Blogs, Moblogs and now "Vogs":
Are Videoblogs Ready For Prime Time?
This subject had been discussed in depth at Slashdot.
We have lots of referrers coming in via Google requesting information about "videoblogging".
However we have to admit that this blog "Phototalk" obviously was not intended to be the first information and discussion source for videoblogging (so if you like to start something like this on a very regular basis with a non-commercial intention, we´ll grant you with your very own independent blog "Videotalk" here at talks.blogs.com: you are the boss of "Videotalk", have all the freedom to do what you like (multi authorship, your design etc. and - the responsibility). If instead you have already set up something like a discussion/information blog about video blogging, please let us know. We are very interested in this matter but - to be frankly - without the resources to act in both fields although both will share a more common ground in the future than today.
Here are some interesting starting points:
Adrian Miles (RMIT University, Melbourne; he is a teacher/researcher in new pedagogies in new media, hypermedia, and interactive video) is doing video blogging for 2 years. In his Manifesto called VOGMA (Video Manifesto) he writes:
1. a vog respects bandwidth
2. a vog is not streaming video (this is not the reinvention of television)
3. a vog uses performative video and/or audio
4. a vog is personal
5. a vog uses available technology
6. a vog experiments with writerly video and audio
7. a vog lies between writing and the televisual
8. a vog explores the proximate distance of words and moving media
9. a vog is dziga vertov with a mac and a modem
10. a vog is a video blog where video in a blog must be more than video in a blog
A vog is a VideoBlog (Adrian: "A vog is the video equivalent of a blog."). Please visit also Adrian´s Videoblog::VOG 2.0, Vlog 2.1 and "desktop vogging part one". In the latter he writes:
"Like blogs, vogs also tend to emphasise informal modes of shooting and cutting, and often develop a serial form where it is the ongoing history of the vog that helps contextualise any individual entry. A vog assumes that the natural habitat of networked video is a multiwindow environment and that the combination of images in time (montage) with multiple simultaneous views (collage) is a key trope of digital screen narration, expression and authorship (see for instance Manovich and Landow). Unlike much of what passes for interactive network video, a vog requires and assumes that Internet video is more than a digital stream which appropriates our browsers as televisual wannabes. A vog is an attempt to develop an interactive video vernacular for the network." [Full article]
Vlog 2.1 covers nearly all you to need to know, lots about:
-Vogging Practice
-Vogging Theory
-Vogging Tools
Jeremy Allaire reports an early Video Blog Experiment with WiFi laptops: "The experiment was a success. There were 27 video blog entries (of varying content and quality), and over 51,000 total views of all of these videos." He calls it "distributed video journalism."
Peter Van Dijck (1; 2) provides a great list of videoblogs . He has just started a Wiki about Video Blogging called Me-TV.org which after some time of reviewing we consider to become probably the source in this field.
Among others ("See Me, Blog me"; "The Video Blog Experiment") he reports an article (Gurdian) "Video blogs go mobile in 3G trial": “Mobile phone company Orange unveiled plans to offer customers of its soon to be launched 3G service the ability to file the next generation of blogs – video diaries." We are in contact with the Business Development of Vodafone but haven´t been able to figure out what they intend to do in this field.
In the Infoimaging (what Kodak claims to do) Section Forbes writes about "How Videoblogs Will Change Newsgathering": "The question that remains unanswered at this point is how many individuals and organizations that have never set foot inside a local television station will use Vblogging for newsgathering and disseminating community news and who will watch."
Leaving the theory behind us: how do we start with videoblogging in real life? With an equipment at reasonable costs? Timm Hall works with "... a Canon PowerShot A70 digital camera, Apple iBook, and iMovie. Welcome to the brave new world of lo-vi, guerrilla micro-vilmmaking":
"Well, it's finally happened. Hollywood has called. Just had a great talk with Bryan Singer's people about doing some 'second unit work' (whatever the hell that is) for X-Men 3, which is still in pre-production and not due to be released until 2006. Bryan is apparently a huge fan of this site, and has been wanting to meet me for some time. Go figure.
Still, I haven't decided if I'm going to do it. I really like my day job. They just got these cool new coffee machines that use these little sealed cups that you put into this drawer thing, then it goes 'whoosh'! and the coffee comes out and the little cup gets sucked away and you have a fresh brewed cup! I doubt they have anything like that in Bryan's offices." (Link)
If you want to start the other way round: take the PenCam. It´s a "Covert Wireless Colour Video Camera" and "Ideal for undercover assignments and discreet surveillance, the PenCam cleverly conceals a quality colour video camera and microphone inside a working pen. With up to 100m transmission range and minimal illumination, undercover assignments can now be carried out with ease!"
"The ultimate in undetectable surveillance..."
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