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Nov 24, 2009
YouTube rolls out automatic captions
Google has announced the addition of automatic captions to YouTube. In the accompanying video, the narrator mentions that sometimes the transcriptions are not completely accurate, but they are 'better than nothing.' Not the greatest endorsement of a service that has such extraordinary potential.
The automatic captioning is being rolled out with a handful of partners for feedback, so I would encourage users to give Google/YouTube your feedback so that they can make improvements and get this feature rolled out site wide. Not only will this allow the hearing impaired access to a much wider range of the video web, it also does translations opening that same content to speakers of different languages than the content originator. Add in the search capabilities that transcripts allow and this is an amazing step in increasing the usability and find-ability of video content.
Another feature that isn't as splashy but is also an immense timesaver is the auto-timing feature mentioned in the same announcement. You can add transcripts to your videos, and YouTube will parse them into captions that match up with your video. As anyone who has added captions to video can tell you this is an incredible time saver.
Sometimes, small is beautiful and you'll never hear me argue that fact. But sometimes it takes the scale of a Google to make changes of such wide scale impact occur.
Jun 02, 2009
Google I|O
Filed Under:
So, Google threw a party last week, and gave away party favors. Legos one day, and a Google Android phone the other. The Legos are being used, of course, and will continue to be in use for years to come. The phone? Hmm. It is an interesting question. As excited as I was to get my mitts on a new piece of technology, I am not sure how much use it will get.
Don't get me wrong, it is a nifty little device. If it had come out three years ago I would have lined up to get one. It isn't three years ago, however, and I've had an iPhone for two years now. They simply aren't comparable devices. Android has possibility for sure, and is head and shoulders above the current offerings from Palm, RIM and Microsoft... but the iPhone is the elephant in the room I'm afraid.
As for the actual purpose of the conference, Google has a lot of interesting tools that are available to developers for free. Of these, the most accessible are Google Web Elements. Just like you can embed a YouTube video by copying and pasting a bit of HTML into your web page, you can now do the same for maps, news, search and more. If you are using Google Docs, you can embed documents and presentations in your site as well. Simple, but useful.
The big splash at the event was the unveiling of a developer preview of Google Wave. It was billed as what communication methods would be like if they were built with today's technologies rather than relying on decades old standards and protocols. It is very slick. At the end of the presentation, the developers on hand gave it a standing ovation. It will be open source so that anybody can incorporate 'most' of the technology into their own apps. Yes, the future looks bright indeed. I would try and sum up what Wave is, but best to just show you the video:
Apr 29, 2008
21st Century Nomads
The Economist has a special report on the rise of digital nomads. It's fascinating to think that the concept of an office in the 20th century might be on its way to becoming as quaint a notion as a 19th century factory. Yes, factories still exist and offices will too, but it may turn out to be that the dominant work space paradigm in the coming years will have more to do with bandwidth and less to do with a single physical location. Of course, much of the world may end up being denied knowing the joy that is living in a cubicle farm. Yeah, like that's a bad thing.
Sadly, most of my adult life has been spent under fluorescent lights, and the thought of cutting ties with the cat-5 cable that connects me directly to the router in the data center in the next room is something that feels vaguely uncomfortable. I know that a lot of people are doing this now, from young urban adults who grew up with the internet, to people all around the globe, for whom mobile communications have opened up a lifeline to markets that would have been unimaginable 20 years ago. But what about those of us who came of age when the network was something that only existed in a closet where only the geekiest of geeks was allowed to enter? What are the chances that we'll be able to cut the cords that make us so comfortable, basking in the artificial glow?
I think we can make the adjustment, especially if you look at the benefits.
I have worked with people on different continents for years, but until recently, I had never been that person doing their work from thousands of miles away. Seeing it from the other end showed me that yes, you can be productive away from your desk in ways that you could never be behind it. You can do your work while meeting people you could never meet in your office, seeing things you would never see from a cubicle.
One of the things that was interesting to me was the notion that nomadism reinforces your existing societal ties and make your relationships with your close colleagues much tighter. You have to rely on them to keep up their end of the bargain, so the interdependency creates more trust. Makes sense. Nomadism can't work very well if you're working around the clock and your co-workers are calling in to meetings from the beach or golf course. What was confusing to me was that people are concerned that your relationships with society would suffer. I think this would be true in a strict telecommuting environment where you kept to yourself in a home office, but not if you work a good part of the time out in public. I would think that this would lead to a greater overlapping of societal spheres, and a better understanding of everyone around you rather than just those who sit closest to your desk.
The technology that makes digital nomadism such a viable option continues to evolve. Recently, Zoho announced improvements to their online spreadsheet as well as a partnership that will bring their tools to China. Google's online apps are constantly being revised. Yesterday, I was able to use one of Mac OS X's Leopard features for the first time, Back-to-My-Mac. (Ironically, I had to boot into Mac OS X Tiger in order to update my router in order to take advantage of this Leopard feature.) I can now access my home system from my laptop from any wifi connection (barring interference). Now, my whole backlog of files and useful little doodads are available to me wherever I go. This is not just insanely cool, but also insanely useful to the digital road warrior.
What other technologies are being brought to market that enhance our ability to move desk work out into the real world? I'll try and take a look around and bring some of the more interesting pieces out of the shadows over the next few weeks.
Sadly, most of my adult life has been spent under fluorescent lights, and the thought of cutting ties with the cat-5 cable that connects me directly to the router in the data center in the next room is something that feels vaguely uncomfortable. I know that a lot of people are doing this now, from young urban adults who grew up with the internet, to people all around the globe, for whom mobile communications have opened up a lifeline to markets that would have been unimaginable 20 years ago. But what about those of us who came of age when the network was something that only existed in a closet where only the geekiest of geeks was allowed to enter? What are the chances that we'll be able to cut the cords that make us so comfortable, basking in the artificial glow?
I think we can make the adjustment, especially if you look at the benefits.
I have worked with people on different continents for years, but until recently, I had never been that person doing their work from thousands of miles away. Seeing it from the other end showed me that yes, you can be productive away from your desk in ways that you could never be behind it. You can do your work while meeting people you could never meet in your office, seeing things you would never see from a cubicle.
One of the things that was interesting to me was the notion that nomadism reinforces your existing societal ties and make your relationships with your close colleagues much tighter. You have to rely on them to keep up their end of the bargain, so the interdependency creates more trust. Makes sense. Nomadism can't work very well if you're working around the clock and your co-workers are calling in to meetings from the beach or golf course. What was confusing to me was that people are concerned that your relationships with society would suffer. I think this would be true in a strict telecommuting environment where you kept to yourself in a home office, but not if you work a good part of the time out in public. I would think that this would lead to a greater overlapping of societal spheres, and a better understanding of everyone around you rather than just those who sit closest to your desk.
The technology that makes digital nomadism such a viable option continues to evolve. Recently, Zoho announced improvements to their online spreadsheet as well as a partnership that will bring their tools to China. Google's online apps are constantly being revised. Yesterday, I was able to use one of Mac OS X's Leopard features for the first time, Back-to-My-Mac. (Ironically, I had to boot into Mac OS X Tiger in order to update my router in order to take advantage of this Leopard feature.) I can now access my home system from my laptop from any wifi connection (barring interference). Now, my whole backlog of files and useful little doodads are available to me wherever I go. This is not just insanely cool, but also insanely useful to the digital road warrior.
What other technologies are being brought to market that enhance our ability to move desk work out into the real world? I'll try and take a look around and bring some of the more interesting pieces out of the shadows over the next few weeks.
Apr 09, 2008
Gadgets
Back in my oh so heady youth, when a company would make a presentation about setting up an online store, coding the back end of an online store, or storing product information in a database, the preferred generic, non-industry specific products that were proffered for theoretical sale were widgets, or their interchangeable counterpart, gadgets. Every once in a while a rookie salesperson would combine the two into Gidgets, and was forced to endure a flood of questions on the viability of a store that sold nothing but surf cinema paraphernalia.
Of course, a lot of what we thought we knew about the internet way back when turned out to be wrong. Gadgets and widgets aren't generic placeholders for real products you might sell, they're actual things that you can use to help market your organization. Well, actually they're virtual, not actual things. Virtually actual. Well, those quick little apps for your desktop that you think are really cool for an hour or two and then forget about after that.
The web has gotten in on this now, with Google Gadgets being the latest entry. We've been using Gydgets for ours. (No, Sally Field and Sandra Dee have nothing to do with Gydgets - as far as I know.) In both cases, you are walked through what used to be called a wizard, and you fill in various options to create your widget, gydget, gadget, flibberdygibbit thingamabob. Basic assumptions are made, and with an RSS feed and a YouTube channel of your own, you can create a blob for people to stick on other pages to promote your pages. Only, the results are varied. This is what my Google Gadget ended up looking like:
Those missing images? Ascii code that wasn't translated correctly somewhere along the line. Blech. Was it worth it to figure out where? Nope. And so, my experiment with Google Gadgets came to a close, and I put a note in the back of my head to check back on it again sometime in the future.
Or to simply make a Facebook app via Netvibes. More flexibility, more exposure.
Google Gadgets actually hung in there better than the ones I tried before finding Gydget.com. I won't bother boring you with the names of busted widget companies, and just say that the lack of flexibility on these nascent tools leaves a lot to be desired at this point. Focus on your content, and if one of these gidget-gadget-widget-thingamabob makers comes up with something useful, use it. And if, like Gydget, there's an interface to track where your flibberdygibbet is being used, you too might be dissapointed to find that there aren't that many people out there interested in promoting your stuff over theirs:
Depressingly enough, the 9 spots where the Untangled Gydget is located? Yeah, they're all me. More depressing? That makes this our most popular Gydget. The nice thing is that they're built and don't require any maintenance, so if they start taking off later, yippee! We could start a campaign in ou newsletter to promote them, and maybe then we'd see some traction, but that's not really what Social Edge is geared towards. If you're trying to get your visibility up through a word of mouth campaign via your most passionate advocates, this might be worth doing. Otherwise, your time and energy is probably better spent applying for a Google Adwords grant.
Of course, a lot of what we thought we knew about the internet way back when turned out to be wrong. Gadgets and widgets aren't generic placeholders for real products you might sell, they're actual things that you can use to help market your organization. Well, actually they're virtual, not actual things. Virtually actual. Well, those quick little apps for your desktop that you think are really cool for an hour or two and then forget about after that.
The web has gotten in on this now, with Google Gadgets being the latest entry. We've been using Gydgets for ours. (No, Sally Field and Sandra Dee have nothing to do with Gydgets - as far as I know.) In both cases, you are walked through what used to be called a wizard, and you fill in various options to create your widget, gydget, gadget, flibberdygibbit thingamabob. Basic assumptions are made, and with an RSS feed and a YouTube channel of your own, you can create a blob for people to stick on other pages to promote your pages. Only, the results are varied. This is what my Google Gadget ended up looking like:
Those missing images? Ascii code that wasn't translated correctly somewhere along the line. Blech. Was it worth it to figure out where? Nope. And so, my experiment with Google Gadgets came to a close, and I put a note in the back of my head to check back on it again sometime in the future.
Or to simply make a Facebook app via Netvibes. More flexibility, more exposure.
Google Gadgets actually hung in there better than the ones I tried before finding Gydget.com. I won't bother boring you with the names of busted widget companies, and just say that the lack of flexibility on these nascent tools leaves a lot to be desired at this point. Focus on your content, and if one of these gidget-gadget-widget-thingamabob makers comes up with something useful, use it. And if, like Gydget, there's an interface to track where your flibberdygibbet is being used, you too might be dissapointed to find that there aren't that many people out there interested in promoting your stuff over theirs:
Depressingly enough, the 9 spots where the Untangled Gydget is located? Yeah, they're all me. More depressing? That makes this our most popular Gydget. The nice thing is that they're built and don't require any maintenance, so if they start taking off later, yippee! We could start a campaign in ou newsletter to promote them, and maybe then we'd see some traction, but that's not really what Social Edge is geared towards. If you're trying to get your visibility up through a word of mouth campaign via your most passionate advocates, this might be worth doing. Otherwise, your time and energy is probably better spent applying for a Google Adwords grant.
Feb 13, 2008
Conventional Wisdom
Filed Under:
Is it just me, or is the conventional wisdom about what has value in the world been shifting? I was in an airport in Chicago recently where the bookstore had Muhammad Yunus' latest book, Creating a World Without Poverty, as it's most prominently featured title. This was after I had seen an article about him in the in-flight magazine on LAN Air. Then I saw him on The Colbert Report:
What does it say about us that amidst all of the clutter that qualifies as news and entertainment in our media, that a microfinance banker from Bangladesh is capturing the attention of so many?
Yesterday, Guy Kawasaki blogged about the cleverest idea he'd seen in years. The iPhone? Nope. The MacBook Air? Android? Microsoft buying Yahoo!? Zune no longer being available in brown? Nope. PlayPumps. He's also recently interviewed David Bornstein. When your mainstream business gurus start taking note of what social entrepreneurs are doing, something is definitely afoot.
Attitudes on the environment are changing too. Seth Godin blogged today about how his changing view on the environment shapes two recent consumer experiences he's had. Can this kind of thinking lead to changes in how companies package their products? Apple is touting how much they've reduced the packaging for the MacBook Air. Will other companies follow suit?
Robert Kennedy guest blogged on Google's corporate blog about ILoveMountains.org and how it uses Google Earth and Google Maps. Granted, it's good PR, but they're doing it nonetheless.
So is the conventional wisdom changing? Or will we still be dealing with these issues from the same place we are today thirty years on?
What does it say about us that amidst all of the clutter that qualifies as news and entertainment in our media, that a microfinance banker from Bangladesh is capturing the attention of so many?
Yesterday, Guy Kawasaki blogged about the cleverest idea he'd seen in years. The iPhone? Nope. The MacBook Air? Android? Microsoft buying Yahoo!? Zune no longer being available in brown? Nope. PlayPumps. He's also recently interviewed David Bornstein. When your mainstream business gurus start taking note of what social entrepreneurs are doing, something is definitely afoot.
Attitudes on the environment are changing too. Seth Godin blogged today about how his changing view on the environment shapes two recent consumer experiences he's had. Can this kind of thinking lead to changes in how companies package their products? Apple is touting how much they've reduced the packaging for the MacBook Air. Will other companies follow suit?
Robert Kennedy guest blogged on Google's corporate blog about ILoveMountains.org and how it uses Google Earth and Google Maps. Granted, it's good PR, but they're doing it nonetheless.
So is the conventional wisdom changing? Or will we still be dealing with these issues from the same place we are today thirty years on?
Nov 05, 2007
gPhone doesn't exist, will make you cookies
"All hail the mighty gPhone, even if it doesn't actually exist. Turns out, the gPhone is a mobile development platform with an OS called Android, middleware, "key" applications and a forthcoming SDK. Funny, I thought the press had pretty much decided that the gPhone was going to be the first phone to bake you cookies. Which would have made these kids happy:
"It would give me anything I want." At first, these kids were cute. Then, really annoying and cloying. Then, they simply became a representation of all that we've been told that an unannounced bit of technology would be. And just like the kids' visions of a phone that helps animals feel better and makes peanut butter sandwiches, the journalists' pronouncements on what the gPhone would be turned out to be nothing more than wishes.
Of course, what we really need from a cell phone are the two things that Google, Palm, Apple and other mobile software makers can't give us. Speed and coverage. Which is why Apple's iPhone is the first phone that doesn't make me want to slam it against a counter more often than I use it to talk to people. When coverage or speed from AT&T's network is pathetic, I flip over to the iPod functionality and enjoy some music or a movie. It downloads mail when I have coverage and I read them when I don't. It doesn't really matter how slick Android is, nor the apps that come with it, the network is still going to be as fast as a tricycle on a highway.
Interesting that they'll have an SDK out 3-4 months ahead of Apple's SDK, while phones built on the platform won't start showing up until next June at the earliest. Will the folks that make jailbreak apps for the iPhone convert their stuff over to work on phones that don't exist? Or will they be converting their stuff over to work "properly" via Apple's SDK in February? My bet is on the latter, since they and their customers will be able to use the fruit of their labors immediately.
Still, I'm looking forward to seeing what apps Google makes available and how they deal with the limitations of low bandwidth. Will they have a suite of mobile office apps? How well will they function? And the true test that won't come until late next year - how does the work people do on the phone convert over to their desks? We'll get a glimpse on November 12th - same day as the One Laptop Per Child Give One Get One program starts.
By the way, I've heard rumors that here on the Edge, we're going to be releasing the sePhone. It'll solve all of the world's social and economic inequities through the delivery of vibrations that cause the whole world to sing Earth, Wind & Fire's Let's Groove:
And everybody gets their own horn section! Because as we all know, that is the key to lasting happiness. We're still working out the kinks though. Right now, the vibration causes people to sing instrumentals. We'll keep working on it. Just don't hold your breath.
"It would give me anything I want." At first, these kids were cute. Then, really annoying and cloying. Then, they simply became a representation of all that we've been told that an unannounced bit of technology would be. And just like the kids' visions of a phone that helps animals feel better and makes peanut butter sandwiches, the journalists' pronouncements on what the gPhone would be turned out to be nothing more than wishes.
Of course, what we really need from a cell phone are the two things that Google, Palm, Apple and other mobile software makers can't give us. Speed and coverage. Which is why Apple's iPhone is the first phone that doesn't make me want to slam it against a counter more often than I use it to talk to people. When coverage or speed from AT&T's network is pathetic, I flip over to the iPod functionality and enjoy some music or a movie. It downloads mail when I have coverage and I read them when I don't. It doesn't really matter how slick Android is, nor the apps that come with it, the network is still going to be as fast as a tricycle on a highway.
Interesting that they'll have an SDK out 3-4 months ahead of Apple's SDK, while phones built on the platform won't start showing up until next June at the earliest. Will the folks that make jailbreak apps for the iPhone convert their stuff over to work on phones that don't exist? Or will they be converting their stuff over to work "properly" via Apple's SDK in February? My bet is on the latter, since they and their customers will be able to use the fruit of their labors immediately.
Still, I'm looking forward to seeing what apps Google makes available and how they deal with the limitations of low bandwidth. Will they have a suite of mobile office apps? How well will they function? And the true test that won't come until late next year - how does the work people do on the phone convert over to their desks? We'll get a glimpse on November 12th - same day as the One Laptop Per Child Give One Get One program starts.
By the way, I've heard rumors that here on the Edge, we're going to be releasing the sePhone. It'll solve all of the world's social and economic inequities through the delivery of vibrations that cause the whole world to sing Earth, Wind & Fire's Let's Groove:
And everybody gets their own horn section! Because as we all know, that is the key to lasting happiness. We're still working out the kinks though. Right now, the vibration causes people to sing instrumentals. We'll keep working on it. Just don't hold your breath.
Oct 02, 2007
Free Google Checkout for Non-profits
Is your business a 501(c)3? If so, Google has something free for you.
Google Checkout for Non-Profits is free through 2008, and allows you to collect donations on your site quickly and easily. They have also wrapped it up with their YouTube offering. Depending on what they charge for the service you may not want to use it in 2009, but until then, there's no good reason not to take advantage of it now. Then you can add a little box like this to your site:
No, we're not taking donations here on the Edge. That's just a screenshot, an example of what it will look like on your site. Chocolate, however, is always accepted around these parts. Mmm, chocolate. But food products are harder to send over Cat-5 and wi-fi than donations via Google Checkout.
Google Checkout for Non-Profits is free through 2008, and allows you to collect donations on your site quickly and easily. They have also wrapped it up with their YouTube offering. Depending on what they charge for the service you may not want to use it in 2009, but until then, there's no good reason not to take advantage of it now. Then you can add a little box like this to your site:
No, we're not taking donations here on the Edge. That's just a screenshot, an example of what it will look like on your site. Chocolate, however, is always accepted around these parts. Mmm, chocolate. But food products are harder to send over Cat-5 and wi-fi than donations via Google Checkout.
Sep 11, 2007
iTunes Adds Closed Captions
Filed Under:
Lately it seems as though the tech world hasn't been keeping up with accessibility. It's easy to overlook accessibility issues when you're in a rush to get things out to market, and it seems that closed captions have been one of the casualties of the market. I recently sat in on a conference session that dealt with accessibility issues in the Web 2.0 space, and as aware that all the cool whiz-bang features AJAX and Web 2.0 methodologies bring us aren't always developed with everyone in mind. It's still a young market, and I'm glad to see efforts made to close the gap here. What I didn't realize was that closed captions had taken such a hit.
It's understandable with the explosion of video podcasts that not everyone is adding captions to their videos they make in their mother's basement. We haven't done so with the X-Interviews - yet - and really, a lot of people are just starting to get the hang of getting video on the web at all. What surprised me, however, was that HDTV shows and digital downloads were either missing captions or they were difficult to access. I don't know anything about HDTV standards, but it seemed to me like this was a ridiculous problem to have with a technology that was designed to allow more information to be included in the stream, not less.
The digital downloads were less surprising, but still - Quicktime has included closed captions since 7.2 and the iTunes store sells TV shows that have already been captioned. Seems to me that this is a no-brainer. Somebody at Apple must have thought so too, as the new version of iTunes with it's highly touted ringtone feature also includes support for closed captioning. My iPhone is perpetually set to vibrate, so there's little concern that people watching a movie with me will be interrupted by the Commodores "Brick House" if my partner calls me. For me, the closed captioning support is a much more relevant and welcome addition.
It is supported in podcasts as well, as you can see in this SpaceGeek podcast. It's also a nice way to take video shot in one language and make the content available to people who speak other languages.
Hopefully, Apple will update the listings soon to provide an easy way to tell if a video is closed captioned or not. Right now, I can't tell what is or isn't. I searched for closed captioning and came up with one season each of 24 and Stargate - but neither mentioned if they actually were closed captioned. Still, it's a step in the right direction. The new iPods are also supporting captions, though I haven't seen that myself as of yet.
I should also note that Google Video supports closed captions, and has a nice, visible marker denoting videos as such. It's great to see this start to happen, and it will be interesting to see how it progresses. Hopefully there will be some decent, inexpensive automatic captioning applications soon so that everybody can include them in their videos easily whether they are filming on a big Hollywood sound stage or in their mother's basement.
It's understandable with the explosion of video podcasts that not everyone is adding captions to their videos they make in their mother's basement. We haven't done so with the X-Interviews - yet - and really, a lot of people are just starting to get the hang of getting video on the web at all. What surprised me, however, was that HDTV shows and digital downloads were either missing captions or they were difficult to access. I don't know anything about HDTV standards, but it seemed to me like this was a ridiculous problem to have with a technology that was designed to allow more information to be included in the stream, not less.
The digital downloads were less surprising, but still - Quicktime has included closed captions since 7.2 and the iTunes store sells TV shows that have already been captioned. Seems to me that this is a no-brainer. Somebody at Apple must have thought so too, as the new version of iTunes with it's highly touted ringtone feature also includes support for closed captioning. My iPhone is perpetually set to vibrate, so there's little concern that people watching a movie with me will be interrupted by the Commodores "Brick House" if my partner calls me. For me, the closed captioning support is a much more relevant and welcome addition.
It is supported in podcasts as well, as you can see in this SpaceGeek podcast. It's also a nice way to take video shot in one language and make the content available to people who speak other languages.
Hopefully, Apple will update the listings soon to provide an easy way to tell if a video is closed captioned or not. Right now, I can't tell what is or isn't. I searched for closed captioning and came up with one season each of 24 and Stargate - but neither mentioned if they actually were closed captioned. Still, it's a step in the right direction. The new iPods are also supporting captions, though I haven't seen that myself as of yet.
I should also note that Google Video supports closed captions, and has a nice, visible marker denoting videos as such. It's great to see this start to happen, and it will be interesting to see how it progresses. Hopefully there will be some decent, inexpensive automatic captioning applications soon so that everybody can include them in their videos easily whether they are filming on a big Hollywood sound stage or in their mother's basement.
Sep 04, 2007
TubeMogul
Filed Under:
Revver and Brightcove and Blip, oh my!
So many video upload services and so few hours in the day. How to choose which one to upload your videos to? And why?
Along with the services mentioned above, you could also use Yahoo!, Google, MySpace, MetaCafe, and DailyMotion in order to share your videos. And, of course, who can forget the $1.6B behemoth of the business, streaming their users' videos to computer screens, AppleTVs and iPhones everywhere, YouTube. (There are more, of course, but for the purposes of today's discussion, we'll stick with these.) If you are looking to plop your videos onto your own page any one of them will do so, with varying degrees of quality and ease.
If you're want to share your videos with as many users as possible, you might choose YouTube for the size of its audience, and risk getting lost among the dancing on treadmills and the ubiquitous hand-holding otters. You might have a better chance of breaking through on one of the smaller, less used sites. But why should you settle for just one? Well, because uploading videos to 9 different sites is a long, drawn out bore.
Thankfully, there's a site with an answer to what ails you, or at least what has been ailing me. TubeMogul allows you to store your login information for nine different video sharing sites and submit your video to all of them at once.
This week's X-Interview is the first video I've tried this with, and if the results are good, I'll go back and upload the previous X-Interviews (All 35 of them! Yikes, it may take me a bit of time even nine sites at a time!).
It takes a bit of time, but I've been writing this while letting the uploads run their course over in another browser window. Let's see what the results look like. I'll skip YouTube since that's what we've been using for the X-Interviews for a while now.
Yahoo!:
MySpace:
MetaCafe:
Google:
Revver:
DailyMotion:
Blip:
Brightcove:
Still waiting.
Not a process for the impatient, that's for sure. Still, a much less odious task than uploading them all one by one to each site. It is interesting to note the differences between the services, how they handle widescreen video (or don't), what kind of controller is included and what initial image is displayed. A lot is a matter of taste, but load time is the most important thing. You would hate to have users try to play a video and leave because it takes too long to load.
Options for captions are also something to take into consideration. I worked on adding closed captions to a video over the weekend, and it was not as simple as I thought it would be. I noticed that Google Video has an option for captioning, and I've read that YouTube does as well. More on that later, as I learn more about how to make video more accessible.
So many video upload services and so few hours in the day. How to choose which one to upload your videos to? And why?
Along with the services mentioned above, you could also use Yahoo!, Google, MySpace, MetaCafe, and DailyMotion in order to share your videos. And, of course, who can forget the $1.6B behemoth of the business, streaming their users' videos to computer screens, AppleTVs and iPhones everywhere, YouTube. (There are more, of course, but for the purposes of today's discussion, we'll stick with these.) If you are looking to plop your videos onto your own page any one of them will do so, with varying degrees of quality and ease.
If you're want to share your videos with as many users as possible, you might choose YouTube for the size of its audience, and risk getting lost among the dancing on treadmills and the ubiquitous hand-holding otters. You might have a better chance of breaking through on one of the smaller, less used sites. But why should you settle for just one? Well, because uploading videos to 9 different sites is a long, drawn out bore.
Thankfully, there's a site with an answer to what ails you, or at least what has been ailing me. TubeMogul allows you to store your login information for nine different video sharing sites and submit your video to all of them at once.
This week's X-Interview is the first video I've tried this with, and if the results are good, I'll go back and upload the previous X-Interviews (All 35 of them! Yikes, it may take me a bit of time even nine sites at a time!).
It takes a bit of time, but I've been writing this while letting the uploads run their course over in another browser window. Let's see what the results look like. I'll skip YouTube since that's what we've been using for the X-Interviews for a while now.
Yahoo!:
MySpace:
MetaCafe:
Google:
Revver:
DailyMotion:
Blip:
Brightcove:
Still waiting.
Not a process for the impatient, that's for sure. Still, a much less odious task than uploading them all one by one to each site. It is interesting to note the differences between the services, how they handle widescreen video (or don't), what kind of controller is included and what initial image is displayed. A lot is a matter of taste, but load time is the most important thing. You would hate to have users try to play a video and leave because it takes too long to load.
Options for captions are also something to take into consideration. I worked on adding closed captions to a video over the weekend, and it was not as simple as I thought it would be. I noticed that Google Video has an option for captioning, and I've read that YouTube does as well. More on that later, as I learn more about how to make video more accessible.
Aug 21, 2007
Who needs a computer?
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Coming from a geek like me, the question of 'who needs a computer?' might be a bit disingenuous, but hear me out. I may not be ready to give up my silicon on a regular basis, but it just might be possible now to run a company without dedicated computers - as long you have access to cyber cafes.
Google has been working on making it possible to ditch MS Office in favor of online applications. They bought Writely last year, and it's a pretty decent word processor. I'm not a big fan of spreadsheets, but other than not working with Safari, the Google Spreadsheet seems to do the job that most people will need it to do. Rounding out the suite will be presentation software - though there isn't a release date yet. Google has bought both Zenter and Tonic Systems so I would expect a bit of time will be needed to integrate the two. And, of course, a productivity suite wouldn't be complete without email and calendar functionality, which Google also offers.
Another option comes from Zoho. They came to my attention as a result of having an iPhone app for their services. In addition to having word processing, spreadsheet, and presentation apps, they also have database, CRM, group collaboration, web conferencing, mail and more. Most of their offerings are free, with some upgraded functionality being fee based. I've just started playing with the site and had one small bug show up when exporting a document, but it looks very promising. I'll dig more deeply and let you know what I think in follow-up posts. They've also just started to add the ability to go offline as well. Definitely something to keep an eye on.
I would be remiss in discussing online office tools if I didn't mention 37 Signals. They don't have an online MS Office replacement, but they do have BaseCamp, a great project management tool and Highrise for CRM, and a few other apps. Definitely worth checking into if you need a bit more robust toolset for a remote or geographically dispersed workgroup.
Last but seemingly not least is Jooce. Why run apps remotely when you can run a whole OS? Interesting concept, though the thought of running an entirely Flash based OS is a bit worrisome. Once they are out of Beta I'll definitely be checking it out. I like the idea of sitting down at any computer and logging in to my own workspace. I thought this would happen via Apple's never/not yet implemented "Home on iPod" feature, but I'm not holding my breath on that one.
Google has been working on making it possible to ditch MS Office in favor of online applications. They bought Writely last year, and it's a pretty decent word processor. I'm not a big fan of spreadsheets, but other than not working with Safari, the Google Spreadsheet seems to do the job that most people will need it to do. Rounding out the suite will be presentation software - though there isn't a release date yet. Google has bought both Zenter and Tonic Systems so I would expect a bit of time will be needed to integrate the two. And, of course, a productivity suite wouldn't be complete without email and calendar functionality, which Google also offers.
Another option comes from Zoho. They came to my attention as a result of having an iPhone app for their services. In addition to having word processing, spreadsheet, and presentation apps, they also have database, CRM, group collaboration, web conferencing, mail and more. Most of their offerings are free, with some upgraded functionality being fee based. I've just started playing with the site and had one small bug show up when exporting a document, but it looks very promising. I'll dig more deeply and let you know what I think in follow-up posts. They've also just started to add the ability to go offline as well. Definitely something to keep an eye on.
I would be remiss in discussing online office tools if I didn't mention 37 Signals. They don't have an online MS Office replacement, but they do have BaseCamp, a great project management tool and Highrise for CRM, and a few other apps. Definitely worth checking into if you need a bit more robust toolset for a remote or geographically dispersed workgroup.
Last but seemingly not least is Jooce. Why run apps remotely when you can run a whole OS? Interesting concept, though the thought of running an entirely Flash based OS is a bit worrisome. Once they are out of Beta I'll definitely be checking it out. I like the idea of sitting down at any computer and logging in to my own workspace. I thought this would happen via Apple's never/not yet implemented "Home on iPod" feature, but I'm not holding my breath on that one.
Aug 14, 2007
Paint It Black?
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I came across Blackle last week, and was kind of in awe at their claim that their implementation of Google's search with a black background could save so many watt hours. I thought about redoing the CSS for Social Edge to turn our background black and make our text white. I cringed at the thought, as reading white text on a black background is fine for logos, but not so good for anything more substantial than a tagline. Darkoogle is another site aimed at replacing Google's white background with black, only they've gone all terminal-retro with glowing green text to be more legible. Having been subjected to terminal applications in my past I can't look at green text on a black background without getting a little queasy.
Bill Weihl, Google's Green Energy Czar, points to a couple of studies that refute Blackle's claim. For CRT monitors, the claim holds up, for the most part, but for LCD monitors, the opposite might be true. So we're sticking with a white background for now. He also points out some other ways to save energy, including making sure that new computer purchases are Energy Star 4.0 compliant. I didn't know that there were different versions of Energy Star compliance, so I'm glad to see that the standards have been updated this year to require more efficient power supplies and power management features.
Bill Weihl, Google's Green Energy Czar, points to a couple of studies that refute Blackle's claim. For CRT monitors, the claim holds up, for the most part, but for LCD monitors, the opposite might be true. So we're sticking with a white background for now. He also points out some other ways to save energy, including making sure that new computer purchases are Energy Star 4.0 compliant. I didn't know that there were different versions of Energy Star compliance, so I'm glad to see that the standards have been updated this year to require more efficient power supplies and power management features.
Mar 20, 2007
Operator, Could You Help Me Place This Call?
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In last week's post, I discussed the promise of microformats and what they might be useful for down the road sometime. Well, I found something kind of useful involving microformats that's available now instead of down the road. It is a Firefox plug-in called Operator, and it can do some nifty things if the web site you are visiting is microformats aware.
Once I had installed Operator, I decided to try it out by searching for information on a favorite restaurant of mine, Croce's in San Diego, California. I searched Yahoo! Local for the address, and found the address. In my new toolbar, there was a drop down menu that could export the address:
That was pretty slick. Now the next time I'm in San Diego, I'll have the number with me and I'll be able to make a reservation without hunting down the number.
I searched Flickr for Croce's and came up with a picture of Jim Croce's guitar on the wall of the restaurant:
Better yet, this photo was geotagged, and so I was able to go directly to the location on Google Maps. Now THAT is really cool. Now whenever I see an image on Flickr, I'll be checking my toolbar to see if it was geotagged so I can see where it was taken.
I looked up A.J. Croce, Jim's son, on Upcoming.org to see if he was touring anywhere and found that he's going to be at the Coach House in San Juan Capistrano next month:
I can export the address of the venue, see it on a map and add the event to my Google Calendar. Now that's starting to get pretty useful.
I'm probably not going to make it to San Diego or San Juan Capistrano anythime soon, so I guess I'll make due with an old clip of Jim Crocesinging Operator:
Dec 05, 2006
Social Entrepreneur Mash-Ups
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This week's event on Social Edge asks you who your favorite social entrepreneur is. Well, what if you didn't have to choose just one? What if you could create the Social Entrepreneur equivalent of the Beatles? Oh sure, individually the Beatles were formidable. John had Imagine, Paul had Band on the Run, George had My Sweet Lord and Ringo had Caveman.
Think what it would be like if you could launch a social enterprise with all of your favorite social entrepreneurs. Jim Fruchterman slapping down a healthy bass line, Heidi Kühn keeping time on the kit, Matt Flannery wailing on a wah-wah stick and Muhammad Yunus rocking the hardware. For this week's event, we decided to put four of our favorite entrepreneur's together in a replica of the Beatles' first album cover.
Karen Tse, Blaise Judja-Sato, Muhammad Yunus and Victoria Hale, Heavyweights, indeed. Perhaps the Traveling Wilburys would have been a more appropriate model.
With a Web 2.0 approach to integration, this kind of entrepreneurial mash-up is certainly possible. I'm thinking of something along the lines of a Kiva + Roots of Peace + Google Maps + Flickr mash-up that let's you buy fruit from a specific farmer in Afghanistan, read about them, see where they are located and see pictures of their orchards. GlobalGiving + International Bridges To Justice that allows you to give financial aid to specific legal battles and research the issues involved. Riders for Health + Institute for OneWorld Health + Healthcare Without Harm + VillageReach working together to get the latest medicines to the most remote parts of Africa.
Makes me look at the issues of scale in a whole new light. A bunch of small organizations working together could have a greater impact than a single large organization with a limited focus. Imagine the possibilities.
Think what it would be like if you could launch a social enterprise with all of your favorite social entrepreneurs. Jim Fruchterman slapping down a healthy bass line, Heidi Kühn keeping time on the kit, Matt Flannery wailing on a wah-wah stick and Muhammad Yunus rocking the hardware. For this week's event, we decided to put four of our favorite entrepreneur's together in a replica of the Beatles' first album cover.
Karen Tse, Blaise Judja-Sato, Muhammad Yunus and Victoria Hale, Heavyweights, indeed. Perhaps the Traveling Wilburys would have been a more appropriate model.
With a Web 2.0 approach to integration, this kind of entrepreneurial mash-up is certainly possible. I'm thinking of something along the lines of a Kiva + Roots of Peace + Google Maps + Flickr mash-up that let's you buy fruit from a specific farmer in Afghanistan, read about them, see where they are located and see pictures of their orchards. GlobalGiving + International Bridges To Justice that allows you to give financial aid to specific legal battles and research the issues involved. Riders for Health + Institute for OneWorld Health + Healthcare Without Harm + VillageReach working together to get the latest medicines to the most remote parts of Africa.
Makes me look at the issues of scale in a whole new light. A bunch of small organizations working together could have a greater impact than a single large organization with a limited focus. Imagine the possibilities.
Nov 28, 2006
The Web Beyond Your Web Site
I have a diagram in my office that delineates the Elements of User Experience. It is a very helpful roadmap on how to conceptualize, design and develop a web site. You start with your objectives and the needs of your users and you work your way through functional specs and content requirements to your interation design and information architecture before working out your information design and then finally you get to work on the part that is usually the first consideration of web site development, the visual design.
It's a solid model to keep in mind when developing a web site, which is why I have it on my wall. It also gives me something to point at when somebody asks why making the site pretty is the last part of the process. Never underestimate the power of having outside expert opinion to point to when creating something new.
Once you have built your site, you might feel that your work is done. Take your team out and celebrate the accomplishment, but remember that your work is only just getting started. There's scaling to worry about, the acquisition and intelligent analysis of statistics and, of course, SEO - otherwise known as Search Engine Optimization or "How to get Google to notice me." Maybe there's an AdSense account in your near-term future. These are all important tasks, but there's more to your organization's presence on the web than just your web site.
The data on your web site is just that, data. Your site is one way for you to share that data with your intended audiences. It is one very effective way of sharing your information, but it is not the only way. Think of your web site as your store and your home page as your storefront. Your Google ranking will tell you if you're in a big shopping mall or a little strip mall. You can sell your wares, you can advertise to let people know where you're located and you can do a nice little business this way. Even in a strip mall.
Or you can find more places to display your wares/data. Starbuck's isn't content with having a store on every corner, including locations across the street from each other. There are 4 Starbuck's within a block and a half of my house, but they don't stop there. They also have mini-coffee shops in my grocery store, book store and convenience store, not to mention the Starbuck's branded ice cream and coffee beans on the shelves too.
Your data is your tall mocha mint frappucinno half-fat no whip blended whatchamacallit. You don't have to limit yourself to your local strip mall. Get it out there and put it to good use.
You could create a NetVibes module that keeps people updated with the latest postings on your site. Dappit.com/Dapper allows you to create "Dapps" that utilise your data by browing your web site and automatically figuring out what the data points are. It even lets you create NetVibes modules as a result. (Caveat - I tried this with two different sites with very different results - one worked fine, the other was, shall we say, confused.) You can create Widgets and Gadgets and put your data on people's desktops. Plenty has been written of late about Second Life. Share your podcasts out on iTunes. There are plenty of tools available now that let you open up your own little mini-site within the context of somebody elses.
It's a wild and wooly web out there. Don't get stuck in a corner, get entangled.
It's a solid model to keep in mind when developing a web site, which is why I have it on my wall. It also gives me something to point at when somebody asks why making the site pretty is the last part of the process. Never underestimate the power of having outside expert opinion to point to when creating something new.
Once you have built your site, you might feel that your work is done. Take your team out and celebrate the accomplishment, but remember that your work is only just getting started. There's scaling to worry about, the acquisition and intelligent analysis of statistics and, of course, SEO - otherwise known as Search Engine Optimization or "How to get Google to notice me." Maybe there's an AdSense account in your near-term future. These are all important tasks, but there's more to your organization's presence on the web than just your web site.
The data on your web site is just that, data. Your site is one way for you to share that data with your intended audiences. It is one very effective way of sharing your information, but it is not the only way. Think of your web site as your store and your home page as your storefront. Your Google ranking will tell you if you're in a big shopping mall or a little strip mall. You can sell your wares, you can advertise to let people know where you're located and you can do a nice little business this way. Even in a strip mall.
Or you can find more places to display your wares/data. Starbuck's isn't content with having a store on every corner, including locations across the street from each other. There are 4 Starbuck's within a block and a half of my house, but they don't stop there. They also have mini-coffee shops in my grocery store, book store and convenience store, not to mention the Starbuck's branded ice cream and coffee beans on the shelves too.
Your data is your tall mocha mint frappucinno half-fat no whip blended whatchamacallit. You don't have to limit yourself to your local strip mall. Get it out there and put it to good use.
You could create a NetVibes module that keeps people updated with the latest postings on your site. Dappit.com/Dapper allows you to create "Dapps" that utilise your data by browing your web site and automatically figuring out what the data points are. It even lets you create NetVibes modules as a result. (Caveat - I tried this with two different sites with very different results - one worked fine, the other was, shall we say, confused.) You can create Widgets and Gadgets and put your data on people's desktops. Plenty has been written of late about Second Life. Share your podcasts out on iTunes. There are plenty of tools available now that let you open up your own little mini-site within the context of somebody elses.
It's a wild and wooly web out there. Don't get stuck in a corner, get entangled.
Nov 07, 2006
The Enchanted Wiki Room
As a child growing up in the shadow of Disneyland, I spent many a day at the "happiest place on earth." The Jungle Cruise, Pirates of the Carribean, Haunted Mansion - good times all. And yes, I still lament the passing of Adventure Through Inner Space to make room in Tomorrowland for StarTours.
And then there was the Enchanted Tiki Room, brought to you perpetually by those fine folks at Dole. (Large, slow loading YouTube video follows:)
Apparently, I wasn't the only one who didn't quite get it. In my mind this attraction was nothing more than a fiendish plot to keep me from getting another ride on Space Mountain. That and those parades. Everybody's sitting down and watching the parades - c'mon! That means they're not in line for Big Thunder! Let's go!
For a long time I felt the same way about wikis. Not that a wiki has ever kept me from enjoying a roller coaster, but I just didn't quite get them. What's a wiki anyway? An encyclopedia? A workspace? A collaborative brou-haha?
According to Wikipedia, "A wiki (IPA: [ˈwɪ.kiː] or [ˈwiː.kiː] [1]) is a type of Web site that allows the visitors themselves to easily add, remove, and otherwise edit and change some available content, sometimes without the need for registration."
That's it. Nothing terribly fancy about that. But not all wikis are the same. Some are simple, others complex. It all depends on what the wiki is for, who uses it and what functionality is included.
So don't worry about getting a wiki up for your organization. You don't need a wiki. Unless you do. If you need to work collaboratively with co-workers or with folks from other organizations, a wiki might help you out. Or if you have a community of users who want to share their knowledge and expertise with each other - an with you - a wiki might be the way to go. Define your need first, then find the tool that best addresses your need.
There are plenty of options to choose from. Sure, JotSpot is down for new users now that they've been absorbed by the Google-plex, but if you want a hosted collaborative workspace-type wiki, SocialText, WetPaint and Yahoo Groups are all viable options. If you are looking for a more robust, project oriented solution Basecamp is a robust solution.
If you're looking to have a mini-Wikipedia on your site, chances are that you'll want to integrate it into your current development environment. Content management systems such as Drupal and Plone have optional wiki modules, or products. You can also build collaborative workspaces utilizing a content managements user profile security and collaborative functionality from calendars to document sharing to create a custom tailored collaborative experience. It might not be a wiki, exactly, but if it works you can call it whatever you like.
If that means filling it with animatronic birds and dubbing it the Enchanted Wiki Room, that's fine, just as long as I get one more ride on Adventure Through Inner Space.
And then there was the Enchanted Tiki Room, brought to you perpetually by those fine folks at Dole. (Large, slow loading YouTube video follows:)
Apparently, I wasn't the only one who didn't quite get it. In my mind this attraction was nothing more than a fiendish plot to keep me from getting another ride on Space Mountain. That and those parades. Everybody's sitting down and watching the parades - c'mon! That means they're not in line for Big Thunder! Let's go!
For a long time I felt the same way about wikis. Not that a wiki has ever kept me from enjoying a roller coaster, but I just didn't quite get them. What's a wiki anyway? An encyclopedia? A workspace? A collaborative brou-haha?
According to Wikipedia, "A wiki (IPA: [ˈwɪ.kiː]
That's it. Nothing terribly fancy about that. But not all wikis are the same. Some are simple, others complex. It all depends on what the wiki is for, who uses it and what functionality is included.
So don't worry about getting a wiki up for your organization. You don't need a wiki. Unless you do. If you need to work collaboratively with co-workers or with folks from other organizations, a wiki might help you out. Or if you have a community of users who want to share their knowledge and expertise with each other - an with you - a wiki might be the way to go. Define your need first, then find the tool that best addresses your need.
There are plenty of options to choose from. Sure, JotSpot is down for new users now that they've been absorbed by the Google-plex, but if you want a hosted collaborative workspace-type wiki, SocialText, WetPaint and Yahoo Groups are all viable options. If you are looking for a more robust, project oriented solution Basecamp is a robust solution.
If you're looking to have a mini-Wikipedia on your site, chances are that you'll want to integrate it into your current development environment. Content management systems such as Drupal and Plone have optional wiki modules, or products. You can also build collaborative workspaces utilizing a content managements user profile security and collaborative functionality from calendars to document sharing to create a custom tailored collaborative experience. It might not be a wiki, exactly, but if it works you can call it whatever you like.
If that means filling it with animatronic birds and dubbing it the Enchanted Wiki Room, that's fine, just as long as I get one more ride on Adventure Through Inner Space.
Oct 25, 2006
DIY Google Search
Filed Under:
Google has rolled out a customizable version of their search functionality, so now anyone can roll their own custom search engine. Here's one I made and cheekily decided to call Social Edge Re:Search:
It searches a limited number of sites in the social entrepreneurship field, such as Omidyar.net, Changemakers.net, Kiva.org, GlobalGiving.com and the like. If you Google "job listings" you are going to find a whole heck of a lot of Monster.com and HotJobs listings before you ever find listings from companies seeking social entrepreneurs. If you Re:Search "job listings" via the search box above, you will find job listings from the sites that Social Edge (in this case, me) has pre-selected as being relevant to the field of social entrepreneurship.
I've never been a big fan of customizable functionality that you link to from your site, and even though the search is integrated into this blog post, it still takes you off of the site and onto Google's site. At least it does by default. There is also the option to have the results hosted on your own page as well, and a Google AJAX search API available if you wanted to get really fancy. If this functionality is of use to your customers, take a little extra time and make it part of your site. Who knows? Re:Search might make it into the upcoming redesign of the Social Edge website, and if it does, rest assured that it will be fully integrated.
Also by default, ads are included in your results. If you don't want the ads to show, there is a checkbox for 501(c)(3) non-profits, universities and government agencies to turn the ads off. If, however, you are interested in making a little extra coinage, you can connect it to a new or existing AdSense account.
You can also share the burden of managing the custom search engine with others. By default, visitors can volunteer for this "privelege", or you can choose to restrict it to people you invite, like your unsuspecting co-workers.
One word of warning is that this is brand spanking new, and I've already come across one Safari bug related to some Ajax-y input for adding new sites. Worked fine from Firefox, but I haven't tried it out on Windows at all yet. I'm sure the Safari bug is just an oversight, since Google is working to make sure they're very Mac-friendly. Not surprising given that their CEO is now on Apple's board.
More information is available on John Battelle's SearchBlog.
It searches a limited number of sites in the social entrepreneurship field, such as Omidyar.net, Changemakers.net, Kiva.org, GlobalGiving.com and the like. If you Google "job listings" you are going to find a whole heck of a lot of Monster.com and HotJobs listings before you ever find listings from companies seeking social entrepreneurs. If you Re:Search "job listings" via the search box above, you will find job listings from the sites that Social Edge (in this case, me) has pre-selected as being relevant to the field of social entrepreneurship.
I've never been a big fan of customizable functionality that you link to from your site, and even though the search is integrated into this blog post, it still takes you off of the site and onto Google's site. At least it does by default. There is also the option to have the results hosted on your own page as well, and a Google AJAX search API available if you wanted to get really fancy. If this functionality is of use to your customers, take a little extra time and make it part of your site. Who knows? Re:Search might make it into the upcoming redesign of the Social Edge website, and if it does, rest assured that it will be fully integrated.
Also by default, ads are included in your results. If you don't want the ads to show, there is a checkbox for 501(c)(3) non-profits, universities and government agencies to turn the ads off. If, however, you are interested in making a little extra coinage, you can connect it to a new or existing AdSense account.
You can also share the burden of managing the custom search engine with others. By default, visitors can volunteer for this "privelege", or you can choose to restrict it to people you invite, like your unsuspecting co-workers.
One word of warning is that this is brand spanking new, and I've already come across one Safari bug related to some Ajax-y input for adding new sites. Worked fine from Firefox, but I haven't tried it out on Windows at all yet. I'm sure the Safari bug is just an oversight, since Google is working to make sure they're very Mac-friendly. Not surprising given that their CEO is now on Apple's board.
More information is available on John Battelle's SearchBlog.
Oct 10, 2006
Google Buys Social Edge For Lunch
Lost in yesterday's headlines about North Korea + Nukes and Google + YouTube was another merger, that of Google + Social Edge:
Okay, this merger was strictly in my head, as I work on the design for the new Social Edge site, coming soon. Still, I envy a site design that is that simple, clean and pure.
Okay, I also envy the thought of having $1.65 Billion to play with, but let's not venture off into Fantasyland too much. $1,650,000,000. That's enough to build your own evil empire with:
As far as Google + YouTube, I have to admit that I don't quite get it. It seems to me to be an obscene amount of money to pay for something that you have already built yourself. Especially when so much of the content is of questionable copyright validity. I mean, what did Napster sell for? $8M.* What is the difference here?
Well, if I understand those kinds of questions, maybe I would have that $1.65B to play around with. Instead, I find myself wondering more and more about the advantages one finds in the social sector, where the competition that drives a company to buy up a competitor that has the same basic product simply doesn't exist. Then again, maybe I'm still suffering from an acute case of naiveté.
Still, I think that one of the interesting things that can happen in the social sector is that the different organizations supporting social entrepreneurs can excel at different parts of the puzzle and integrate our work together for the benefit of the whole sector. Utilizing a common identity system is the most obvious first step, but there are plenty of other ways for the work we do here to integrate with the work others do in the social sector.
Right now, I'm more concerned with getting the revised Social Edge site wrapped up and in your hands, and then with the inevitable clean-up that follows such a task. It'll be interesting to see how things shake up after that. More interesting than building the same things as everybody else and then trying to mash like things together like they do over in the non-social sector.
Sep 19, 2006
Say Hellodeo!
Last week I blogged about posting video to your website or blog using Google Video or YouTube.
What I failed to mention was how to get the video recorded on your
computer in the first place. I used iMovie on my MacBook with a built
in iSight webcam, which was very simple, and allowed me to add an
opening title screen without much thought. Don't worry, I'm not about
to say "I'm a Mac" and how everything just kind of works out of the box. Even if it did, kind of, just work. Right out of the box.
We don't all have the latest and greatest toys from Apple to help turn us into web video stars. (And if you're of a certain age, I'm sorry if that Buggles song I included in last week's post is now playing in your head.) Some of us have Windows, Red Hat Linux or Ubuntu running on our desktops. Or even pre-OSX Macs. (Perish the thought!) I know at my house, I have a Mac that is candy colored still instead of sleek aluminum. Sure, it's older than broadband, but it works.
So, what's the easiest way to record and post video directly to the web? If you have a webcam, an internet connection, and a Flash-enabled browser, you might want to give Hellodeo a try.
It's free to record and post video to the service right from the home page. I had to switch the camera option from DV camera to USB to get it to record, but it was a really easy process. It also has an option for a Firewire based camera. If you have a camcorder with a Firewire/iLink/iEEE1394 connector and a computer with the same, you should be able to use that as well.
The video quality is not as good as recording direct with iMovie or other video software, but you can't beat the price - or the ease of use. Like YouTube and Google Video, once you've recorded and submitted your video you are given a string of code to copy and paste into your browser. This took a little bit of time to be generated for me, so be patient once you submit.
Also of note, when I copied and pasted the code into Blogger, I had to use the "Stop showing HTML errors for this post" checkbox in order for the post to be submitted. Less than optimal, but it works. There's no tagging involved yet, so you won't be searchable like you would be on YouTube, Google Video, or Flickr. Your clip is added to their homepage right after you submit it, however, so if you're camera shy - well, why would you be camera shy? If you are, just make sure that you post videos of others and not yourself.
Hellodeo is from those fine folks over at Odeo, who offer the same kind of utility for recording and storing podcasts. We'll save that for another day. For now, if you are looking for a quick and easy way to record and post video to you site or blog, I recommend trying Hellodeo to help get your message out. I also recommend saying "Umm..." less often than I do. But hey, we can't all give presentations as slick as Steve Jobs. Nor do we have to if the story we're telling is compelling.
We don't all have the latest and greatest toys from Apple to help turn us into web video stars. (And if you're of a certain age, I'm sorry if that Buggles song I included in last week's post is now playing in your head.) Some of us have Windows, Red Hat Linux or Ubuntu running on our desktops. Or even pre-OSX Macs. (Perish the thought!) I know at my house, I have a Mac that is candy colored still instead of sleek aluminum. Sure, it's older than broadband, but it works.
So, what's the easiest way to record and post video directly to the web? If you have a webcam, an internet connection, and a Flash-enabled browser, you might want to give Hellodeo a try.
It's free to record and post video to the service right from the home page. I had to switch the camera option from DV camera to USB to get it to record, but it was a really easy process. It also has an option for a Firewire based camera. If you have a camcorder with a Firewire/iLink/iEEE1394 connector and a computer with the same, you should be able to use that as well.
The video quality is not as good as recording direct with iMovie or other video software, but you can't beat the price - or the ease of use. Like YouTube and Google Video, once you've recorded and submitted your video you are given a string of code to copy and paste into your browser. This took a little bit of time to be generated for me, so be patient once you submit.
Also of note, when I copied and pasted the code into Blogger, I had to use the "Stop showing HTML errors for this post" checkbox in order for the post to be submitted. Less than optimal, but it works. There's no tagging involved yet, so you won't be searchable like you would be on YouTube, Google Video, or Flickr. Your clip is added to their homepage right after you submit it, however, so if you're camera shy - well, why would you be camera shy? If you are, just make sure that you post videos of others and not yourself.
Hellodeo is from those fine folks over at Odeo, who offer the same kind of utility for recording and storing podcasts. We'll save that for another day. For now, if you are looking for a quick and easy way to record and post video to you site or blog, I recommend trying Hellodeo to help get your message out. I also recommend saying "Umm..." less often than I do. But hey, we can't all give presentations as slick as Steve Jobs. Nor do we have to if the story we're telling is compelling.
