The best video blog I’ve seen is The Show, which is produced every weekday by Ze Frank, a designer/performance artist who gained Internet fame a few years back with the Flash piece, How to Dance Properly. The Show is a weird blend of news commentary, personal observations and bathroom humor. I think it’s pretty fantastic and hilarious.

The Show also has some lessons to teach in how to use technology to build a community of users:

• A few episodes of The Show have been written entirely by viewers using a wiki, and then faithfully performed by Ze.
• Ze plays an ongoing chess match with viewers during his shows. Viewers use a wiki to discuss and reach consensus on their next move in the match.
• Ze launched an earth sandwich challenge and an ugly MySpace design contest to encourage participation by viewers (not going to try to explain here).

Anyway, The Show is worth checking out and is a great example of the kind of cool things people are doing with video blogs these days.

The recent tragedy of war in Lebanon has spurred Americans, as well as people from Israel and Lebanon, to turn to the Internet for support.  Groups of bloggers are publishing their struggles online.  These posts serve many purposes: providing a point of contact with family and friends, keeping others informed about what exactly is going on in daily life in the Middle East, and giving people from all over the world an accurate picture of the daily struggle faced by those in Lebanon and Israel.

The Lebanese Blogger Forum aggregates many individual blogs written both from and about Lebanon.  The blog From Fort Wayne to Beirut brings the war in Lebanon close to home, as it is written by an American University student who, in the middle of a study abroad program in Lebanon, found herself stranded with many other students in the violence of Beirut. The author of this blog has since made it back home to the US safely, and has dedicated her blog to spreading word about how the public can get involved and help the cause for peace.

CNN also did a short piece on July 22, called “Lebanon Blogger” about a Canadian-raised Lebanese young man living near Beiruit who is currently blogging about his take on the war in Lebanon.  Described by CNN as the “war in Lebanon, unfiltered”, Bassem Mazloum’s blog, “Lebanon Israeli Crisis”, provides a brutally honest view of the war from someone faced with the daily struggle of surviving in a war-torn country.

The war in Lebanon has also made it to YouTube.  Just by doing a quick search of “Lebanon war”, some 500 results came up, many of which are homemade videos created by people living through the war.

These blogs and videos provide personal insight to the war in Lebanon that is unusual to find among the jumble of propagandized stories published by the mainstream press.  It is quite remarkable how these bloggers and others have the frame of mind to write about and publish articles about their experiences even in such a chaotic time.  Despite the somber topic of these blogs and videos, this provides yet another example of how the Internet has changed the way people get news and the way they communicate with one another, even in a time of war.

Techcrunch has a report today on MoveDigital, a site that gives organization a quick and easy way to distribute their videos in a variety of digital formats. I gave it a go and the site is very simple to use. The first step is to create an account and upload your video to the MoveDigital site. Copies of the video are then created in a variety of different formats, meaning end users can simply download the video to their computer in its original format (say wmv), acquire the video using bit torrent or download a version that plays on mobile video devices. Below is a screenshot of a widget you can put your website to distribute your video:

Organizations will be charged based on the amount of bandwidth they use (video size * number of users who download the video). So the pricing is based entirely on how much you use the tool. In addition, users who have accounts can choose to donate their own bandwidth to download the video.

Interestingly, according to TechCrunch, John Edward (D-NC) has already signed up for the service. You can view the torrent version of his videos here and the mobile versions here.

I think this is great technology but don’t think there are wide ranging political applications for MoveDigital during the 2006 cycle. Maybe 2008. I’m a pretty big tech nerd and I only occasionally use bit torrent and don’t really have much interest in downloading and watching videos on my phone. I’m pretty happy just watching videos on Youtube or other websites and its the rare video that I actually want to save on my computer for eternity. If I don’t do these things, I find it hard to believe that others are clamoring to at this point. Particularly to acquire campaign videos.

It’ll be interesting to watch though. And folks that are interested can monitor the Edwards page to see how he is doing - the site shows how many times each video has been downloaded.

Today on WashingtonPost.com I caught an article about YouTube’s emergence on the political scene entitled, “In YouTube Clips, a Political Edge” by Howard Kurtz. While it is no secret that YouTube has evolved into a hotbed for political commentary by the masses, it appears that “official” content is being repurposed as well.

I had already seen a lot of the homemade political rants and spoofs, as well as the ubiquitous clips of John Stewart and the cable news networks on YouTube, but the article inspired me to hunt down some content from “official” sources. Of course, the first one I found was from Hillary Clinton. The clip, entitled “No Public Schedule,” was taken from the New York Legislative Correspondents Association Show.

This clip shows exactly why homegrown videos are generally much more viral. “No Public Schedule” is clearly scripted, the clip is fairly long, the dialogue is boring, and although it is an attempt at humor, it is not particularly funny. The best aspect of the whole piece is the cameo appearances by a few NYC celebrities, including Donald Trump. If campaigns plan on utilizing YouTube (and other similar services) in their efforts, they need to do a lot better than this.

A recent New York Times article on the DailyKos convention in Las Vegas mentions in passing a trend that I think is going to be huge in the 2006 and 2008 campaign cycles: user generated campaign videos. The article tells the story of Ava Lowery, a 15 year old from rural Alabama whose video condemnation of the Bush administration was shown at the Daily Kos convention and has been viewed 40,000 times so far on YouTube.

Free video hosting and discovery sites like Google Video and Youtube simply didn’t exist yet in 2004. If you wanted to post a video online back then, you were probably going to have to pay. Plus, even if you did post a video chances are no one would find it since there weren’t centralized video directories people could search (YouTube and Google Video once again). Combine these factors with the plummeting price of digital video cameras and growing adoption of broadband, and you’ve got a boom in online video.

As people begin to focus on the 2006 election, I’d look for tons more videos like the one produced by Lowery. And I’ll bet one or two of them will be seen enough that they might actually have an impact on a race or two.

In response to my post on politicians that podcast, a member of Congressman Jack Kingston (R-GA) staff left a comment pointing me to a blog entry on their site about new media tactics used by Republican House members. It sort of got me thinking: which politicians are most embracing Web 2.0? So, conducting no new research and working entirely from memory, here are the winners:

On the Republican side of the aisle, I think the winner is pretty clearly Rep. Kingston. The Kingston blog got a lot of attention for live blogging during the gunfire scare on the Hill a few weeks back. And here’s their own description about what they are up to:

“For our part, we have a true, interactive blog, and we also guest blog at RedState.com and PeachPundit. We also have a hidden video page for insiders, a podcast called the JackCast, and a flickr account for you to see and share multiple pics.”

I chose Rep. Kingston mostly because his blog reads like it’s written by real, living, breathing human beings and actually encourages discussion on issues.

On the Democrat side, I’d have to go with Utah Senate candidate Pete Ashdown. Not only does Ashdown blog and podcast himself, he actually took the time to personally comment on our blog here. Ashdown also has a wiki that he uses to collect feedback on issues and campaign tactics from supporters.

Lastly, Ashdown has posted a MySpace profile that he presumably uses to help him connect with young voters. Ashdown has clearly embraced the social spirit of Web 2.0.

Let me know if you think I’m neglecting somebody.

Planning on watching the World Cup games the next few weeks? If you are, you better plan on taking some serious vacation time from your day job or moving to a different time zone. For those of you who think those options might be a bit extreme, then just charge up your cell phone.

What can my cell phone possibly have to do with World Cup soccer games?

Well, if you live in Europe or subscribe to MobiTV via your cell phone here in the US, you will be able to catch World Cup action from anywhere.

With few World Cup games being showed during prime time, it will be difficult for American “football” fans to watch the games. ESPN and ABC’s World Cup Coverage consists of mid-afternoon or early AM games, leaving working Americans out in the cold as far as World Cup coverage goes.

Cell phone companies are hoping to remedy this problem by broadcasting World Cup TV coverage on cell phones with TV capabilities. The BBC reported this week that the World Cup will be a kind of “test” for mobile phone TV, which is expected to truly take off by 2011. Wireless companies around the world are hoping to use the World Cup to spur interest in cell phone TV. A report by Informa Telecoms and Media predicted that a potential $300 million will be earned this summer by wireless companies who offer World Cup TV features to their subscribers. The same report stated that by 2011, there will be some 210 million mobile TV subscribers worldwide, led by Asia with 95 million subscribers. By the 2010 World Cup, one in thirteen cell phone users will own a mobile TV set and be prepared to watch the World Cup on their cell phones.

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In a post a couple of weeks ago, I suggested that organizations post their videos to viral sites like YouTube as a way of reaching a larger audience. Well, the advocacy group Public Knowledge has done just that, posting a video on the net neutrality issue currently before Congress.

It seems to have worked, too. So far the video has been viewed 43,000 times and ranks 39th on this week’s list of YouTube’s most watched videos. Just as importantly, the video has created a pretty good conversation on YouTube about net neutrality, with thirty four comments so far.

Here’s the video, for those interested:

Like a lot of people, I have a camera phone. And like a lot of people, I don’t use it. When I first got it, I went through the motions of playing with the camera. I took a bunch of pictures and emailed the better/funnier ones to friends. Cool. Now what? I got bored with it quickly, and I am now pretty focused on using my phone for phone calls (and text messaging) and my digital camera for taking pictures.

Having said that, I’m intrigued by the concept of moblogs. A moblog (mobile weblog) is a type of blog that focuses on content posted from mobile devices like phones and PDAs. Services like Text America and Moblog UK allow you to quickly and easily publish photos from your camera phone to the web via email or MMS. You can also post mobile video clips, assuming your camera phone has that capability. Lots of moblog communities have popped up, with anyone with a camera phone able to contribute. Moblogs are a great way for people to share/report on events in real time as well as an interesting way for marketers/PR folks to hype products and events. (more…)

I wrote a post a few weeks ago about how viral videos aren’t really a new trend.  In Time Magazine’s current issue, they have a long story exploring the history of viral videos and explaining their recent explosion.  More interestingly, they rank their ten favorite viral videos of all time. 

Note: I sometimes wonder if the mainstream media gets in a room together once a month and decides what they are going to write about.  This is at least the fifth viral video “think” piece I’ve seen the last few weeks from a major publication.

So online videos are all the rage. The Washington Post has a story about their use in politics. Lots of other media outlets have stories about the trend. The growth is driven by the introduction of inexpensive digital video cameras, the adoption of broadband and the launch of free video hosting services like Youtube and Google Videos. It is a significant development, no doubt.

But if you think about it, online videos have been passed around informally since the launch of the Internet. Videos have always been viral. Technology has just made it easier to do what we’ve always wanted to do: share funny or interesting videos with our friends.

Wikipedia has a great entry on Internet phenomenons, and lists out some of the most prominent memes that have gripped the Internet over the years. The entry has a section on Internet videos, most of which predate Youtube or Google Videos. It’s a good read. Here are some of videos they mention that I remember checking out over the years.

	Office worker destroys his computer in a fit of rage (1997)
	Kid reenacts scenes from Star wars (2002)
	Teenage girl featured in Apple television commercials becomes an Internet star (2002)
	Chinese teenagers sing Backstreet Boys songs (2005)