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Videoblog Revolution

Posted by CmdrTaco on Tue Nov 09, 2004 10:15 AM
from the this-revolution-won't-be-televised dept.
The Media
mr_don't writes "Not too long ago Slashdot featured a post about photoblogs. It claimed that photoblogging is the next big thing, but really it has been around a while (notice how lots of folks posted a link to their photoblogs!). I think the next big thing will be VideoBlogging. Many have seen Peter Jackson's cool King Kong Video Blog, but you don't need whole a camera crew to blog using video. My made-on-linux video blog."
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  • Word of Advice (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 09 2004, @10:17AM (#10765932)
    Only do this if you are a hot chick

    • Err.... (Score:3, Interesting)

      by numbski (515011) *
      I can't believe no one else is catching this...

      "Captain's Log, Stardate blah blah blah blah blah..."

      We're actually moving toward logging our days into a computer, and then when something goes wrong, investigators come in later and go through our personal logs to see what happened in the days leading up to.

      Life is becoming one large, pathetic 'Trek episode.

      God, I'm a geek. :(

      (You made me wonderfully and perfectly so...I think? :P)
      • Uh, yeah, because Star Trek invented the concept of a captain keeping track of the events on a ship. Right.
        • I mean where everything is logged in video. ...and, perhaps my example wasn't good. You notice how just about EVERYONE in trek keeps a personal video log?
    • Only do this if you are a hot chick

      Actually this has been around quite awhile, it is called "porn".

  • "....whooooooosh....." (Score:4, Funny)

    by RMH101 (636144) on Tuesday November 09 2004, @10:17AM (#10765940)
    this is the sound of tumbleweed

  • Not true.... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Kenja (541830) on Tuesday November 09 2004, @10:18AM (#10765947)
    The next Big Thing will be when you all get a life and stop pretending that your opinion is important enough to take up space on the internet. Video-bloging is just another "thing" of no importantance. It all makes me sick, I should write an entry in my blog about it.

  • Bandwidth... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by SunPin (596554) <slashspam@@@cyberista...com> on Tuesday November 09 2004, @10:19AM (#10765955) Homepage
    ... and nobody cares.

    Two excellent reasons why videoblogging is a nonstarter.

    • Re:Bandwidth... (Score:5, Funny)

      by Lev13than (581686) on Tuesday November 09 2004, @10:22AM (#10766001) Homepage
      Bandwidth.... and nobody cares.

      Of course, the second issue kind of takes care of the first. Based on the quality of most letter-blogs out there, I suspect that the vast majority of videoblogs could be safely co-hosted from a single Commodore 64 and a 300-baud modem.

      • Re:Bandwidth... (Score:5, Funny)

        by SunPin (596554) <slashspam@@@cyberista...com> on Tuesday November 09 2004, @10:31AM (#10766083) Homepage
        Bandwidth.... and nobody cares.


        Of course, the second issue kind of takes care of the first. Based on the quality of most letter-blogs out there, I suspect that the vast majority of videoblogs could be safely co-hosted from a single Commodore 64 and a 300-baud modem.


        That's just a cruel way to treat a Commodore 64 with a 300 baud modem. This equipment had nothing to do with the assclown videoblog crowd. :)

    • It really makes me wonder. I can see that bw is a serious impediment to using video as text is used now. Lack of bw forces video into serialized information, which is much like accessing your computer's RAM like it was a paper tape unit. {Whirrrrr!} Only the most slovenly Internet sloucher can afford right now to spend the time using a videoblog like a textblog is used.

      However, if common bw increases 10-100 fold over what we have now, will actual videoblogs be possible if we can use innovative featur

  • blog appeal (Score:3, Insightful)

    by LiquidCoooled (634315) on Tuesday November 09 2004, @10:19AM (#10765962) Homepage Journal
    Isn't this just buffered webcam viewing?

    Somehow the thought of actively browsing the web looking for random folks sticking their fingers up their noses and generally acting strange reminds me of a couple of years ago.

    At least if these folks have gone wireless and are in public, they may behave a little more civilised.
  • ... of one thousand elephants stomping an ant?

    C'mon boys, let's get him!

  • How much does it cost (Score:3, Funny)

    by stratjakt (596332) on Tuesday November 09 2004, @10:20AM (#10765968) Journal
    To advertise your blog on slashdot?
  • Blogging comfortably took about 56kbps. Photoblogging required broadband of at least 512kbps. Videoblogging? Looks like I better fork over even more cash to the ISP.

    I won't be doing high-def videoblogging unless I get my own ATSC transmitter tower!

  • Wasting bandwidth (Score:5, Insightful)

    by cloudmaster (10662) on Tuesday November 09 2004, @10:20AM (#10765971) Homepage Journal
    Hooray for the next big bandwidth waster! Everyone needs to stream not just text describing what I did today, and not just pictures, but full-friggin-motion video showing just what I may have done today!

    Seriously, whose life is 1) so exciting that video clips are required for full appreciation and 2) not too exciting to have enough time to record the whole thing on video?

    • Re:Wasting bandwidth (Score:4, Insightful)

      by AntiPasto (168263) on Tuesday November 09 2004, @10:54AM (#10766285) Journal
      There's a lot of bandwidth to waste! BitTorrent works like a jet engine in the sense that the more people are interested in something, the more bandwidth there is available to get it. Conversely, you shouldn't worry too much as bad ideas will stay bad ideas and won't propogate much. BTW, have you seen harddrive prices lately? WTF are *you* putting on your 200 gig drive?
    • Most people's text blogs are only of interest to a very few people, video blogs will be no different. However, as with text blogs, some video blogs will be of great interst. Some will be of news (Rodney King style), some will be from UN workers in Iraq, some will be from a future George Lucas. Portals and distributed reputation / recommendation services are what we need to help us find the things of interest to us.

  • link whore (Score:4, Interesting)

    by akb (39826) on Tuesday November 09 2004, @10:21AM (#10765983)
    Demandmedia [demandmedia.net] is a collaborative video blog, based on the Scoop collaborative engine, users submit links to cool grass roots produced videos from around the 'net and users vote on which ones they like. Most of the video is of interest to those on the left end of the political spectrum.
  • I've had good luck with an absolutely bare bones [instapundit.com] videoblogging setup, using a Sony digital still camera that shoots video with sound. And Adam Keipner did some interesting videoblogging from the Nanotech conference in Washington [thenewatlantis.com] a couple of weeks ago. I think we'll see a lot more of this in the future.

  • The real next big thing... (Score:3, Funny)

    by httpamphibio.us (579491) on Tuesday November 09 2004, @10:22AM (#10765995)
    ...is going to be the bill from whoever hosts your web server!

    /.ing a page with video files is never a good idea!
  • ...it's called Internet pr0n.

    Oh, wait, did you mean without taking your clothes off? Never mind.

  • What php program does he use to do the video bloging?
  • Does webcam video blogging work if the server the cam's plugged into is on fire? Or do you just capture the first frame showing a small wisp of smoke escaping from the case?

  • errrrrm (Score:5, Funny)

    by Prince Vegeta SSJ4 (718736) on Tuesday November 09 2004, @10:25AM (#10766028)

    I read you on the usenet back in Ninety Two Lying awake intent at typing in on you. If I was young it didn't stop you coming through. Oh-a oh

    They took the credit for your second symphony. Rewritten by machine and new technology, and now I understand the problems you can see.

    Oh-a oh

    I met your children

    Oh-a oh

    What did you tell them?

    Video killed the Weblog star.

    Video killed the Weblog star.

    Pictures came and broke your heart.

    Oh-a-a-a oh

    And now we meet in an abandoned chatroom. We see the text words and it seems so long ago. And you remember the Smilies that came through :).

    Oh-a oh

    You were the first one.

    Oh-a oh

    You were the last one.

    Video killed the Weblog star.

    Video killed the Weblog star.

    In my mind and in my car,

    we can't rewind we've gone to far

    Oh-a-aho oh,

    Oh-a-aho oh

    Video killed the Weblog star.

    Video killed the Weblog star.

  • I doubt it will be more meaningful than photos (Score:5, Insightful)

    by gearmonger (672422) on Tuesday November 09 2004, @10:25AM (#10766030)
    The reason text blogging became so big is that it's easily searched and, thus, easily found via search engines.

    Photos are becoming better catalogued, but anyone who has used Google's image search will tell you, we're still a long way off from something akin to "good."

    Video will pose even bigger problems for search engines, meaning that most video clips that are posted will be ignored. Only those with something really valuable (political scandal, hot chicks, etc.) *AND* easily found will see any significant distribution and/or audience.

    Just my prediction...prolly wrong.

  • How do you speed-read a video? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by ZakMcCracken (753422) on Tuesday November 09 2004, @10:28AM (#10766050)
    One reason why blogging (or reading in general, for that matter) is popular, is that you can access the content at your own pace.

    Watching a video requires the willingness and ability to follow the pace of the videomaker--which restricts audience. While you can skim through a bad writer's rantings and see very quickly if there is anything of value in a couple of pages of text, doing so on video is impractical.

    Additionally, a good-paced video is actually hard to edit, and not something that most of us have been trained for in school, contrary to writing.

    Sounds like a gimmick doomed to fail.
  • OK I read blogs.. once in a blue moon - generally from a blogging friend. They're text, I can read quite fast - therefore if I was so inclined I could read dozens if not hundreds a day.

    Why the hell would I want to sit down and have to catch up with people in effectively "real time" on a videoblog? What a waste of time...

  • Next up: smelloblogs. To be soon followed by tasteoblogs.

    Bon appetite!

  • The same criticism of audioblogging [idlewords.com] also applies to video blogging.

    Think:
    • scanning, skipping
    • average reading speed: 150 wpm

    Audioblogging's limitations can perhaps be alieviated by Audioblog mixing, [emacswiki.org] with something like UserRadio, [ment.org] or playing the audioblogs at high speed.

    You might be able to extend video with that, but I'd probably rather just cut the visual, so I could do other things at the same time.

  • Please spare us (Score:3, Funny)

    by Confused (34234) on Tuesday November 09 2004, @10:45AM (#10766207) Homepage
    Text blogging is bad enough, where lots of people with nothing worthwhile to say about write about their boring life.

    Photo blogging is worse, because those same boring people take picture of ugly and uninteresting places and people. To make things worse, most people don't get out enough to provide a reasonable variety in subject and have a total lack of photography skill resulting isn awful pictures.

    Now comes video blogging, where those same people unable to get a life run around with a video camera to capture uninteresting ugly people in boring places making ineptly a fool out of themselves.

    For all three categories, if any of those bloggers had any skill at writing, taking pictures or filming, they would be hired to do it for a living and not waste their time updating blogs.

    The only blogs of interest contain good-looking naked women best presented by professionals to make it look like snapshots. But this is a different well-established industry.

  • Bandwidth / storage solved (Score:3, Insightful)

    by AntiPasto (168263) on Tuesday November 09 2004, @10:45AM (#10766209) Journal
    Besides the fact that the Internet Archive [archive.org] has promised unlimited bandwidth and storage for life for any Creative Commons [creativecommons.org] licensed material, it should be noted that BitTorrent is also playing a role in this.

    By syndicating .torrents automatically, channels of swarming mirroring can be formed to amass what could be called efficient broadcasting. On private lans, there's also no reason why you couldn't run VLC and Myth, and have a complete video network with on-demand-downloadable-by-bt type content, as well as redistribution of streaming media already out on the net (remember the internet tv article?)

    This is big, and it is hot. It's not *entirely* the downfall of big media, but it is in fact the eventuality of big media as our channel list grows, and our options for consumption and means of consuming this media grow.

    Some claim that this means TV and Film will die, or that all this material will end up looking like the lamest of public-access tv....

    Well, public access TV looks almost exactly in production, quality, and distribution as mid-80's regionally-produced TV shows (like Romper Room, or Cleveland's SUPERHOST!)

    Also, your kids are going to school and learning video production... on DV equipment in some cases.

    So, it's not the end of big media... it's the start of a new decentralized wonder. It'll probably both be worse than today (ads that make Futurama's attempts at advertising parody not funny anymore), and much purer (how about a family, community, slashdot, or special interest group TV show? Commercial free?)

    As a side note, some of these patterns will most likely be evident in tonight's Frontline on PBS about the "persuasion industry" ... I'll be watching that one!

    Anyway, start looking into this stuff, because it is what you make it. If you want to bitch about it, well, start your own damn TV show.

    • Considering that about 12-13 million people are regularly tuning in every week to see pointless pastiche like "Two and a Half Men" and "Survivor! VANUATU!!!" I'd say that lowest common denominator media has a long way to go before it's dead. Also, it's great that things like these will give voice to bright new talent, but that's the thing, it has to be bright new talent. Just because you've got an XL2 and a working knowledge of Premiere doesn't mean you're going to make anything I'd like to see.

      However, I
  • Yet Another Wank-Fest . . . if videoblogging were a 'Revolution', we wouldn't need to be told about it on Slashdot. Put aside your delusions of grandeur and _do_something_ revolutionary if you want a revolution.
  • I wanted to take a moment to plug a couple of things... The first is my personal moblog [nuxx.net] which really isn't anything special. However, the way the photos are published is kinda unique, and I thought other people might find it nice to play with.

    What I use is the rather well-known PHP-based Gallery [menalto.com] photo management / presentation software, combined with an implementation of the Nokia Image Upload Server API [nokia.com] as a plugin [menalto.com] for Gallery.

    It works great... I just snap a picture on the phone, go to the Gallery (on th

  • The Next "BIG THING" (Score:3)

    by sillypixie (696077) on Tuesday November 09 2004, @10:53AM (#10766279) Journal
    If video blogging becomes popular, it will be on the coattails of something like Podcasting. [ipodder.org]

    It is hard for me to imagine choosing to sit at a computer and watch someone talk, compared to being able to listen to them talk, anywhere, anytime, on my iPod.

    Unless they are doing something interesting... well that leaves out the realms of home-reno, reality-tv, & porno, I guess (-:

    Pixie

  • Problems with video blogs... (Score:3, Informative)

    by Spoing (152917) on Tuesday November 09 2004, @12:09PM (#10766975) Homepage
    Video blogs suffer from a few practical drawbacks;

    1. Bandwidth.
    2. Too much like TV: harder to do anything but watch.
    3. Increased production time. The Podcasters [slashdot.org] are finding that they are spending quite a bit of time figuring out what equipment to buy, how to use it, and what software to use. A 1 hour audio blog can take 3 hours to produce depending on how much polish is needed. Add video and I can see that tagging on another hour -- minimum -- unless you don't have much to show or don't care much about how it looks.
    4. Who would want to look at ~your~ face? :)

    That said, I think that video blogs will become popular...though it may be a couple years before these issues aren't as big of a problem to deal with.

  • Ben Brown was an early videoblogger (Score:3, Insightful)

    by AtariDatacenter (31657) on Tuesday November 09 2004, @03:49PM (#10769331) Homepage
    Anyone remember Ben Brown by chance? He was an early videoblogger with his Ben Brown show that went on for a number of episodes. (It seemed like a creative outlet for an unemployed techie.) It was pretty well known to the Metafilter/Fark crowd, at least.

    He went away, but I have to say, that was a pretty good archetype for the video blogger. Just I think that video bloggers have even more of a problem in that they're not easily searchable, and one has to dedicate time to see the content more than pictures or text. It is far easier to turn people off than to turn them on because of the time a viewer needs to invest.
    • please. "push" technology is the next big thing. pretty soon you'll all be running thin clients, getting push content, and riding segways. and there will be xml, and set-top boxes, and portals, and aeron chairs, and it will all be written in java. just you wait!
        • Richer metadata is definitely an active topic in the community. Unfortunately, progress is slow as there's no agreement on how to represent a multimedia object and its potential related items (ie, different formats, different bitrates, a transcript, subtitles in another language, a shorter version, sign language representation, etc). Even if this problem is overcome, the difficulty in creating a transcript makes it not very likely that the searching problem will get better soon.

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