Bookmark Vlog Blog

 Subscribe in a reader

Subscribe via Email

• Categories

  • General
  • Money & Marketing
  • Technology
  • Tools for Vloggers
  • Video Sharing Sites
  • Vlogalism
  • Vloggers & Vlogs
  • What is a Vlog?

• Recent Entries

  • How to Improve YouTube Video Quality
  • YouTube Updates - Contextual Help and Character Counter
  • The Vlog Era Has Arrived
  • YouTube Will Add Live Video in 2008
  • Quarterlife’s Creators Says the Show isn’t Big Enough for TV
  • Pakistan Breaks YouTube
  • Google Begins Pushing Adsense for Video Again
  • How To Vlogs Gaining in Popularity
  • DailyMotion High Definition Video
  • China Simultaneously Cracks Down and Lightens Up on Video Sharing Sites
  • Political Vlogs Go European
  • Video Tutorial for Revver Wordpress Plugin
  • The 10 Most Popular Videos on YouTube for 2007
  • Tips for Shooting Video in the Snow
  • YouTube Gives You a Slew of Upgrades
  • Video Advertising to Increase
  • YouTube Partner Program Now Open to the General Public
  • DailyMotion Unveils New Video Player
  • MetaCafe Adds Message Center
  • Vlogging the Classroom

• Contact

  • About
  • Email
  • Send News or Info

• Video Sharing Sites

  • Brightcove
  • DailyMotion
  • Google Video
  • LiveVideo
  • MetaCafe
  • MSN's Soapbox
  • MySpaceTV
  • Revver
  • Veoh
  • Viddler
  • Vimeo
  • Yahoo Video
  • YouTube

• Search

Blogger has now made it easier to turn your blog into a vlog with a new video uploading feature that allows you to publish your own videos directly to your blog.

Before this uploading tool, the easiest way for a vlogger to post a video was to place it on a video-sharing site and then embed it.

The upload tool had been available in beta (a testing phase) for those who knew the secret of getting to it via “Blogger in Draft.” (see previous post about Blogger in Draft)

As was mentioned in the previous post about Blogger in Draft, videos uploaded onto a Blogger blog are stored on Google Video.

A contest that may be of interest to vloggers is an opportunity to provide an intro to the daily vlog that Cinematical will be doing from the Sundance Film Festival. The vlog intro should be about 30 seconds or shorter (approximately), all original content, no copyright violation, etc., etc. More information can be found from the Cinematical site.

It looks like the Discovery Channel is getting into vlogs too (who isn’t these days?) - specifically travel vlogs for their Travel Channel. This looks like a good chance for some traveling vloggers. No doubt travel vlogs will be a mainstay in the vlog world in the years to come. Like travel narratives, travel vlogs will be able to give the true flavor of travel and not simply the glossy offering that permeate so much of the travel media.

A quote from a Discovery Channel/Travel Channel press release follow:

Would-be Travel Journalists (TJs) can upload their video log and web log to be considered for the next installment of the popular international adventure series

With more than 10,000 people already expressing interest, Travel Channel has embarked on its journey to select five TJs to participate in the next season of this international series. Those chosen will visit major cities on a 13 week tour for the television series 5 TAKES, which has revolutionized internet/television interaction in real time. Viewers influence their journey by deciding what the TJs do via the Travel Channel website, and the TJs will document their first-hand experience with video logs (vlogs) and web logs (blogs) while interacting with viewers real-time via the Travel Channel message boards.

The Travel Channel is looking for a group of impassioned 20-somethings to travel the world and chronicle their experiences along the way. The network encourages those with a sense of adventure to log on to Travel Channel’s website from December 2 until December 31, 2005 at “this website” and upload their own vlogs and blogs for consideration by network executives. This is the first Discovery Communications, Inc. program to accept user generated content over the web.

So, vlogs are here to stay. Of course no one has the authority to simply say so and make it so, but some of those whose job it is to follow the ups and downs of the internet, its trends and whims, seem to think so. Mike McDonand over at WebProNews seems to think so. He has a recent column on the staying power of vlogs vs. blogs. Although there’s no in-depth analysis of the situation, he does mention in passing that when he made the comment that he thought vlogs (and podcasts) would have more legs than regular text blogs, none of the others within earshot who also follow the internet for a living batted so much as an eye.

Says McDonald:

To me, blogs reek of a trend to some extent. Podcasts and video blogs on the other hand, I think they have feet for a long run.

WebProNews

A few days ago I mentioned the Superman movie vlog. Peter Jackson also has a movie vlog going for his remake of King Kong. It’s much more involved than the Superman vlog, however. Having started back in September of ‘04, the ongoing “production diary,” as they call it, is already up to more than 50 vlogs.

The film is scheduled for release in December 2005, but the site is already getting 1.5 million visitors per month.

You can see the King Kong movie vlog here: http://www.kongisking.net/kong2005/proddiary/

The United Kingdom’s Creative Archive Licence Group has launched, and it looks as if it’s heading in a good direction for vloggers. Very soon, it seems, the Creative Archive Licence will allow free internet access to public service radio and TV programs. The step that will make it an exciting one for vloggers, however, is one that’s still in the works, but definitely in the plans: the ability to “own” a copy of the clips and use them in vlogs.

The Creative Archive Licence Group put out a call for other media and arts organizations to join them in the endeavor. The license is inspired by the Creative Commons system in the U.S.

You can read more about the group’s launch and ideas from this BBC News article.

The following is an update of sorts on a post of a few weeks ago on the company Olivelink. Olivelink has come up with personal video server that lets you stream videos from your own computer. As I said then, I originally heard about Olivelink from the site PVRblog.com. Now it seeems that they have an interview posted with the Olivelink people. You can find it here.

Continuing the theme of vlogs and advertising, yet with a slight variation …

Stanley Edwards from Platypus Productions in Cape Town is attending this year’s MIPTV conference in Cannes, France. The MIPTV conference is where media producers, distributors and broadcasters gather to negociate deals.

Stanely is making a daily blog, podcast, and vlog from France and posting them on Platypus’ blog site. This may be of interest to vloggers because firstly, he’s making a vlog to report from the conference - something we’re going to see a lot more of no matter what your topic or conference of choice, but more importantly, the issues at the conference will be issues affecting some vloggers in the not so distant future, if not already.

Read more

One of the more interesting things happening in the vlog world that we’re guaranteed to see a lot more of is a periodic vlog from behind the scenes of a movie. One such vlog comes from the new Superman movie director Bryan Singer over at bluetights.net.

Read more

It seems the vlog world is already beginning to meet the academic world. Johns Hopkins University is scheduled to have a “special event,” as they call it, on Thursday evening entitled “Who’s Vlogging Whom? When Video Meets Blogging.”

I thought this article over at MSNBC by Michael Rogers was a good, concise rundown of the vlog world at the moment. He gives an overview of the the vlog world from who currently vlogs, to what’s involved in putting up a vlog, to the question of using others’ video in your vlog. A nice summary.

The idea of vlogs and vlogging are popping up in the mainstream media more and more. This recent article in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch starts out talking about podcasting and then moves to vlogs and video blogging. Among others, they talked to Jay Dedman, who helped organize the first Vlogger Conference this past year. A snippet of the article follows:

Dedman says that as the technology for video becomes easier to manage, there is an increasing number of creative uses for video on the Internet, such as “Vspan,” which is the experimental video blog of Boston city councilman John Tobin.

“We might see the day when I don’t vote for you unless you have a video blog,” said Dedman. “I want you to put yourself out there and let me comment. There’s a real demand out there and a need for completely unmediated information.”

I like this vlog of Japan by Jonah Asher for a few reasons. One thing I like about it is its non-pretentious feel. The first term that popped into my head was “honest artlessness,” but that might be taken the wrong way. There are a number of different kinds of artlessness. Some are contrived, some are intentional but not so “contrived,” some are completely unintentional and painful to watch, some are unintentional but fresh, etc. This vlog has a positive artlessness about it. Of course the music helps a lot - a very polished and professional sound behind the jagged movement of the camera. Another reason I liked it is because I’m simply interested in seeing everyday life in other places. Though there are a few images in this vlog that seem to carry a fair amount of weight, it’s not an ornate, overly-produced “representation” of everything that Japanese culture is or should be. It’s just everyday life, taken as it came.

Having lived abroad a number of times, one thing I found that I liked about some countries’ TV was their lack of artistic sophistication. Because they didn’t always realize that “every shot should count,” they would often include a lot of peripheral material that had little or nothing to do with their story. In the U.S. professional TV is, by and large, honed and sharpened to get every single ounce out of every single shot. Video shot by a less professional camera operator might often include a messy wide shot, for example, whereas the best way to tell the story would be with a dramatic close up. As a professional, of course what you want is the dramatic close-up in order to tell your story. But as a viewer is who is often more interested in creating my own story, I often appreciate the unintentionally realistic, messy wide shot. Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate well done art; I appreciate being in the hands of a master storyteller; but sometimes I don’t want that kind of confinement. Amateur vloggers will provide a lot of that type of breathing room in the days to come. Probably too much. Most probably, the vlogosphere will one day be little more than a sea of messy wide shots, dotted only here and there with tiny islands of concentrated quality. But that’s all right. It will just be like everything else. Why should it be any different?

Again, all this isn’t to say that Jonah didn’t know what he was doing in his vlog. You most definitely get the impression he knew exactly what he was doing.

Reading this article by Amit Khannaabout how changes in technology are affecting the media and India, I was reminded again how we are really at the very beginning of vlogs and vlogging. Khanna talks about how we are really just at the beginning of blogging (especially in India), and then very quicky jumps to vlogging:

Nothing has changed journalism more than the advent of the blog (weblog) and what we are seeing are just the beginnings of blogging.

Already it is becoming a favoured form of disseminating news and information. Soon there will be a proliferation of the video blog. A version of peer-to-peer TV streaming is already on the internet.

In places like India and China internet usage is growing like kudzu, of course. The emerging technology that makes video and vlogs a common form of web communication will soon be a natural everyday habit of perhaps billions. All right, we might not reach a billion vlogs anytime soon, but with places like India and China gearing up, it’s not hard to imagine millions upon millions of vlogs very soon. “Peer-to-peer TV” as he says. Millions upon millions. Millions to the billions. Who will be “Vlogger Number One Billion,” I wonder. How long before that happens?

This little vlog from Shannon Noble, titled Finger Bolts, is one of the coolest I’ve seen since surfing around looking at vlogs. I think the marriage of words and visuals in an important one. Some vlogs can stand on their own and don’t need any extra text, of course. But some vlogs are made stronger by a little added text. Some might argue that a vlog that needs text is weaker because of it, but I would disagree. There’s no reason not to take advantage of all the various forms at your disposal. I think this is a good example of the text adding to the vlog. You’ll notice, however, that Shannon’s text doesn’t give the vlog away. You don’t really know exactly what to expect from it, and that’s a good thing. The words compliment the video, they don’t restate it. The words set the vlog up.
Read more

Michael Verdi has had a very nice idea over at his vlog site. He’s basically issuing a call for vloggers to make little clips of what they love in their lives. No great productions required, no extended profound films on the meaning of life and death, just snippets of things that make them happy. When I went to Michael’s page recently I watched his vlog title “Coffee and Cookies.” Basically, it’s just a little part of his day that he loves. You can figure that out by watching the vlog, but it seemed a little out of left field for me at first. But then I watched his vlog where he issues the call to make vlogs about the things you love in your life, and suddenly the “Coffee and Cookies” vlog registered more significantly for me.

The idea of cohesion, of some type of context is what did it, of course. Our brains are constantly in search of order and meaning. All sorts of “artists” throughout the history of time have thought themselves clever or avant-garde by not doing the sometimes very hard work it takes to offer that to their viewer/reader/listener/etc. And without exception, they’ve all disappeared in a quickly dissipating onanistic fog. And this is a danger that many vloggers will face, I think (I’ve seen some examples of it already). Because many see vlogging as a new medium, and to a degree it is, they mistakenly assume that human needs and desires have changed just because the medium has. That’s what makes Michael’s idea such a good one. It seems simple, and it is, but it’s also essential. By putting out a call for vlogs that show others what you love in your life, he has provided a space, if you will, for this to happen in. It’s a very free and open-ended space, but it still has form. The mind is easily predisposed to recognize the meaning in the vlogs because of it, and the result is a great sense of satisfaction on the part of the viewer.

There is a small, but growing collection of these vlogs over at mefeedia.

Ok, one last day on the Numa-Numa craze (the vlogger who unwittingly became famous for putting a video blog of himself out on the internet lip-syncing to a Romanian pop song). The Today Show had the original Romanian band, Ozone, on to perform the song. You can see it here (for a while anyway). It seems sales of the song have taken off. I sure hope they give the kid at least a little cut.

One of the most interesting things about the video that I’ve linked to above is that they cut back and forth between the band singing on the Today Show’s outdoor stage in the middle of New York City and the kid sitting alone at home in his bedroom singing along to the music. The video of the band’s performance on the Today Show is professionally done, of course. It’s clear and well-lit; crowds of people are packed around the stage, singing and dancing and jumping around. The kid’s video is, of course, of bad quality and poorly lit. But that juxtaposition says it all. It sums up the trickle down (or up, you might say) of a grassroots phenomenon. One lone kid in a darkly lit room with a cheap video camera lets his love for a certain pop song overtake him for a few minutes, and the next thing you know, the world knows about it.

Read more

Well, a continuation on the story of the kid who became famous for lipsyncing and chairdancing to a Romanian pop song. Though I had missed it (don’t watch much TV), it seems NBC’s Today show had done a piece on it a few weeks back. You can catch that here. (might have to watch a commercial or two)

Read more

This story of a 19 year-old kid from New Jersey on cnet.com (via the NY Times) seems to have a little bit of everything. At first it seems funny, then sad, then touching. After making a video of himself singing and dancing in his bedroom to a Romanian pop song, for some reason, he decided to put it out onto the internet. When it was picked up somehow by newgrounds.com and put on their front page, he became an internet celebrity.

Read more

I had heard that Steve Garfield was helping out a politician with a vlog, but never had the time to check any of it out. Today I came across this article about it, which mentions Steve as well. One day soon, every politician will have a vlog, no doubt. Was Steve the first to introduce it to them? Will he one day be known as the granddaddy of political vlogging? Will it earn him a spot in someone’s White House? Who knows, but there’s no turning back now. Like TV and politics, vlogs and politics should go hand in hand for a very long time.