Basically make the “ultimate videoblogging platform using WordPress”. It’ll showcase videos using vPIP, build a visual archive, help with categories, and offer a community funding mechanism.” Cool!

Saying No?

Design, Google, Video, Yahoo,

Via Boris I came across a post on Susan Mernit’s blog called the No Patrol. It is supposed to be a defense of saying “no” to things in the product development cycle, but as I read each bullet point it struck me as actually a brilliant summary of why big companies often fail to create anything truly interesting, or put another way, why a product like Yahoo Personals is so impersonal. No one would advocate bloat or cruft in software, but sometimes a little silliness, a little frivolity, a little “novelty outweighs the business impact” is what separates a Youtube from a Google Video. Don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater.

On PayPerPost

Akismet, Video

So I signed up for PayPerPost is Toni’s foray into the seedy side of paid blogging. Includes some interesting comments, including an ultra-defensive thread from one of their investors. I also came across a ton of creepy videos on Youtube, a lovefest for PayPerPost and apparently those are $10 a pop. There is a firm that does something similar in real life, Buzz agents or something, but they’re actually fairly respectable simply because they require one thing: the agents to say that they’re being paid. End of story. I have no problem with bloggers making money, but that info out there and let people make up their own mind.

Another way to think about it: If PayPerPost was PayPerComment instead, and they paid people to leave comments shilling various products or services, what would you call it? What if they paid people to email their friends about something without disclosure? Would someone start an anti-PayPerPost Akismet, or a Firefox extension to detect and highlight people using them?

Youtube Coverage

Video

You’re probably reaching Youtube saturation this week, but some of the best coverage I’ve seen of the whole thing has been on the Utube Blog which seems to be picking up every major news story and trimming the fluff, which usually leaves a good sentence or two. I’ve subscribed there and I’m just skipping most blog posts I see about it. 🙂

Microsoft CodeCamp

Events, Google, Microsoft, Video,

I’m still in Vienna, but this Saturday morning I’ll be at Silicon Valley CodeCamp speaking on How to say no. My Mom would be so proud. Extra: my keynote from Blogtalk is online at Google video. You may or may not be able to tell, but I was fighting keeping my eyes open (it was 5 AM for me). Next time I speak overseas I’m going to factor in an extra day ahead of time to adjust my sleep fully.