GlitchNYC

I don’t know if other folks will get quite a big a kick of it as I do, I’m really happy with the latest episode of Felt Up TV. I ran around interviewing folks at Podcamp Boston like crazy, and it yielded lots of funny little moments that I’m getting to rediscover all over again as I cut them together. Some of the jokes and moments in this one crack me up every time I watch it.

These interviews are a pretty big departure for Felt Up TV, which was previously all sketch comedy, but I like ‘em, and they’re better than not putting out anything at all!

The latest episodes features luminaries from the videoblogging community including the awesome Casey and Rudy from Galacticast, Amanda Congdon, Shauna from Scriggity, and Justin, the creator of Something To Be Desired.

My favorite moments? The bit where Rudy says “How come the fox gets it and I get none of the love?” and Justin’s delayed, genuine laugh at the end when I say “Arm-agra?”

Click To Play

Podcamp is awesome.

I could simply end this post right there, but I suppose that’s not much fun, is it?

Well, there’s been so much that happened today that I almost don’t know where to begin. People have come from Kansas, NYC, London, and elsewhere to join in the new media love-in that is Podcamp.

I’d admit to being a bit shortsighted about this event. When I first heard the idea for Podcamp, I didn’t quite get how Barcamp, a multidisciplinary unconference about all things geek (including podcasting) would look if you filtered it down to just Podcasting and Vlogging. If you took out all the non-podcasters, who would come?

Christopher S. Penn and Chris Brogan had the foresight to realize that the Barcamp model is by nature self-exclusive. Because it’s an extremely technical event and everyone who comes is expected to present, people will refrain from participating for fear that they’ve got nothing to say. With podcamp, those who are new to podcasting are instead encouraged to come and learn.

The more inclusive atmosphere has created a ton of participation. At last count, nearly 400 people had registered for podcamp. Andrew and Joanne of Rocketboom are here (and yes, Amanda is here too, but those hoping for drama and subsequent mud-wrestling grudge matches have so far been disappointed ;).) C.C. Chapman is here. Steve Garfield is here. Chris MacDonald is here. These are mini-celebrities of the new media world, and yet they’re all completely down to earth, hanging out and chatting with everyone late into the evening.

The panels I’ve attended have been excellent, and I’m looking forward to catching the ones I missed via podcast later.

While I’ve been writing this, I’ve also been prepping the “warm up” show for tomorrow that will be played over the sound-system while everything gets set up. Speaking of The Alternative Music Show, tonight, Chris Penn asked if I had some shows with me to play during the after-event. Considering I was hauling nearly everything I own, I would have been ashamed if I hadn’t brought a few episodes with me!

While we all chatted, ate, and drank, songs from C.C.’s warm-up and the GlitchCast Rewind editions of The Alternative Music Show played from the speakers. It was strange to hear music that I was so incredibly familiar with coming out of bar speakers all night, and a very nice touch to the evening. Several times, people came over to me and asked who someone was because they really liked them. I love getting instant feedback like that!

Okay, I’ve got to crash so I can get up tomorrow for day two! I’ve said it once, I’ll say it again. Podcamp is awesome!

Last night I attended the 2nd Video 2.0 Meetup here in NYC. The audience was a mix of startup companies in online video and content producers. Among the notables that I recognized in the audience were Andrew and Joanne from RocketBoom and some of the folks from Blip.tv .

The event is held in a screening room for the Tribeca film festival where greats like Scorsese routinely hold private screenings (there were even rumors of Scorsese himself breezing in and out of the projection room, but that may have been a joke.)

I took some pretty decent notes on each of the presenters, and surprisingly, each of these companies had something new and different to bring to the table. In my next few posts, I’ll summarize each of the services and then talk a bit about why I found them interesting.

Motionbox

Motionbox opened the night, and were quick to differentiate themselves from other video hosting sites by working to solve the “unproduced content problem.” With photos on flickr, you can easily scan through thumbnails of your friend’s vacation, and zoom in on the few great pictures, but with video, you’re stuck watching the whole thing.

Motionbox allows you to highlight sections of videos, and even creates permalinks to those selected clips. It’s quite cool, and they hinted that “more cool stuff was coming in the fall.

They’re already partnered with NBC5 in Chicago, and if you go to nbc5.com you can see where “viewers” are submitting content, and that can be integrated into the broadcast news.

Once questions began, we got the nitty-gritty on their back end. Their service is programmed in ruby on rails, and their custom player is written in FLEX on top of Flash 9. They’ve got about 20 folks on their team and have outside investors, although they didn’t specify who or how much. I believe they mentioned that they were hiring, but I could be mistaken. It can’t hurt to shoot them a resume if you’re interested.

As far as monetization, they’re planning a pro-product as well as ads, and you know that deals like the NBC5 partnership can’t hurt.

My opinion? I was just about to tune out and pass motionbox off as a yaytc (Yet Another Youtube Clone… it sounds like “Yahtzee!” when you say it out loud) when I heard them mention “something cool coming in the fall” a second time while talking about their ability to highlight clips. They started to taking about permissions that you can grant to your file, such as giving different people the permission to highlight and link to clips, or mix and mash it up with others.

Aha! Mix and mash?! Now this is starting to sound cool, and you can understand why they’re hesitant to announce this formally until they’ve got it ready. This is of course just my speculation, but how awesome would it be if I could go on Motionbox and create my own “America’s funniest home videos”, complete with music track? Or create a full on music video using footage other people have uploaded? My ears certainly perked up at the end there, and if they’ve really got this up their sleeves, I don’t think I’ll be the only one excited about it.

There were 4 more presenters, and there’s four more pieces to this round up coming, just as fast as I can type them! Stay tuned!