I think it’s a great addition to the site and like the idea of short clips rather than long form amateur video. This will be a great way to capture the moment to share with friends, family and co-workers that are often so far away.
Video up above is from my friend Josh Ellingson, a talented San Francisco artist.
Click through for a completely ridiculous video of Olivia.
My pals Lee and Sachi LeFever of CommonCraft have done it again, just in time for SXSW. These guys do a really great job of explaining difficult topics in “plain english.” These videos are really great if you are just starting out trying to figure out this strange online world.
At last year’s SXSWi in Austin, TX, Twitter broke for the first time, err, um, was a break through product that helped people quickly figure out where the cool parties were and helped them track down their friends without calling them.
Since then, Twitter has been quickly adopted (and broken) by at least some of the masses (myself included).
I didn’t really get Twitter at first and I thought that it represented all the worst things about blogging (navel gazing, echo chamber). Here is a link to the day I spent talking about my cat in protest of Twitter. I even annoyed myself.
Eventually, I came around…
So, what the heck is Twitter? If you follow me on Facebook, you’ve probably seen my rapidly changing status. That’s coming from Twitter. And while I do kid about the Twitter uptime, by and large, they’ve created an incredible service based on something very simple.
I’m excited to be heading down to Austin once again for the yearly SXSWi Festival in Austin, Texas from Friday March 7th until Tuesday March 11. That little “i” next to SXSW means I’m not going to the film thing or the the music thing, I’m going to the nerd thing.
From last year’s SXSWi, here’s Ze Frank explaining SXSWi.
One day, when the kids are older, I’ll drag my wife out to Austin and we’ll do both Music and Interactive. Music, in particular, looks to be amazing.
Anyhow, if you are heading down and want to say hi, you can get in touch with me on my phone (if you have it), email me at randy@boxbe.com, direct message me on Twitter or turn up near me at one of the panels or parties I’m planning on attending.
As someone who designs products for a living, Kathy Sierra has been really instrumental in my continuing education of product design. Kathy has written a number of training books for O’Reilly and used to run a product design blog called “Creating Passionate Users”
Helping users “kick ass” has been my adopted mantra and I have Kathy to thank for that.
I really miss Kathy’s help in creating kick ass web sites so I was pretty happy to see this interview.
Here is a video interview from the recent Tools of Change conference. While the focus of the conference is publishing, this video serves as a great overview of Kathy’s studies and writings.
I’d complained for years that the California primary (and a few others) were held too late to matter. You’d think that the 5th largest economy in the world might play a slightly larger role in picking our next president.
No sooner did I leave the state, did they switch the primary to hang with the likes of New York, Illinois and 20 other states in handing out the largest number of delegates in a single day. Ugh.
Hangin’ at the caucus
There is a tiny chance Washington votes might matter in the primary. I’ll be going to my caucus on Saturday, but hopefully, the race will be decided by then.
How am I voting (or whatever it is I’ll be doing at a caucus)? Well, I heart Bill Clinton and wish that we could go back to the heady late 90’s. Hillary… um, well, I really like Bill Clinton and I think that having Bill back would be swell.
That said, I gotta go with Obama.
Here’s a video that a pal of mine, Eddie Codel did talking about Super Duper Tuesday and Obama.
So, I’m traveling right now for the Thanksgiving holiday and catching up with some shows is difficult to do (legally). Being on Pacific Time still, my wife and I aren’t exactly the best at going to bed early, so naturally, a little laptop enabled television entertainment is in order.
Normally, if there was a program that I missed or am away, I’d pay the $1.99 to download the episode, or in the case of many programs unavailable on iTunes, I’d find them… well, elsewhere. This morning, however, I got an invite from Hulu to try out their new service.
For your viewing pleasure, I share with you, The Simpsons. It’s not going to help you on that transcontinental plane ride to see your folks, but it will help you once you can’t go to bed at 8:00 pm PDT.
I have to say, it is cool to watch The Simpsons on your own blog.
Growing up in a union family, I’ve always had sympathy for the working man (ok, I’m also a working man, but you get the point).
Admittedly, some unions are better than others and not knowing both sides of the case, I whole heartedly, with full disclosure, present this video I found today about the writer’s strike going on in Hollywood.
Godspeed, Writer’s Guild of America and good luck. I’d like to see the Daily Show again this year.
Ah, Lee and Sachi LeFever, you’ve done it again! I love wikis, but often explaining a wiki to people who don’t use them can be difficult. And honestly, until Wetpaint, I didn’t recommend wikis to non-technical people as the wiki text used, while easier than HTML, isn’t that easy for non-techies to pick up.
Them: “what’s a wiki?” Me “um, it’s a web page that anyone can edit” Them“oh, like Wikipedia? you mean I can edit that?” Me: “ya, like Wikipedia, except it can be about anything you want” Them: “oh…That’s … kinda neat. But why would I want to make an encyclopedia about something else?” Me: “no, no, it doesn’t have to be an encyclopedia. It can be anything you want it to be. It can replace long email threads, it can replace message board thread gone amuck with the same questions over and over again. Wikis are really versatile.” Them: “oh… Hold on, hold on… Anyone can edit Wikipedia? How is it so good?”
Me: “Ugh.”
For a quick look at what a wiki is, click below for CommonCraft’s video. Thanks again for your help crystalizing this topic, Lee and Sachi.
A lot of folks get fancy-pants TLAs flung at them all day long. My pal Lee LeFever over at commoncraft just published an excellent (and short) video about what RSS is. Enjoy.
I’m a big fan of alternative means of watching television. Hell, I launched a separate (now sorta kinda abandoned) blog about it. So when ABCannounced that they were going to do high(er) definition versions of their show online, I was stoked.
I tried it out on launch day and got this image (which I thought was pretty funny):
Now, maybe it’s just me, but “advertisements not available” sounds like a feature, not a bug. Still, the fact that ABC is upping their video quality and offering a limited number of ads on their online programming is pretty cool.
In the last few months, I’ve become more and more disgruntled with my cable service. The cost is high and I simply don’t watch enough television to justify the price. The video quality is poor and the DVR makes me not want to watch television. The selection of video on demand and movies on the “movie” channels are so poor that we also subscribe to Netflix to supplement our entertainment “needs.”
I looked hard at our television viewing habits and realized that most of the tv programming we watch is freely available over the air. There are some exceptions but by and large our “regularly scheduled programming” comes from the big networks. The value proposition is just not there.
While we do receive HD signals from our provider and that provider is increasing the amount of HD channels on the network, by and large, HD content comes from the major networks. Standard definition, or SD content is so compressed, legitimate download sources are starting to look better.
Crappy picture, lack of selection and high costs leave me with two options.
I could sit and complain about it.
Or, I could ditch cable.
Given all that, we decided to ditch cable and launch this blog to tell you about it.
If you’d like to know more about my little experiment, head on over to Ditching Cable, where I’ll be showing folks how easy it is to get rid of your cable subscription. It’s a little raw right now, but I’ll be spending some of my time fixing it up in the next few weeks.
Feeling much like most sequels do, the EepyBird boys are back. Bigger and better than their first video, but lacking the wonder and awe. This time, they’re getting paid by Google, not Revver.
TechCrunch reports on the deal between Google, Eepybird and their new sponsors, Diet Coke and Mentos (You’d think that Diet Pepsi would beating down their door). According to the report, this will be the first of many sponsored videos from Google Video, but this doesn’t appear to be for just anyone. Google is focusing on the top producers, rather than their typical long tail.
Unfortunately, the biggest loser in this deal is Revver, but this certainly proves their business model.
