Cheap plugs rock. Anywho, Pixelodeon is an annual conference essentially celebrating online video. Bloggers and vloggers from all over attended and discussed changing face of web video, blogging, and mobile video. My colleagues said it was quite fun, and that the Ask A Ninja ninjas really are that funny. You should check out the Pixelodeon blog, as well as their Flickr, Blip.tv, and Technorati tags.
WordPress
After many, many months of sitting dormant, I decided to update and revive my personal domain by starting a blog powered by WordPress. Once I get the go-ahead from our tech people, I'll move this thing onto our own servers and power it with WordPress. Until then, I'm stuck here.
Hey, hey. Now you have control over your Auto Channels. While they will still update regularly, you can now drag clips out of Auto Channels and into your Library. What's cool about this is that you can select only the clips you want from an Auto Channel and create your own channel with them. I created this Coach Hines (hilarious MadTV character) channel by picking out clips from an Auto Channel. LAUGH, YOU!
Hopefully, by now you've played around with Google Maps' new Street View feature that gives you a real-life 360 degree view. I found this site that has a list of interesting places that users have found. Check it out: www.laudontech.com/StreetView/streetview.html
Ooh, I found a shot of the wireless Gibson Les Paul prototype for Guitar Hero. The Les Paul is fine and all, but I want a Flying V. Hey, a Guitar Hero "Flying V, Spandex pants, and blonde perm" accessory pack sounds like an awesome idea. Oh, how much would an "Yngwie Malmsteem Fjookin' Fjoory accessory pack with bonus gut!" rock? A ton. That's how much.
The folks over at the Google Operating System blog have posted screenshots of the new YouTube embedded player. Check 'em out.
It seems that the trend is heading towards showcasing features into overlaid menus within the video screen as opposed to buttons next to the player controls. Take a look at the Veoh, for example. For my money, Brightcove has the best player out there now. Now only is the player designed very cleanly, the video is encoded using the high-quality VP6 codec.
What interests me more than the new design are the comments made by visitors.
"One thing that I can't help but think is forthcoming(?) is some publisher control over what's in those thumbnails..."
"i wish they would code a simple flash player that can display high quality videos based on aspect ratios with transparent controls only when you hover over them..." "Google and YouTube will have to upgrade to Flash8 video and a full screen 16X9 layout option... Movenetwork, brightcove and ABC are becoming the places to be for near streaming DVD quality clips with Yahoo and AOL being next in line. Google and YouTube are still using years-old flash7 technologies and are both living in the ice age. These days you wonder if their developers realy understand it's users demand for quality video and/or their skills to ajust the video webportals into todays availiable and widely used technologies. Flash8 with Flash9 players is already a proven concept and Google/YouTube is still turning it's users crystal-clear uploaded video into stamp-sized fog resulting blockey output with an even worse option to stretch it. This should be the topic, and not launching a new skin for their foggy low-quality encoding policy!" So there's some food for thought as we work on future versions of our player: first and foremost, users want high-quality streaming video. Widescreen (16:9) videos, as well as channels/playlists. It's still early to tell, but it looks like players that play single, 4:3 videos will soon be very outdated.
Aside from a boring Xanga blog I kept during college, I am not much of a blogger and I'm well aware that this blog has been far from interesting. Instead of posting whenever we have an update, from now on I'll post about thrice a week and share video clips, news snippets, and observations. It'll be fun. I promise. I used to write for a music magazine... though it was much easier to churn out top-notch stuff when you're worried about ticking off a gruff boss with a short fuse and a slight Napoleonic complex. (Dang. If he reads this, he'll surely have my legs broke.)
By now you've probably already seen Will Ferrell's hilarious short video, "The Landlord." You'll definitely enjoy these out takes of the little girl, Pearl: Because you demanded it. The Pearl Out Takes.
Because I am a talentless hack, (says my bassist), the only bar trick I can do is a Bill Cosby impression. I tell you what, though. It's a great impression. If you close your eyes and listen to it, you'll swear you were listening to a classic "Cosby Show" episode. Last week, I made a "Cosby Impression" auto channel that is full of clips of people doing their best Cosby Impressions. I have to admit, I'm not that at all impressed. Check them out:
In other completely unrelated news, Chrysler plans to revive the old Pentastar logo. Far be it from me to talk about cars, but that logo reminds me of beat-up K cars like my dad's old not-so-trusty 1980 Dodge Omni. Or this 1988 Dodge Aries.
(Hmmm. Every time I see a car wrapped around a tree, I wonder why cars aren't made out of wood.)
The Santa Cruz Film Festival has implemented SND2MBL for their official trailer, as well as for the trailer of David Arquette's directorial debut. I do believe you should surf on over to their site and check out both trailers.
I apologize to the half dozen (that may or may not be a joke) or so people that read this blog for blatantly lying to you. Last week, I said that the second version our video player will be released on 5/15. It looks like it'll be released next week.
w00t! Big news between mywaves and AdMob. On Thursday, we announced a partnership that will enable click-to-video advertisements for AdMob advertisers. Coca-Cola is the first advertiser to sign up for this new video format called called Click-to-Video.
This Week's Featured Channels:
NBC11.com - TechNow! Video Podcast
VH1's VSPOT Podcast
The Best Of The Swoosh - 20 Greatest Nike Commercials
Bouncy Ball Fun
CFOXVideos
I'm also throwing in a bonus embedded channel. It's an Auto Channel I created for the metal band Between The Buried and Me. Their hit, "Selkies: The Endless Obsession," is a modern metal masterpiece and I got all the content in the channel by simply using the Auto Channel search term: Selkies.
Most of the videos are of the band performing the song live, while a few others are of guitarists trying their hands at the wicked arpeggios near the end of the tune. Not bad at all for a channel automatically created using one simple search term. If you haven't created an Auto Channel, you're missing out!
