Bill Cammack

I’ve been tagged by Jane Quigley for this 4X4 meme. You’re given 4 questions and you need to give 4 answers, then tag 4 people. The list of people I’ve tagged and the list of questions are at the bottom of this post.

4 Jobs I’ve had
1) Video Editor: The Charlie Rose Show
2) Video Editor: Bloomberg Information Television
3) Video Editor: Full Frontal Fashion
4) Video Editor: Living It Up with Patti LaBelle

4 Things I’ve done in the last 4 years
1) Became involved in Videoblogging
2) Met new friends that currently reside in England, Japan, Hawaii and Canada
3) Bought a MacBook Pro
4) Experimented with live video apps and social media sites.

4 Movies I can watch over and over
1) Hard Boiled – Chow Yun Fat
2) Fight Club – Edward Norton / Brad Pitt
3) Gladiator – Russell Crowe
4) Road House / Point Break / Next of Kin – Patrick Swayze

4 Websites I visit every day
1) BillCammack.com
2) Stats for BillCammack.com
3) Google
4) Facebook

4 People I’d like to hear from:
1) Dan McVicar
2) Liz Burr
3) Paul Dateh
4) Jay Smooth

You can answer any of these questions: 4 Jobs I’ve had, 4 Favorite Foods, 4 TV Shows I DVR, 4 Movies I could watch Over & Over, 4 Places I’ve been, 4 Places I’ve lived, 4 Places I want to go, 4 Music Artists I’m listening to now, 4 All Time Favorite Musicians, 4 Shows I have been to, 4 Cars I have owned, 4 Things I have done in the past 4 years, 4 websites I visit daily, 4 places I’d rather be right now, 4 People I think will respond, 4 Things I look forward to this year, or 4 Underrated conversational topics.

2008 is going to be the year when “Live” becomes a MAJOR player as far as video on the internet. IMO, Qik is the frontrunner right now, with live mobile. The first person I was aware of running around town with a Nokia N-Series phone was Steve Garfield. Eventually, I became aware of Rupert Howe over in “Jolly Old”, filming, editing and uploading from his Nokia. At the time, it was quaint. At this point, it’s turned into a fad, and more and more people are “going live”. Not that what Steve or Rupert were doing was live video, but it was as close as you could get at the time.

Meanwhile, status update sites became all the rage. Now, whenever you want, you can broadcast to your “followers” what you’d like them to know. You can also receive information from people before it makes MSM headlines, like some bridge falling down in some town nobody’s paying attention to. As long as SOMEBODY sees it and twitters it (or pownce, jaiku…), relatively immediately, we know in New York City what’s going on in the sticks.

Unfortunately, all this new “look at me” media doesn’t come with a manual. :D It shouldn’t come with a manual, because that way, all the new people flooding in don’t mentally restrict themselves to the purported use of the site or app. However, for people that don’t understand how media works, they could end up broadcasting things they didn’t intend to, such as their lack of relevance and/or interesting things to say, and in the worst-case scenario… that they just don’t know what they’re talking about. There’s nothing wrong with that, but people need to be aware that they’re doing this to themselves.

This post isn’t for/about people that frivolously post text/audio/video on the internet as something to do. This is for people trying to make a name for themselves as knowledgeable people within their particular echo chamber.

There’s a difference between demonstrating that you own something and demonstrating that you truly understand what it is, how it works and how to utilize it. There’s a difference between demonstrating that you know ABOUT something and demonstrating that you’re someone knowledgeable and/or respected in that field. The more you go “Look at me!!! Here I am!!! Over here!!!”, the more opportunities you’re giving people to assess what you’re bringing to the table. If what you’re bringing is usually GARBAGE, you’re better off sparing yourself so much quantity and focusing on your quality.

Let’s say, for instance, that I told you I was going to the Yankees game, and I was going to text blog what was going on. Then, during the game, you start seeing this in my twitter stream:

It’s pretty warm today, considering it’s the Ides of March
Here we GO! The Yankees are warming up
Turns out that it didn’t rain as they predicted
The other team’s taking the field, sonnnnnn
I think I’ll buy some food
What a hit! :O
Seventh Inning Stretch!
I think that’s Stacey Dash! :O
Great game! Leaving the stadium to meet up with friends

Now… The FIRST thing that’s going to come to mind is “THAT WAS THE *WORST* ACCOUNT OF A BASEBALL GAME, EVER!” The second is going to be “Remind me not to hire that guy to blog ANYTHING”. The third is going to be “That was a tremendous waste of bandwidth”… Etc etc etc… Nothing positive. The only good things derived from something like this might be “He owns a cell phone”, “He knows how to connect twitter to his phone”, “He goes to Yankees games” and “He got to see Stacey Dash in person”.

Meanwhile, you STILL didn’t get the information. So then, let’s say you asked me directly what happened during the game, and I told you this:

The Yankees were there
The other team showed up too
People in the stands had a good time
There were some pitches and some hits
A couple of guys struck out
At the end, everyone left the stadium

Do you see how RIDICULOUS that account is? You would think that I was either avoiding talking about the game on purpose or that I really didn’t go to the game AT ALL. I didn’t tell you ONE SPECIFIC INSTANCE of anything that happened at the game. I didn’t tell you what happened TO anyone in the game, pro or con. I didn’t tell you what *I* thought about what happened during the game.

So, while I thought I was being clever and technological, all I was doing was demonstrating that either I was being purposefully evasive or I can attend and watch an event without understanding what happened right in front of my face… OR that I can understand what happened, but can’t properly articulate my thoughts. NONE. OF. THOSE. ARE. GOOD. THINGS! :D

What you say is important. What you DON’T say is also important. WHEN you say those things counts as well. If your goal is to become a credible and respected source of information for people, you need to be RELEVANT, CURRENT, KNOWLEDGEABLE and CONSISTENT.

If you can’t do that, save your text/audio/video until you have something useful to contribute.

Kfir Pravda asks the question How can videbloggers leverage live video platforms?

I think live video will enable individuals or production teams to foster closer relationships with their core group of viewers. I’ve seen Jonny Goldstein make excellent use of “live” from back in the days when we used to have to use telephone conference services to video conference with each other. Now, services and applications are getting better and increasing the number of features to the point that just about everyone is getting experience with some kind of live interaction, even privately, via Aim, iChat & Skype.

As far as for scripted shows, such as 35 and Something To Be Desired, there’s the opportunity to go behind the scenes with the actors.. either as the actors themselves or as their characters. Depending on the situation, either one could be really fascinating. It would call for some ad-libbing,though. The actors would have to have a really great understanding of the characters they play in order to interact in real-time with an audience “in character” and explain motivations and information that ended up on the cutting room floor or weren’t discussed by the cast & crew at all. I think this would make people way more interested in the show itself to have more of an intimate interaction with the actors.

I’ve seen Epic-Fu do live shows. They’ve had live entertainment from Paul Dateh and it was great to watch them party and interact with each other genuinely and authentically. There’s much to learn & gain even from being a ‘fly on the wall’ when people whose shows you’ve seen are out of character and being themselves.

I think that interactivity is the benefit of internet shows over television shows. It gives the actors the chance to get to know more about their audience, and makes the audience more emotionally invested in the show. It also affords the actors the opportunity to showcase more dimensions to themselves than scripts and editing allow. I mean, who’s going to script Jonny playing his music box into a show? :D

Another benefit is allowing the fans to become a part of the creation of the show. Going live, you can get suggestions from them and incorporate their ideas into a future script. You can get an idea of what they’re receiving compared to what you’re attempting to project to them.

I think live video’s going to be a great asset for scripted shows. It’s just going to take a while for people to get up to speed in utilizing the various services and sites before we see some really creative and innovative uses for the medium.