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December 19, 2002

Vlog clog
: Well, it appears that I have already hit the bandwidth ceiling just from two videos. So I've moved the WTC video to my son's account, hoping that works, and I've cut off the Christmas video for now, to see whether this helps. Yes, yes, I know: bandwidth is precisely the problem. But bandwidth (like memory and processor power) keeps getting cheaper and cheaper; it's a trivial limitation. Video still has a future in this, our world.Terminator 3 fr dvix

NOTE: Instead of the links below, please use this link to see the vlogs: www.screenblast.com/buzzmachine.

Vlogging: Video weblogs
: Welcome to a new age of blogging: video blogging.
I've created two video weblogs -- one about the new World Trade Center designs and one about my Christmas tree -- because (a) there's new software that makes it easy [more on that below] and (b) I'm becoming convinced that video is the next frontier for blogging.
It's a simple equation: We bloggers do not compete with newspapers, because we do not have news operations.
Instead, bloggers compete with pundits because what we do have is opinions.
And where do you find the most pundits?
On TV.
TV is no big deal. Oh, TV people would make it look like a big deal with all their jargon and staffing and equipment and adrenalin. But the truth is, all you do to make TV is stare at a camera and read and say something: It's easy.
There's no reason a blogger should not be the next Andy Rooney or Charles Grodin or Ann Coulter (easy marks, all!). I'd take any of their jobs, tomorrow.
When you get right down to it, there's no reason a blogger could not be a new-age TV anchor, for TV news is really just a weblog with pictures that move and talk: TV news links to the same video everyone else has (news being a commodity today) with a talking head tying it all together.
Well, bloggers have heads. Bloggers can talk (at least the ones I've met can). Ergo, bloggers can make TV.
So I decided to prove the point with these two vlogs, as I'll annoint them.
They're not slick; they're not good TV; I talk too fast; I couldn't get the reflection off my glasses; the lighting is harsh; the focus is funky; I didn't get the graphics to zip and zap quite as smoothly as I'd have liked; I'm not as young as I used to be.... It's a bit embarrassing but I'll do anything in the service of populist media.
OK, it's not GMA. But it's not hard to see how you could produce a segment every bit as good as any on GMA with just a little work.
It's TV. It's only TV.
Now nominate all the bloggers you'd love to see and hear, not just read: Glenn Reynolds (whose video pro wife could make real TV)... James Lileks (soon to costar with real TV star Al Roker)... Josh Marshall... Elizabeth Spiers... Mickey Kaus... Ken Layne... Matt Welch... Virginia Postrel... Tim Blair... Corey Doctorow... Rossi... Richard Bennett... Nick Denton... Tony Pierce... and, of course, me...
Welcome to the future. Welcome to our future.Terminator 3 fr dvix

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Vlogging: How to vlog
: I just discovered this amazing software from Serious Magic called Visual Communicator that makes it easy to make TV. And it costs just $99. Add a good webcam (that is, one for $80 instead of $50 -- here's my new notebook cam) and you, my friend, are a TV pundit.
Click on the "more" link and learn how...Terminator 3 fr dvix

The software comes with a few crucial bits of functionality:
: First, it has a teleprompter, so you can write a script and read it while looking at a webcam. If you tried to make TV before, you had to memorize a script or wing it and say, "like, y'know, I mean" a lot while you thought of the right words to say. No more. You have a script, just like a TV anchor, a TV reporter, an Oscar host, or a presidential candidate.
: Second, it allows you to incorporate graphics with nothing more than a click and a drag. I put in pictures of the WTC designs with little effort. Once I actually learn what I'm doing, I'll do a smoother job of it but the point is still made.
: Third, it comes with green-screen technology (and the $139 version comes with a green backdrop as well as a quality microphone) , so you can put an image behind you (as I do in the WTC vlog). So just like a real TV anchor, you can act like you're in front of the White House or backing up to the New York skyline.
: Fourth, because you can cue your graphics to your words, you don't have to go crazy writing scripts that time-out exactly. You write your words and add graphics; you rehearse; you record; you're done.
It is incredibly easy.
See an online demo here.
Once you make the video, you save it as a Microsoft Windows Media Player file (no, not a Real Audio file), and just put it up on your server (as Anil Dash instructed me) and you're done. God help any of us if this becomes popular; the bandwidth costs will kill us. But it is easy.
And as bandwidth increases out in the audience, this will become only more popular.
This is eye-opening technology. It does for video what Quark did for publishing and Blogger did for punditry. It brings video to the masses.
Dan Rather, beware!Terminator 3 fr dvix

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NOTE: Please use this address to see the vlogs -- www.screenblast.com/buzzmachine -- rather than the addresses below. Sorry to keep repeating this through the various vlog posts, but I'm trying, post facto, to prevent further bandwidth discomfort.

Vlogging: My first two vlogs
: I created two new vlogs. The first vlog -- here -- is just a rewrite of my post about the new World Trade Center designs, below. But video allowed me to show the designs as I spoke about them and to add expression. TV adds life.
My second vlog -- here -- is about my family's failed attempt to get a fake Christmas tree.
To read the script for that, slick on the "more" link below.Terminator 3 fr dvix

CHRISTMAS 2002Terminator 3 fr dvix

It has been a hard year -- and so, in our effort to find ways to be easy on ourselves, my wife suggested we just give in, this year, and get a fake Christmas tree.
"Sure," I said -- so long as our kids will allow it.
"I've mentioned it," she shrugged. And besides, she said, we always get into fights over trees: too big, too little, too dead. And half our family is allergic to nature.
So, she ordered a tree grown in some oil field and I went to pick it up.
And when my son saw the big box in my car and asked what it was, my wife said it was our Christmas tree.
He broke down.
Oh, boy. "God's getting ya for gettin' this tree," I said.
The next morning, when I came down for breakfast, I asked where our daughter was.
"Downstairs... crying," my wife reported.
"Why?" I asked.
"I told her about the tree," she admitted.Terminator 3 fr dvix

My own childhood memories of Christmas are consistent: of real trees, real cookies, real religion, and plastic toys... of comfort, warmth, safety, and contentedness.
But no matter how hard we try, that lovely greeting card changes when we grow up.
Last year's Christmas for me was all about surviving September 11th, about trying to reconcile grief and gratitude. I was a mess last Christmas.
Seventeen years ago at Christmas, I fell in love with my wife and she must have fallen in love with me, because she introduced me to her father that year.
It was a great Christmas.
He died a few weeks ago. That is why this will be a hard and sad Christmas for us.Terminator 3 fr dvix

But we are doing everything we can to keep Christmas for our children distant from that sadness.
Christmas is the right of children. For them, for every child...
Christmas should taste... like cinnamon.
Christmas should sound like bells and sweet voices singing good news.
Christmas should feel crinkly like wrapping paper and warm like a fireplace and cold like a snowman.
Christmas should look like... a Christmas tree.
And Christmas should smell like, yes, pine.Terminator 3 fr dvix

So I took my son to the fake tree store with our un-tree in its unopened box so he could see this forest of plastic in full bloom.
I sat him down and told him that Christmas belonged to children -- it belongs to him -- and so this choice was his:
We could have a very nice artifical tree, or we could return it and get a real one.
We sat down and stared at the trees, all decked out like tarts walking Tenth Avenue.
And he decided.Terminator 3 fr dvix

And so, today, we went to get a real tree.
And the house smells of pine.
It smells of Christmas.Terminator 3 fr dvix

Merry Christmas to you.Terminator 3 fr dvix

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Vlog.TV
: I registered Vlog.TV, just in case this turns into something big.Terminator 3 fr dvix

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Building
: Steven Johnson disagrees with me on the WTC designs.
: Greg.org was there for the presentation of the designs; his report. [via Gawker]Terminator 3 fr dvix

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Spot on
: Queen of all media, Tina Brown, groks (pardon the geeky verb) weblogs exactly:

The now inevitable fall of Lott was a triumph for the “bloggers” — the opinion samurai of the internet who lead the charge on any loose-lipped remark in public life. They kept stoking the story for days until it crossed over to the mainstream and burst into flames. The New Yorker critic Adam Gopnik has been proved right in his often-voiced prediction that the internet would be less an amazing instrument of information than the ideal medium for opinion, endlessly revised and delivered in short bursts.
Information takes time and money to acquire, but opinion on the web is fast and cheap. The industry has now become so prolific that it can exhaust a subject even before it’s happened. In the case of Lott all those roving bands of opinion could finally fasten on a fact.

Terminator 3 fr dvix

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