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Saturday, March 29, 2008

Friday, March 28, 2008

My Bookshelf

1-800-Flowers is dumbfounded by the internet



I called 1-800-Flowers to get the email address on my account changed. There's no way to do it online.

The customer service rep told me that she changed it for me and then said:
"I'm dumbfounded by the internet."
So that tiggered me to send in an email asking if my email address had really been changed. This is the reply I got back from 1-800-Flowers:
We wish to inform you that we have changed your e-mail address for our promotional newsletters. In order, to change the e-mail address for your account, you have to create a new account with us with your new e-mail address.
D'oh!

1-800-Flowers is dumbfounded by the internet.

I replied asking them to remove my name from their promotional newsletters and to cancel my account.

Carol and Steve Show - Gary Vaynerchuk Napa Highlights

<div><a href='http://www.omnisio.com'>Share and annotate your videos</a> with Omnisio!</div>


Testing out omnisio. An online tool for sharing clips of videos.

This is cool.

At the end of the video, links are provided to all the source videos used in the compilation:



That's good.

Just added a few comments... on the video.

Requirements for embedding, linking and attributing Video

I really appreciate the publicity that my videos are getting on Boston.com, but I've got a few issues with their local video search results page.

I am in touch with management at Boston.com, but want to post my concerns here too so that other sites that are thinking of embedding videos can understand some of the requirements for embedding, linking and attributing user generated video on their sites.

HOMEPAGE
Four Wines on boston.com

When Boston.com features a video on the homepage, they put up a thumbnail and then link directly to the permalink of that video on my video blog. That is a great way to do it.

Another way to do it would be to use my embed code provided by blip.tv.

USING BLIP.TV EMBED CODE


Boston.com Mutimedia Search

Boston.com multimedia search results are handled differently.

Here's how my video, High Speed Ferry To Nantucket, show's up on Boston.com local video search results for 'Nantucket.


High Speed Ferry to Nantucket - Originally uploaded on flickr by stevegarfield.

The main problem is that there aren't any links back. The other issues revolve around Creative Commons.

Needed Improvements

LINK BACK
The main improvement that the search results page needs to include is a link back to the permanent page of the video on my site so people can visit and leave comments.

CREATIVE COMMONS - ATTRIBUTION
The video has a Creative Commons license on it which requires including attribution.

On this video it just so happens I put my name and link to my site in the description, but the link is not clickable. It would be nice if the CC License could be displayed.

CREATIVE COMMONS - NON COMMERCIAL unless you ask
I have a Non Commercial license which requires asking before using commercially. It doesn't mean that you can't use it commercially, I just means that I'd like to be asked first so that we can work out an arrangement.



COUNTING VIEWS
Looking at the source code it seems that I'm not going to register any views on this either when people watch it on the site

If another site is going to be hosting my videos, I'd like to get some type of viewship reporting back.

Join the discussion. I'd love to hear your comments.

Thursday, March 27, 2008

My Name is Earl



I never watch this show but after seeing NBCU president Jeff Zucker's intro to the first episode of the season, I just might record it.

Callback. Ha ha. I did not see that coming.

Funny stuff.

via [ Lost Remote ]

Offering Embedding to Prevent Plagiarism

Moo Photo Calling Cards
Photo by Steve Garfield CC BY-NC-SA

Offering Embedding to Prevent Plagiarism - PlagiarismToday:
"One of the hallmarks of the “New Web” has been the embedding of multimedia. Where hotlinking was once a dirty word, now you can find services that allow you to embed images, audio and video."
I commented:
Flickr is great in their support of Creative Commons, but they do not go far enough. Have you noticed that if you want to get HTML from one of YOUR OWN photos you can, BUT you can't get the same HTML from anyone else's photo?

Flickr needs to provide access to HTML embed code for all photos that are CC licensed AND they need to include the license info in the HTML, ex: CC BY-NC-SA, like that.

They are aware of the request, I posted it to their message board a long time ago, but they have not moved on it.

Also, the Creative Commons people are in full support of this enhancement to Flickr.

If anyone reading this has access to decision makers over at Flickr, I'd love to hear an update.

Makes so much sense.
Thanks,
--Steve

Chris Cornell - Billie Jean (Soundcheck)

American Idol's David Cook sang "Billie Jean" by Michael Jackson. Here's Chris Cornell's version. :-)

Saturday, March 22, 2008

Boston Pub Crawl Tweetup


Boston Pub Crawl Tweetup - Originally uploaded on flickr by stevegarfield.

Paull Young


Paull Young - Originally uploaded on flickr by stevegarfield.

Three Steps to LIVE Mobile Broadcasting


Photo: CC Chapman CC Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.0 Generic

Eight million people are interested in what I've been doing recently with LIVE mobile broadcasting. Well maybe not eight million, but reporters are interested, and reporters have an audience.

Just yesterday I did an interview with a reporter and at the end of the interview I asked, "Will this be online?"

It turns out that the interview is going into a "pamphlet." It might end up in a pdf... Weird, I know.

So for the benefit of reporters everywhere and anyone who wants to know how to get started in LIVE mobile video broadcasting, here are the THREE STEPS that are required to stream live audio and video from a mobile device. I could call it a cell phone, but Nokia doesn't like that.

STEP ONE - CHOOSE A MOBILE DEVICE

Nokia N95

The best device on the market for streaming live video is the Nokia N95-3. This is the version of the N95 that supports 3G on AT&T's network.

I had been using an earlier model of the N95 supplied by Nokia, but the faster the network, the better the quality. The streaming service that I use, Qik, sent me the N95-3 so that when I streamed, I'd be able to broadcast the highest quality.

Other services might support other phones, so check into it and if you have any suggestions, leave a comment.

STEP TWO - CHOOSE A SERVICE

FIRST ATTEMPTS
Broadcasting Live from Cellphone to the Web

Back on March 06, 2007 I did my first live broadcast with a cellphone with ComVu. There's a whole page of an archive of videos I did at the time. Looking back on them now I can see a few reasons why I didn't continue with ComVu. The videos stream from their server and are not progressive downloads. There wasn't any way to embed the videos on a web page, they buffered frequently, and I couldn't save them locally to edit.

Read here for more: Streaming, Broadcasting, and Progressive Download:
When a file is delivered over a network or downloaded over the Internet, the entire file is not available immediately, but a typical QuickTime movie can be played while it downloads. This is called progressive download, or Fast Start.
RECENT STREAMING
Rebooting Your Newsroom with LIVE mobile video broadcasting

For a while now, I've been using Qik.com to stream. Qik.com is still in alpha. I've got a great working relationship with them and many suggested changes and enhancements to their service have been implemented such as their integration with Seesmic and Mogulus.

Other sites that you should consider and that I've just started to test are:

Bambuser, Flixwagon, and Kyte.tv. [ my pages on each site ]

Please share your experiences in the comments.

STEP THREE - STREAMING LIVE

Mike Davison

Now that you've selected a device and signed up for a streaming service, it's time to broadcast.

You have two choices when going live, WiFi or the cell network. If there is a WiFi network available and your device supports it, I'd suggest streaming over WiFi. I've had great success with it for both quality of the video stream.

If WiFi is not available you'll be using you cellphone carrier's network. In my case it's AT&T. (Thanks AT&T for the trial service).

Also note, you can take the AT&T SIM chip out of an iPhone and use it in a Nokia N95.

On Qik, you run the application and press STREAM. Then you are love streaming to both the Qik.com home page and your personal Qik.com page. Mine is Qik.com/stevegarfield.

That's it. If you start streaming, let me know...

Additional points to consider:

NOTIFICATION



When you start streaming live, you'll want to notify people. With Qik.com, you can set it up to automatically send out a message via Twitter to notify y our subscribers that you'll be going live. You can follow me on twitter over at http://twitter.com/stevegarfield.

You might also want to consider setting up an email list to let your audience know when you are going live. Not everyone is on twitter. I know. Weird huh?

SCHEDULED LIVE STREAMS
If you might know beforehand when you are going to go live, you could put put the word that you'll be streaming at a certain time, and then people can get the word out ahead of time.

I've also set up a webpage with an embedded Qik video, http://www.stevegarfield.com/live/, so that whenever I go live, the stream shows up on that page.

That way, if I was going to an event where I'll be streaming throughout hte day, viewers could leave the page up on their computer and whenever I started streaming, the live video would show up right there.

Join the discussion. Leave a comment.

Friday, March 21, 2008

Jeremiah Wright's "Audacity To Hope" sermon in 1990



The Daily Dish | By Andrew Sullivan | For the Record:
"Have the audacity to hope for that child of yours. Have the audacity to hope for that home of yours. Have the audacity to hope for that church of yours. Whatever it is you've been praying for, keep on praying, and you may find, like my grandmother sings, 'There's a bright side somewhere; there is a bright side somewhere. Don't you rest until you find it, for there is a bright side somewhere.'"
via [ L.C. ]

"Hope" by a Victorian artist called George Frederic Watts.
Watts' Hope portrays a blindfolded woman with a broken lyre. Watts was expressing the sentiments of such popular aphorisms as 'Never despair' or 'Where there is life there is hope', though his painting seems to be suggesting the opposite. The Victorian public understood his message, however, and the painting became enormously popular, especially after it was reproduced as an engraving.

Tuesday, March 18, 2008

SXSW: Don’t forget to watch me!

The Pimps from Austin by Rick Wolff:
"...now that South by Southwest Interactive (good to see it spelled out once in a while) is over for ‘08, all the attendees are busy cataloguing and posting their media recordings, and Flickr, Qik and Utterz bulge visibly. And you invite me to check it all out, via a link in Twitter, as well you should.

So far, more often than not, it’s some short piece where the holder of the camera records the target of the camera pimping whatever project he or she is working on, or some online gig or other.

I feel like the boy in Gene Shepard’s A Christmas Story, laboring over my Little Orphan Annie decoder ring, only to decipher “Don’t forget to drink Ovaltine.”"

Free Ingrid Betancourt

Monday, March 17, 2008

Embedded Journalism



Very cool. I hadn't thought about this.

First Post on bambuser


Watch this video at bambuser

Got my signup straightened out and signed on to the mobile phone broadcasting service bambuser.

After downloading the application to my N95, and saving some settings, I ran the application and was live streaming right away.

I was streaming so quickly that I didn't even realize it.



Nice quality.

I just reset the auto-start option so it doesn't stream on application launch...

I need time to get all my lighting set, make up ready and scripts memorized to make it look authentic and real. :-)

MIT Chalkboard


MIT Chalkboard - Originally uploaded on flickr by stevegarfield.

Friday, March 14, 2008

Your Mobile Phone: The Ultimate Personal Media Creation Tool


Your Mobile Phone: The Ultimate Personal Media Creation Tool - Originally uploaded on flickr by stevegarfield.

New Media Expo: August 14-16, 2008

My session:
Your Mobile Phone: The Ultimate Personal Media Creation Tool
Track 5: New Media Strategies
Instructor: Steve Garfield of SteveGarfield.com
Room: N250

Description: You may think you need expensive HD video cameras and a Ph.D in video editing software to create interesting content. But no! Inexpensive video cameras available on many cell phones today can be used to tell stories without a lot of editing and without expensive lighting and time-intensive pre-planning. In this session, you'll learn how to convey your ideas and stories in a way that will capture the attention of the viewer and keep them coming back for more. Practical tips for mobile video blogging will be discussed so that you can start creating content the moment you step outside the workshop door. You'll also learn the best places to post your content, how to best present the video clips on your website or blog, and how to get attention for your media early-on.

My session: www.newmediaexpo.com/incoming.php?linkid=1930
New Media Expo home page: www.newmediaexpo.com/incoming.php?linkid=1931

FU of the week: moblogic.tv


FU of the week: moblogic.tv - Originally uploaded on flickr by stevegarfield.

Wednesday, March 12, 2008

...displays! Gerry T, Steve Garfield, and Brian Agosta pimping MobLogic


...displays! Gerry T, Steve Garfield, and Brian Agosta pimping MobLogic - Originally uploaded on flickr by moblogic.

Steve Garfield gets ready to shoot...


Steve Garfield gets ready to shoot... - Originally uploaded on flickr by moblogic.

This is off the record... Hillary is a Monster

I commented over on the Moblogic.tv blog post about the Hillary is a monster story, And in This Corner… | MobLogic.tv: News and Politics Daily with Lindsay Campbell:

One part of this story that I think is interesting is the original quote from the newspaper:
""She is a monster, too — that is off the record — she is stooping to anything," The Scotsman quoted her as saying."

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23519392/

It's a question of what is on the record and what is off the record in an interview.

A reporter I asked about this thought that the reporter broke the rules of journalism by printing the 'off the record" comment. She told me that she would never have printed that.

On the other hand, an attendee at SXSW told me that unless both parties have mutually agreed that was was being said would be off the record, the reporter was able to print it.

He went on to explain that unless you have upfront agreement to go off the record, you can't just throw in "this is off the record" in the middle of an interview and expect a reporter to keep a big story secret.

I think that's what happened here.
What do you think?

SXSW Video: Quit your Day Job and Video Blog



I wasn't planning on attending this SXSW session since I already know everyone on the panel, but Bre twittered that we should all come, so I went.

It was really worth it because instead of telling technical stories, the panelists told personal stories. There were some great moments, especially when I walked up in the middle of the session and live blogged it... :-)

Tim Shey of Next New Networks hosted a panel Saturday at South by Southwest on how to make a job out of videoblogging. His panelists included successful video bloggers and Web stars Lindsay Campbell, Zadi Diaz, Bre Pettis and Lisa Donovan (LisaNova).
via [ TV Week ]

Podcast of this session, Quit your Day Job and Video Blog. [ mp3 ]


Extra: Here's a bunch of podcasts from sessions at SXSW 2008 .

Tuesday, March 11, 2008

Live with Sunny Gault and ThinkJosé



VIDEO: Live with Sunny Gault and ThinkJosé

Viral on Veoh.

ThinkJosé.

Behind the Scenes at Animoto



VIDEO: Behind the Scenes at Animoto

Animoto

Networking at SXSW

Daisy Whitney from TV Week writes, SXSW a Hub for Online Video Networking:
“The people who are the best at networking are never going with a specific agenda or deal to do,” said Alex Lindsay, the chief architect for San Francisco-based Pixel Corps, which produces online video shows. He will speak at the show. “They are going to meet lots of people and figuring out what to do next. The people who fail at networking are the ones trying to make a deal there.”

Halcyon of Hugnation.com at SXSW 2008 - 9030


Halcyon of Hugnation.com at SXSW 2008 - 9030 - Originally uploaded on flickr by Lan Bui.

Monday, March 10, 2008

Lindsay Campbell - Moblogic.tv



Visit Lindsay Campbell at Moblogic.tv


Watch this Lindsay Campbell - Moblogic.tv video on YouTube.

Zuckerberg interview: What went wrong



Jeff Jarvis: Zuckerberg interview: What went wrong

SXSW BlogTalkRadio Audio Report


The Bull Session With Alan & Lee [3/10/2008 12:00 AM]
Independent artists Lee Stranahan and Alan Bernhoft [ link plays music ] discuss art and stuff. This weeks show features a great report on SXSW with video blogging pioneer Steve Garfield as well as talk about David Kaufman's one man show, the Beatles, Boston, suicide and naked actors.

Best SXSW Party Ever: Moblogic.tv



Having the benefit of hindsight, yes. The SXSW Moblogic.tv party was better than the Animal House party.

This Moblogic.tv promo video is sweet, even though it does deface the city of New York. It's all in good fun.

Ronen Verbit


Ronen Verbit - Originally uploaded on flickr by stevegarfield.

Jared and Lindsay


Jared and Lindsay - Originally uploaded on flickr by stevegarfield.

Ellie and Adam


Ellie and Adam - Originally uploaded on flickr by stevegarfield.

Jeffery Tambor Acting Workshop


Jeffery Tambor Acting Workshop - Originally uploaded on flickr by stevegarfield.

Sunday, March 09, 2008

Fun House Crazy


Fun House Crazy - Originally uploaded on flickr by stevegarfield.

SXSW Today


Half these people are half listening - Originally uploaded on flickr by stevegarfield.

Here's my tentative plan for today.

I'll be in the hallways between sessions. Stop by and say hi.

Sunday, March 9
11:30 Magic and Mental Models: Using Illusion to Simplify Designs (Austin Convention Ctr, Room A)
1:00 Jeffery Tambor Acting Workshop (Austin Convention Ctr, Room 16AB)
3:00 A Conversation with: Helen Hunt (Austin Convention Ctr, Room 16AB)
5:00 Gossip (Austin Convention Ctr, Room 12AB)
7:30 11th Annual SXSW Web Awards Ceremony (7:30-8:45pm) (Downtown Hilton Hotel, 500 E 4th)

When I stream live I'll send a note out to twitter, follow me on twitter, and the stream will show up here.

It'll also show up on my Qik page, Seesmic, and Mogulus.

Here's a SXSW Qik page that compiles all the SXSW Qik video streamers.

Friday, March 07, 2008

Heading to Logan Airport, Bear Right


Heading to Logan Airport, Bear Right - Originally uploaded on flickr by stevegarfield.

When you are heading to the airport from Melnea Cass Boulevard there needs to be SIGNS to tell you to BEAR RIGHT, otherwise you get sent into downtown Boston.

PLEASE.

The city must have a few of those little square signs with airplanes lying around...