Web Video is Here
At long last I can write these words. The book is done. Web Video: Making it Great, Getting it Noticed published by Peachpit Press will be out later this month. You can find listings on Amazon.com and Peachpit.com today.
Amazon.com
Writing Web Video was a wonderful exploration into the field. I talked with old friends and met some new ones in the process. One thing is very clear. The world of Web Video is changing. YouTube will always provide quick and dirty access to video, and bless them for making it available on my iPhone, but the big news in Web Video today is high quality and close to high definition web video. Close to publication time I discovered Vimeo.com which let’s you upload high definition video. It works.
The Holy Grail for Web Video is quality. Commercial outfits including Move Networks are working their magic with video quality and Flash Video delivers sparkiing standard definition video. Like you I’m still waiting to be able to play Flash on my iPhone and other devices.
With the book done I’ll be writing more often and looking at products and services to help you with your video. There was so much I couldn’t get into the book. So look for additional information footage you can download video interviews and more on the book’s website.
What Makes Good Web Video? How-to, Irreverance and Creative Thinking
I’ve been thinking a lot, after the Web Video Summit about what makes good web video. Heard recently about a bet. A colleague well met at Le Web3 in Paris pledged to get to the top of YouTube and did. The contents of his video “how to cook a sausage geek style” have much to teach about the audiences for web video.
First and foremost “how to” reigns supreme. If I’m honest with myself about how I use video on the web two uses float to the top. I recently wanted to add pilates to my workout routine. http://www.videojug.com/film/pilates-how-to-achieve-great-abdominalsкомпютри втора употреба?????? answered the call with beautiful videos that are easily understood even with the sound turned down. Video jug by the way seems to have a winning formula how to videos on an ever increasing number of topics incuding howAus eigener Erfahrung ist der Zeitpunkt um in einem Casino zu casinos sehr wichtig. to shoot video. Later that day I wanted to adjust my bicycle brakes. http://www.jimlangley.net/wrench/wrench.html provided clear concise directions and a wonderfully instructive video on how to change tires. YouTube had 8 bicycle maintenance videos.
The geek sausage challenge also suggests web video watchers are hungry. Probably not just for sausage but for content that is funny entertaining, irreverant and informative. I bristle at the good-for-you variety of video both on the web and on TV and applaude any evidence of interesting thinking on the part of producers.
What were they thinking? Dateline New York. I made it into the last performance of Romeo and Juliete in Central Park last night and the watery stage combined with the pea soup humidity on that July night combined to create a steamy experience. Visually the production was quite a spectacular with the black everchanging staircase armature reflected in a pool of shallow water surrounded by a circular black boardwalk and black gravel.
Six feet under’s Lauren Ambrose glowed luminescent all pale skin and red hair against the gloom. A wonderfully physical actress Ambrose recreated Juliete as a contemporary adolescent. Camryn Manheim delivered a standout performance as the Nurse. Thank heaven for the torches and firelight that illuminated some acts and the orange fight in the first act which did much to dispell the murky gloom of the set, itself the star of this production. It forced stage hands in boots and actors in soggy shoes to splash and slog through the performance. Ambrose to her credit used the set’s metaphor for emotion well splashing her grief and joy. It was after all a pleasure.
Web Video Summit Delivers
Aza Raskin of Humanized.com was a crowd pleaser at the first Web Video Summit held in San Jose this week. His elegant proscriptions: good interfaces are effortless to use once you know them; modes cause misery; your data is sacred, and one thing at a time, left the crowd wanting more. “Give us a full hour of Aza next time, someone shouted from the floor at the event’s wrap up session hosted by Dave Burstein and I agree.
Other standouts, Alive in Baghdad’s Brian Conley in the opening keynote, Lynda.com’s Lynda Weinman, and Attorney Colette Vogele, in the session titled “Money Smarts: Talent Agents, Lawyers and Other Pros Give Advice.” While Vogel couldn’t give legal advice attendees couldn’t get enough of her guidelines for protecting original content. In the front row Josh Wolfe who also spoke in the News session and knows a thing or two about the legalities of standing on his rights as a journalist to protect his sources. At the same time standing room only for Web Video Creators from Around the world with: Joel Heller, Docs That Inspire, Marc Mangold, Hubert Burda Media Christina Tunnah, Lonely Planet and Mitchell Linden, Reality Digital.
Technical standouts. A demonstration of HD streamed live over the net by Gary Croke of Cache Logic who says the problem with streaming HD is not just bandwidth, and the Wednesday session with iPhone developers Christopher Allen, iPhoneDev.com and Raj Singh of Veeker and a session on HD workflow with Adobe’s Simon Hayhurst.
Another crowd favorite a keynote featuring the hottest new companies who presented their products to WVS’s “cool hunting team:” including GigaOm’s Om Malik, Anton Wahlman from ThinkEquity and Michael Smolens, of dotSUB.
Technical glitches aside, Web Video Summit was a sparkling success. Kudos to Dave Burstein from who’s fertile mind this all sprang, and to Denise Miller at Jupiter who pulled it all together with amazing efficiency and style. Look for the next WVS in New York December 10-11th at the Roosevelt Hotel.
