Bill Cammack

hahahaha ok… Jonny’s going to have to change something over @ ReinventingTV.com! Last night’s show was OUTLANDISH! :D …

The first half was Steve Woolf & Zadi Diaz from Smashface.com / Jetsetshow. That would have been a funny and entertaining hour on its own…..

… but then Dan McVicar (LateNiteMash.com) jumped up in the mix, and everything went berserk! :D

Somebody says something funny, and then I’m laughing, but then I need to read the text chat then I look back up and Laurel & Hardy have bogarted Dan’s screen, so I’m laughing again and trying to type… Next thing I know, Jonny has an afro-wig, and he’s playing some instrument it looks like he created himself… Meanhile, Zadi & Steve are talking about Dan while the text chat peanut gallery’s talking about Zadi & Steve… :D

It was CRAYZEE!!! :D It was like the video-intenet-webcam-text_chat version of when they get into fights in the cartoons and all you see is a cloud of dust spinning around with fists flying in and out of the cloud. Hilarious. I’m going to have to watch the show MYSELF, just to see/hear what was happening while I was laughing or trying to get my own jokes in on the text chat or watching one brady bunch box when there was action going on in another box.

Hilarious. THAT show should definitely have been two hours instead of one, because the crowd was getting more amped the whole time! The show was just getting better and better, hahaha.

Anyway, this week’s Reinventing Television was a blast! Kudos to the hosts, guests and the “live studio audience” for keeping the party rollin’ hahaha :D

Violet Galagarza, Choreographer & Founder of KR3TS Dance Company, was filmed by City Lights Media Group for TLC’s “Cover Shot”. The selected photo was featured on a 50 foot tall billboard in Times Square!

Having now placed videos on YouTube, Google Video, Revver, Brightcove, Blip, and Myspace… as well as hosting video on my own site and feeding my podcast to iTunes…..

I’ve come to the conclusion that marketing is more important than location. I purposely didn’t publicize any of the videos that I posted in order to see what would happen on each site. YouTube continues to get the most random hits, but that’s probably because they have the most viewers that are searching for random topics. MySpace had a slowly rising number of views, probably for the same reason.

A couple of the sites (I forget which, at this point) only count your video as a “view” if someone watches the whole thing. That’s pretty useless for the types of videos that I had posted, because mine have beginnings and ends. It’s clear that the video is over before it’s actually over, so there’s no real reason to go all the way to the end. That’s because I made the clips as mini-shows and not viral video. They’re supposed to take the viewer through a complete entry into and exit from the world of ReelSolid. That format’s going to be changed for my next show, which I’m working on right now.

As far as revenue-sharing, that’s all well and good IF you’re making videos that people are going to want to watch over and over, like the one where the guy gets his foot caught in the rope swing and gets bashed into the stone wall like Wile E. Coyote. :D THAT’S viral video. That’s video that someone watches 20 times, then tells 20 of their friends to watch 20 times, then watches another 20 times the next day and so on and so on. If you’re not making those kind of videos, the ROI is just about nothing. I suppose you could say that if your “I” is nothing, then you have nothing to lose by putting something on Revver or Brightcove. Some people litter those sites with tons of very short videos and get a lot of hits and make money from them… kudos! :)

Ultimately, I like serving my own videos. I haven’t been impressed with the playback from other services, but that might be because I’m on an older computer and those sites are opimized for dual-core-blah-blah-blah.

My next show is going to be a form of videoblog, so I’ll be changing the site… AGAIN, and moving videos to blip.tv. One of the reasons for this is that Revver and Brightcove are clearly viral video sites, and that’s what they specialize in. Blip’s more geared towards videoblogging, so it seems more ‘natural’ to have a presence there than the other sites. I might make viral versions of the shows, and that would be fine for me to have on these quick-hit sites, but for now, I’m going to focus on the actual content and placing it where I feel it’s part of a community instead of somewhere I tossed it to see what would happen.

“Zoom In” has been renamed “Celluloid Stories”, and is now on http://celluloidstories.com/

Episode 4: Shilpi Gupta

==> Watch “Celluloid Stories” Episode 3! <==

Episode 3: Julie Talen

==> Watch “Celluloid Stories” Episode 4! <==

This evening, I attended the pulver.com and network2.tv networking event at the Proof Bar & Lounge in Manhattan, NYC. There was a really good turnout and the place was packed. Amongst others, I met:

Jeff Pulver: pulver.com
Chris Brogan: network2.tv
Rudy Jahchan & Casey McKinnon: galacticast.com
Kendall James: skilltip.tv
David Kowarsky: focus.blip.tv
Michael Schreiber: realmeals.tv
Dina Kaplan: blip.tv
Drew Olanoff: bestdamntech.com, scriggity.com
Jeff Lofgren: g14productions.com
& Public Relations specialist, Sherry, who has yet to begin her videoblogging career, but definitely NEEDS TO HAVE her own vlog!!! :D

Thanks Jeff & Chris for making it all happen!

Official Coverage ==> http://pulverblog.pulver.com/archives/005981.html

Rudy J, Charles H, Casey M

The Dynamic Duo of Galacticast ( www.galacticast.com ) came to town today. I met up with Casey & Rudy to hang out, along with Charles from blip.tv and a Rudy’s friend, Michael, who traveled down from Canada with them. :)

Roxanne Darling of beachwalks.tv was in town today. I had a great time this afternoon. :D

Here’s the “BeachWalk” we did together: Beach Walk #258 OTR

initially, we were going to meet up with Jan… another videoblogger, but it turned out that she had to work alllllllllllll day, so Rox and I decided to meet up @ 3pm. I had had a bunch of ideas where we could have gone to shoot near water, but it was raining AND foggy, so we decided on South Street Seaport, since it’s by the water, but the upper levels provide cover from the rain. Rox ended up taking a cab instead of the subway, so I headed west to meet her @ the West Side Highway. It would have taken her A LONG TIME to get to the east side with mid-day traffic, so I passed the WTC and checked out Battery Park City for potential locations.

When the cab showed up, I noticed that Rox was filming the driver. It turns out that he’s a musician and makes CDs that are right up beachwalks.tv’s alley. From there, we headed west to the Hudson river, but it was really too foggy to see Jersey on the other side, and I thought I could BARELY make out the Statue of Liberty. We found a spot and did our BeachWalks episode.

Since we were running out of daylight, I suggested that we walk the two blocks over to the WTC. We were coming from the west, where there isn’t any public transportation, except cabs, and maybe one bus line if it runs down the W.S.H. Everyone else approaches from the east (unless they live in Battery Park City). Because of that, the tourist-y information booth and photo gallery is set up to accommodate people coming from the east, and it was completely on the other side of the site from where we were. We stopped at a section where you can see in without fanfare, lights, colors, tourists or pictures. I was in NYC on the day-of, but Rox had mentioned that she probably hadn’t been here in eight years, so I figured she hadn’t seen the location with her own eyes… Actually, probably more important than SEEING is BEING so close to where the towers used to stand and seeing how far down it is to the construction from ground level, and seeing how wide the missing area is, compared to the buildings that surround that area…. as well as understanding that so many people died right.over.there. I could tell Rox was having a moment… she decided not to tape…….

From there, we checked out the tourist setup, complete with bright colors, poignant pictures and captions that said something like “time to move on”, which was REALLY funny/interesting, because after experiencing the site, when we started walking, Rox was talking about people’s reactions to things and how people try to say how someone should or should not react. It was as if someone rushed up and painted that AFTER listening to what we were talking about on the way there. :D

After that, we found a cafe and had a really interesting conversation, mostly about videoblogging, with a minor in psychology. Eventually, it was time for Rox to head out, so we hopped on the train and got out of dodge.

I had a great afternoon. Rox is a really fun and intelligent person, and as a ‘hardcore’ New Yorker, I got to enjoy a non-New-Yorker’s reactions to things like the WTC and crowded sidewalks. :D

The Saga Continues……..

This Thursday’s "Reinventing Television"

Originally uploaded by Bill C..

Jonny’s guests this week on “Reinventing Television” are Zadi Diaz, Ryanne Hodson, Michael Verdi, Jay Dedman.

Make sure you show up early, so you don’t miss out on J.Goldstein’s HARMONICA SKILLZ!!! :D

==> Watch the Video! <==
==> Read The Chat! <==

According to TMZ.com (which is automatically plastered on your screen when you go to AOL’s web site :/ ), Kirstie Alley lost a bunch of weight and went on “Oprah”.

Let’s see if she starts getting offers for different roles, now. :D

So, how embarrassing is THIS? :D

I put my video on Brightcove hours ago. Way later, I put my video on Revver. Brightcove doesn’t have anything that tells you you need to be approved, but Revver does. Revver approved me in a decent amount of time. I wasn’t expecting it to be that quick, or I would have timed it. It was definitely approved in between my last post and way before right now.

So as soon as it was approved, I checked the status on Revver. I searched for it, and I found it. I played it. So just now, I went to Brightcove, and did a search for “reelsolid”. I found the MySpace video that I had found earlier in the day, before I placed videos on either of the new services. I also saw one more video, so I assumed Brightcove was in the game.

The video that Brightcove found when I searched…….. was on REVVER! :D hahahaha wow. We’ll see if Brightcove catches up tomorrow, but right now, Revver’s looking pretty good! :D

So now, for the umpteenth time, I’ve de-constructed my site. :/

I wanted to change the way my videos were served, so the first thing I did was add the vPIP (videos Playing In Place) plugin by Enric Teller. The plan was to have the videos pop up in whatever format was selected (flash, quicktime…).

At some point, I decided to put my videos on Brightcove. I like their ideas of “lineups” and “players” and “syndication”, so I thought I’d check it out. Apparently, they just added mac upload capability, and they use this beta “Brightcove Publishpod”. The first time I used it, I decided to send flv files up, and it just sat there @ 0% and never moved. I stopped the process, and decided to upload mp4s and MOVs. When you do that, you get an encoding layout that you have to fill in to your specifications. The suggested bit rate was 500kbps, so that’s what I used to encode to flash and upload the files… meaning I dropped an mp4 in the Publishpod and let it do its thing. I had noticed a check-box that said “delete flv when finished?”, and I thought that was really RETARDED, because the whole point was to CREATE flv files, not delete them.

What I didn’t know was that the Publishpod works in two sections. The first section, which takes a VEEEEEERY short time, is when they create an el-cheapo flv file ON.YOUR.COMPUTER in the same directory as the mp4 you dragged to the program… and then the second section, where it actually uploads that file to Brightcove. That’s why the progress was stuck @ 0%. There wasn’t anything to be done, because all they had to do was upload the file. When you put an mp4 in, the first 50% blazes by (as they create this flv file on your system), and then the rest of it takes a long time, because of the upload.

So when I looked at these videos, they stuttered the whole way through, because even though it said 500 kbps was recommended, it didn’t LIMIT.THE.FILES to 500 kbps! :/ So the time was spent uploading files that were encoded @ 625 kbps that looked horrible and played even more horribly!

After that, I invested my time in making an On2 VP6 version of my first video. That looked WAAAAAAY better than the encode that the beta Publishpod made, and came in @ 512 kbps instead of 625 kbps. I’m trying an even lower data rate encode right now, because I’m not sure that being over 500 is going to work on Brightcove for lower-end computers or lower-end broadband subscribers.

I like the whole idea of the hierarchy that Brightcove has set up, so I’m going to stick with it and see what happens. In the meantime, I decided to see if there was any difference in putting the same video on Revver.

The Revver sign-up process was a little faster. The Revver upload process was A.WHOLE.LOT.FASTER!!! :D Apparently, Revver will accept mp4s of any data rate as long as the file size isn’t over 100 meg. While Brightcove asks for limited bandwith videos, and then doesn’t LIMIT the bandwidth of the videos in their beta publishpod application, Revver takes what you give it and actually encourages you to use the best quality files you can create! :D We’ll see how long it takes Revver to get to my video and approve it. There’s no approval period for Brightcove, apparently. I was able to play my videos immediately by placing their code on my site.

Anyway… Today’s been a learning experience with these “revenue-sharing” sites. Not that I actually intend to see any revenue, since I have about 30 viewers for my podcast, but it’ll be interesting to see the differences between how Revver and Brightcove deal with the same videos.

In “Beach Walk #175 – People talkin’? Who cares!”, we get to hear about someone so caught up in her own idea of what’s important in life that she tries to project this onto someone else. She’s so busy thinking about what SHE perceives to be the right way to live life that she totally ignores what the leader told the new paddler and gives contradictory instructions.

First of all, she’s not authorized to tell the new paddler what to do. Nobody put her in charge. The leader was IN THE BOAT, giving the orders, so there was no “lack of leadership”.

When asked why she said what she said, her reply was that if the new paddler stopped paddling, the other paddlers would talk about her behind her back, to the effect of “I can’t believe she stopped paddling! :O”. Now we have a reference point to weigh the values of this advice being given. On the one hand, the paddler could keep paddling, though she feels that her body needs a break, and she could avoid being gossiped about over lunch. OTOH, she could stop paddling, NOT risk her physical health, and perhaps be talked about behind her back by people that probably wouldn’t say anything to her face in the first place. If the tree falls in the woods… and you’re in the city, you don’t hear the sound… so… if people are going to gossip behind your back…..

WHO CARES?

What difference does it make? None, because you never hear about it, so, effectively, it doesn’t exist to you. Let’s say you actually hear about this gossip or they tell you to your face that they think less of you as a paddler because you didn’t keep paddling…..

WHO CARES?

What difference does it make? Do they pay your bills? Do they decide whether you get to come out paddling tomorrow morning? :D Do they decide where you sit in the boat?

The ‘advice-giver’ was saying more about herself than she was about the new paddler. She was letting people know what fantasies dictate her actions in life. She won’t do something if she perceives that she might be talked about for it. She won’t do something if she thinks she’ll “look bad”, even perhaps at the cost of her own physical health. That has nothing to do with the new paddler at all. ALSO, the ‘advice-giver’ informs us that she’s willing to attempt to override statements of the person in charge to forward the agenda of her own personal brainwashing. “Don’t do what the leader said, because we’ll talk about you”. What’s that?

Unfortunately, peer pressure is an incredible influence. Without the proper grounding, the new paddler might think the advice is good for her to follow, without having the ability to actually assess it properly, according to what SHE thinks is important in life. Often, people come into a new situation or it could even be a situation they’ve been in for a long time and they don’t have concrete ideas about what’s good for them and what isn’t. Those people are often susceptible to accepting and adapting other people’s ideas. Just because that way of being works for one person doesn’t mean it works for YOU. A lot of people have taken the wrong path following suggestions from people with their own personal agendas.

How about if the advice-giver channeled her energy into STOPPING the other paddlers from talking behind the new paddler’s back? How about THAT? How about praising the new paddler for being a part of keeping their heavier, 5-man boat alongside the lighter 6-man boat? How about THAT? How about if she focuses on what she can do that’s positive instead of “helping the new paddler avoid the negative”… the negative that she’s DEFINITELY going to be a part of if the newjack doesn’t take her advice and get back to work.

Rox says “gossip’s never killed anyone”. While that’s not actually true, :D I see her point. It’s not the ACTUAL gossip that has ever killed anyone. OTOH, people HAVE died from pushing their bodies past limits that they feel they have approached.

What’s it worth to you? What’s it worth to keep people from talking about you? Your health? Your money? Your family? Who ARE these people, anyway?

Who cares?