Exploring the sub-culture of video blogging
Here are my answers to Clare Lyons-Montgomery, a graduate student in the Department of Screen and Media studies at the University of Waikato in Hamilton, New Zealand. She is conducting research into the cultural aspects of video blogging.
1. On the Carol and Steve Show website you refer to your show as a 'real reality show'; do you see video blogging as a future entertainment and informational source for the majority of people instead of television or do you foresee another kind of future?
Video blogging is not going to replace television. Television is just a device that people use to get their news and entertainment. With new products like Akimbo, and Windows Media Center, internet content is starting to find it's way into the livingroom and onto television.
Video blogging uses the internet to distribute video content and has the added benefit of being a two-way environment. Not only can the viewer watch a video blog entry, but they can also leave a comment for the video author and start a conversation.
The environment of the internet fosters communication.
I imagine a future where people will watch video content from others either on their TV or on the internet, and then easily be able to create their own video content in response, or their own new video, based on what they view.
Television is a one way medium right now. People just sit and watch it. The only interactivity is when American Idol asks us to vote on a contestant to go to the next round. With Tivo, we can now selectively watch what ever shows we want when we want.
The magic of RSS 2.0 with media enclosures allows us to do a similar thing with videoblogs. I can choose which people I want to see videos from and subscribe to their feed with a desktop video aggregator such as FireANT.
This is personal. I'm not subscribing to a network, corporation or show, I'm subscribing to a person. I want to see new videos from a specific individual. This a a new breakthrough in video distribution.A small group of video bloggers has formed a community over on Yahoo! groups.
We are even starting to hold regular videoblogging videoconferences.
So even at this grassroots level communities are forming around the process of videoblogging. we are getting to know each other on a personal level from watching each others videos.
I can imagine a future where this will be commonplace and people from all over the world will form communities of shared interests and get to know each other through their videos, have conversations with each other, and bring us all closer together.
2. You use a creative commons licence to protect your work that specifies that no money should be made from your material, what are your feelings on the potential for video blogs to be used to generate a profit by commercial organisations?
Just because I have a Creative Commons license on my video blog doesn't mean that I don't want to make money from it or from my video content.
I'm mainly involved in video blogging because I love it. I'm also excited about spreading information about video blogging so that we'll get a lot more people out their creating video and showing things that we normally never get to see.
The Creative Commons license is there to protect my content by being used to make money by someone else without my approval. I am open to generating a profit from my video blogging. There a a number of ways that that might work, one of which is to help set up a video blog on a consulting basis for others as I have done for Boston City Councillor John Tobin.Commercial organizations are starting to see the value of video blogs too. One industry is the film industry. We've recently seen video blog reports from movies in production for movies such as Kong is King and Superman Returns.
Independent film companies are video blogging parts of their movie while in production. Green Green Water is one of the first independent productions to do this.
There are a million ways that companies can use video blogging and the most important one is to help them have a conversation with their customers. It won't work if they just push standard TV commercials on their video blogs.
They've got to have real people telling stories, like Robert Scoble is doing at Microsoft. That's an example of one person making a huge difference.
3. What do you hope to achieve in the creation of your own video blogs?
Fame and fortune.
4. There is a debate amongst video bloggers over whether video blogs should be defined as a specific video form or be left open to interpretation. Do you feel video blogging needs a clear definition of what it is and isn't to move forward?
No. Please. Let's not define it. Videoblogging is a growing thing right now and to define it would limit it.
Over at Wikipedia, they are trying to define it, and I'm trying to help keep the definition open.
I'd like to see more people get out there and do it. Let them bring new ideas and methods. Let us learn from those that follow us. Show me something new, a new way of thinking, seeing, and living.