Did anybody say Pachelbel's Canon in D?

Sounds good. I always figured that the integrated iSight camera in my MacBook would be useful for something.

Given the amount of brainpower that goes into most text comments on YouTube, the last thing I'd want to waste time on is watching videos that these morons make on the fly. On the plus side, you wouldn't have to suffer through bad spelling.

Whistlebox sounds very cool, especially if it's easier than YouTube to post a video. My main question is: how much will it cost? I have my community website and would love to try this, but considering I don't make any money off it, my budget is somewhat limited ;-)

This is not particularly new. Bubble Guru (http://www.bubbleguru.com/) and Hellodeo (http://hellodeo.com/hello) spring immediately to mind.

Do people actually do this video stuff? Like, people other than MySpace teenagers and Youtube webcam girls? It sounds to me like an awful lot of work to *record* some video response to something I've seen/read on the Internet when textual comments would be much more efficient. What's wrong with just typing comments?

O man. Now we are going to have video spam. Need a name for this. Vam = Video + Spam. Well you heard it hear first (think this is the first).

You don't have to deal with video compression and file upload in YouTube either. They have the "quick capture" feature since December 2006.

I think there are certain places where video is better than text, and vice versa. Getting to know someone, watching someone do something physical, determining quickly if someone knows what they are talking about. Text is great, but I think the internet and instant-post video can learn to get along just fine.

You can also use Eyejot (http://www.eyejot.com) and embed a widget on any page (blog, Salesforce, etc.). Eyejot is also client-free and based around Flash. So, any browser with a webcam attached can create and send video. The platform also transcodes to different formats and supports iTunes, AppleTV and mobile devices. Chris Pirillo is even using it to capture questions for one of his video shows. See him at http://chris.pirillo.com/video

Here you go: http://www.videoegg.com/

And...
these will be good for video of Craigslist items and video of Ebay items. But without metadata - how will any of these vclips be useful?

[Search video comments
- "blasphemous curmudgeon"]
NOT!

Only speech to text will make this stuff useful as opposed to mildly and spontaneously entertaining.

I can't wait for NerdTV to start up again - I'm especially excited to hear about your expansion into the "user-generated" content space with your inclusion of Whistlebox.

Another interesting twist on user generated content can be seen at http://www.viddler.com/. I ran across an example of their technology a few weeks ago and think it's pretty neat. Basically they allow in-line commenting of videos - so you can experience a viewers comment/reaction at the point in the video that they want their comment to be known. Pretty neat.

Stan Timek

www.pollywogtheater.com
www.HD4AppleTV.com

I'm in tears of laughter here!

I can't believe that you are so far behind the curve that you think Whistlebox is anything other than a simple rebranding of existing, fully functional technology.

"... you have to first make the video, then encode and compress it in some acceptable form, after which you upload it to the video service. You can do that with Whistlebox, too, but the target application is quite a bit simpler, requiring only a webcam and a microphone..."

Seriously, is this the first time you've come across this standard Flash functionality? And do these whistlebox guys think anyone will let them get away with claiming to have spent 12 months (!) developing this technology without someone blowing the whistle on them? Utter bullshit.

Head over to OSS Flash Media server project Red5, spend an hour or two working through their screencast tutorials, and you'll have your own unbranded, completely free version of this.

I'm not surprised these guys are from an ad agency background, this sort of rebadging of other people's tech is par for the course when you sell to pointy-headed corporate types. It's just alarming that someone claiming to be a technology columnist is equally clueless.

You can also do this today for free on Ning (www.ning.com). Totally branded videos, ratings, comments, etc.

You don't have to pay for this, even as a business.

Isn't Cringely meant to be reporting to us about the current state tech, not us to him?

I didn't really mind him slacking off when it came to researching his columns but, c'mon, surely he realizes that not researching your business decisions is suicide?

Doesn't he even read other tech columns? Exactly this sort of rebadging and commercialization of a standard Flash feature was widely covered about 6 months ago.

He should have spent 5 minutes Googling the possibilities rather than spending hours writing a hagiography on the first pair of fraudsters he happened to stumble across.

Geez you guys are really poopin' on Bob today.

Bob has been a witness to virtually all that has made technology what it is today. He's got contacts to virtually EVERY technology mover and shaker in existance. To make visionary statements is to be daring - I for one value anything that comes from the keyboard of "the bob."

Take some time and view his body of work - it is rather impressive.

I don't mean to be poopin' on him, I've read this column from the start so, obviously, I usually like his stuff, it just seems to be going a little off the rails lately.

I mean, c'mon, in his last column he grandly announced that he was going to attempt a reverse domain hijack, something that even a small amount of research should have told him was a bad, expensive and just plain wrong idea. This week he is trumpeting as The Next Big Thing a technical possibility that, again, a little research would have told him was Last Year's Big Thing.

All I'm saying is that, sometimes, it feels as if Bob takes the readership he's built up over the last decade for granted and doesn't put the effort in. It's all right for Gina Trapini at LifeHacker to make mistakes because we know it's a blog and that, on any given subject, you should read the comments for correction, clarification and further enlightenment. My guess is that the majority of Bob's readers don't realize they have to do the same here. Most will now, quite erroneously, think that Whistlebox is some sort of important new paradigm.

Instead of a webcam and external microphone, I wonder how many people realize that many digital cameras today have a built-in microphone and short video recording capability that puts creating a video response into nearly everybody's hands.

What keeps YouTube from adding Whistlebox functionality, however?

And how long can they live on MySQL if they become instantly popular?

Wouldn't it be a bit annoying if I had to watch all the comment videos one by one, instead of simply reading the thread?

We're using Whistlebox for our blog -- see it in action here: http://inspireaction.mindandmedia.com/index.php/2007/05/24/welcom-to-whistlebox/

I'd suggest seeing Whistlebox in action before commenting about the negative aspects of the tool, guys.

Yes, there are other "websites" that do this type of thing.

Yes, there are other Flash tools for video.

But there are items not being discussed here by Bob. I'd suggest everyone who has a negative comment ask for a demo of Whistlebox themselves. Sometimes you have to see what's going on before leaving flames. Just a thought.

My recollection is that Bob is a supporter of Free & Open Source Software (FOSS), and a skeptic about software patents.

So I have a query -- does he think that the creators of Whistlebox should open up their code for all to copy/improve upon, and eschew patenting any inventions involved?

Video phones never caught on cause the voice is more than sufficient for communication, very little was gained by seeing the other person and in some cases one would just as soon NOT see the other person. I think to large degree the same thing applies to video responses.

My recollection is that Bob is a supporter of Free & Open Source Software (FOSS), and a skeptic about software patents.

So I have a query -- does he think that the creators of Whistlebox should open up their code for all to copy/improve upon, and eschew patenting any inventions involved?

' . . . rather than keeping them at NerdTV, which I prefer.'

Why do you 'prefer' this? And in an age of syndication feeds and other forms of disintermediation, isn't this sort of an obsolete concept, anyways?

Irrespective of your answer, the way to 'keep' people at NerdTV is to offer content and commentary which motivate them to visit NerdTV.

Alan, as you suggested, I took a look at Whistlebox in action and remain 100% behind my earlier criticism: there is nothing unique, special or innovative here.

One thing that two decades online has taught me is that there is always, always a surprising lag between something becoming possible and it's actual take-up by mainstream sites. All we are seeing here is a company that came even later to the party than most and added nothing new but had the astonishing luck to be singled out for praise by a journalist with a large legacy readership but who, sadly, cannot smell bullshit when it's served up to him and is too lazy, busy or pre-occupied to search for existing and better implementations of the same idea.

I have no personal stake in any of this, I'm just irritated by snake-oil salesmen and journalists whose sloppiness allows them to spread their bullshit into the mainstream.

donnacha,

If you don't like the content, go elsewhere. Don't demean yourself by getting nasty. Cringely has always said that his comments are his opinion. You don't have to agree, but you do have to be civil. If you can't be civil and/or don't like the content, take it elsewhere. It's really very simple.

Rod,

My comments were critical, not uncivil; there's a vital difference.

On reflection, the word "bullshit" may have rude connotations in your culture, but for most English-speakers it would be considered a fairly mild word, describing a specific, deliberately misleading form of nonsense. I believe that Whistlebox's claims to have spent 12 months on this technology, implying some sort of unique service, is unadulterated bullshit... but my apologies if the word itself raises your hackles.

Yes, I am calling the columnist out on his apparent lack of knowledge regarding his subject matter but this is, beyond question, an appropriate response when anyone publicly puts forth information, even when presented as opinion.

The columnist has a responsibility to his readers and, again, it is not uncivil for us, as his readers, to speak up when we think he is failing in that - what did you think the comments feature was for, pure back-slapping and adulation?

Having said that, out of respect for Rod's discomfort with free speech, I will make no further comments.

I saw Gordon present at the L.A. tech meetup and it looks like awesome technology. I cant believe facebook doesn't have this.

Video spam?
They're called "commercials".

Why is it wrong to point out that the columnist has not done his research? Anybody who writes for the public should be prepared to accept reasoned criticism - and the word bullshit is probably the mildest way to describe claims which are dubious.

MySQL scaling? MySQL scales fine as long as it's done right...

And why does everything Bob writes have to be a revelation? If he just gets people talking about a subject that is growing fast but where the details are really flushed out at all yet, I'm happy. YouTube is one of those things that took everyone by surprise and it's still not understood. I thought that was the sort of thing Bob was about too? The underlying principles of all of these internet inventions, or evolutions--whatever you want to call them--are what interest me...

I saw Gordon present at the L.A. tech meetup and it looks like awesome technology. I cant believe facebook doesn't have this.

yeah, i think bob is out of touch

ditto, time to hire some intern who will do the boring job of websearching. hehe.

Hey Bob,
Have you heard of Mobasoft? It sounds like exactly what you are wanting! If your using Wordpress for your Nerd TV site, it even has a Wordpress Plugin.

You can find it at http://www.mobasoft.com.

Enjoy.
Molly

Um.. no Apple predictions?

This seems like a very nice addon for many sites! It takes the hassle out of uploading video, which makes it much better accessible.

Sjaak Laan

I don't know I think video response stuff, is likely to be a big draw or even used much justifying the cost of expense... Here's my reasoning, people are naturaully shy and its too much of a hassle even with a web cam.

I worked as a developer for a edating company, and they were all goo-gaa about adding video capabilities to their member profiles. Well it turned out after about 6-months after the feature was introduced very few folks submitted video profiles or even audo profiles. The reason was mostly people a) did want to bother b) wanted to maintain their anonymoty c) were put off by polished professional grade multimedia from other members.. While te situtation here is different, I think writing a simple response like this is far easier than going through all the trouble of producing a video response.. my 2cents.

Is that an impression or a lot of the sites given in the comments only let webmasters post videos on their own sites?

What Bob was talking about was the ability to let one's users post a video *from* one's own site. Not you recording a video and embed it on a page on your website.

I seldom have the time to read luxary articles i.e. "I, Cringely".

How will I ever find the time to watch all those video responses?

A video response i think would be too much hassle to be honest. Also as mentioned the shyness factor comes into this big time. I dont see why you need to see someones face to get their message, audio is fine. In fact do i even WANT to see these people?

for me audio is all thats needed.

Reading through comments is one thing. Watching comments on video is a totally other thing and I can't believe that people actually do that, let alone comment on video. Unless I don't understand the meaning of the purpose than this sounds like a dumb idea to me, let alone the bandwidth that gets wasted by this.

Time is the big thing.


I can read your comment up to 10x as quickly as you wrote it, depending on how much rewriting and editing you do. I can skim or use search to find something of interest even faster than that.


A video response, however, means I'm stuck at 1x. There do not seem to be any effective scan or search tools available for video yet, and probably not for quite some time--it's a much more difficult problem than scanning or searching text.


With text, few people bother to take the 30-60 seconds to proofread a comment. Even fewer are going to bother spending the 3-5 minutes to make sure that a video response is concise and makes the point effectively.

The jury is still out on whether this innovation will fly. What's funny is that people fall into shopworn critique of any breakthrough: Who will use it? It's too complicated! I like my (current/proven/comfortable) way best! Of course you do -- until the next thing catches on. These kids today and their rock and roll music . . . I tell ya.

There are complex nuances that we can react to only visually. We've all been there, either misunderstood by others or finding ourselves taking offense to some insult that wasn't intended (all of it via email, comments, etc). If people get over the shyness factor (which I can understand), then this has the potential to increase accuracy in web communications many fold and isn't that what the web is all about? Getting real?

To follow...it may not always be about speed...it may sometimes be about passion, a deeper feeling of connectivity and a richer experience.

If it were only for me, YouTube would have been a bust because I don't see the point of posting a video of myself on the web. But guess what? Other people do, and there's a reason why YouTube is so popular.

So whether video on a website makes sense or not is not just a matter of personal experience.

Not every interaction requires video.

In particular, the interactions on YouTube are usually short and shallow. The topics covered in Bob's columns are more likely to require some reflection before responding.

As for NerdTV, usually I read the transcript, but whether I'm watching or reading the interview, I'm in full learning mode, and not likely to have much to offer to luminaries like Andy Hertzfeld and Dan Bricklin, nor to my fellow Bob-watchers.

Heck, not only am I disinclined to offer video responses, I also have zero interest in watching anyone's response.

Unless they're going to do something like sodapop.diet.add(mentos) .. I love watching that interaction :)

Bob isn't cynical enough. Innovation in this sphere (as with so much of the internet?) may be driven most strongly by the adult entertainment/porn industry. One can easily imagine singles, swingers, and the like using tools like this to check out potential partners, engage in virtual hanky-panky, etc. (Regrettably, we're still a long way off from the "Logan's Run" scenario, which would let Jennie Agutter step from the aether into my living room, but I digress.)

Another GREAT !!!! Column, Bob you really have the touch on really interesting companies.

The perfect place for Whistlebox is Alibaba.com
(the meeting place of customers lining up manufacturing companies worldwide). Just think - seeing and talking to a Chinese manufacturing concern without the travel! Cisco and HP have hi $ systems in place to do videoconferencing Whistlebox sounds like a low cost solution.

Keep up the GOOD work Bob always fantastic !!

Another GREAT !!!! Column, Bob you really have the touch on really interesting companies.

The perfect place for Whistlebox is Alibaba.com
(the meeting place of customers lining up manufacturing companies worldwide). Just think - seeing and talking to a Chinese manufacturing concern without the travel! Cisco and HP have hi $ systems in place to do videoconferencing Whistlebox sounds like a low cost solution.

Keep up the GOOD work Bob always fantastic !!

Another GREAT !!!! Column, Bob you really have the touch on really interesting companies.

The perfect place for Whistlebox is Alibaba.com
(the meeting place of customers lining up manufacturing companies worldwide). Just think - seeing and talking to a Chinese manufacturing concern without the travel! Cisco and HP have hi $ systems in place to do videoconferencing Whistlebox sounds like a low cost solution.

Keep up the GOOD work Bob always fantastic !!

The problem with video sites like YouTube are that they are using proprietary plug-ins for the video. I keep all of my browsers locked down, if the web site requires a plug-in beyond what is standard with my existing media player, it is not getting installed. I'm equally anal about websites that insist on using flash for their menu navigation, if I can't get a non-flash page, I go elsewhere.

I'm sorry, there are too many websites with rouge plug-ins for me to act otherwise. So think twice before using a plug-in of any kind. There are people with browsers on other than Windows and Mac based hardware, so even if I allow the plug-ins to install, they will not operate on my vintage sun hardware. LOL

Exo

For easy video uploading and commenting on a consumer-to-consumer social networking scale, try viddler. It has all the nifty features of a web2.0 social website.

Viddler:

http://www.viddler.com/

A popular member:

http://www.viddler.com/explore/ijustine/

Hi Robert,

There's a load of companies now doing white-labeling of Video services, from Vidiac to whistlebox, and many more recently launched or due to.

However, a company that's been there, done that; that as a professional multi-show company that NerdTV is due to become, you might find greater and lower cost use out of a company called Forbidden Technologies and their products forscene.net and clesh -any bells and whistles you feel you need, they're listeners to their customers needs; Also, people aren't dependent on responding with a webcam stuck to pc, but can also handle publish and reply straight from mobile phones -the future of how video-dialogue will happen!

btw, I don't work for them.
To see a sample of use see:

http://www.mrpaparazzi.co.uk/login.aspx?action=edit

Yours kindly,

Shakir Razak

Saw a comment on the votes about how long it takes to get the recording on your voice mail/answering machine correct.

I agree but one company has come up with a solution as it applies to web cams...a web cam teleprompter.

It is basically a mirror and glass setup that reflects text from your computer monitor onto a piece of glass in front of the webcam. Someone in my office uses it from time to time and it works pretty well although I am not sure if some of the larger web cams will fit under the apparatus.

I believe that the link below is the company that makes the one that my co-worker has...at least it looks like it and was the only one that popped up when I typed "web cam teleprompter" but I would assume there are others.

http://www.bodelin.com/se2e/

Certainly Donnacha's comments deserve video. I am actually curious to see it read the words written here, and compare them to my image of it.

But Wait - There's More to the Story

I think Cringley is right- but did not tell the other half. AT&T working with Apple can now leverage Apple's initial run at the disruption of how music is sold - via iTunes and now repeat history with the video content providers and producers in Hollywood.

In some ways this is even more important thatn having the exclusive on iPhone for five years

But Wait - There's More to the Story

I think Cringley is right- but did not tell the other half. AT&T working with Apple can now leverage Apple's initial run at the disruption of how music is sold - via iTunes and now repeat history with the video content providers and producers in Hollywood.

In some ways this is even more important thatn having the exclusive on iPhone for five years

Facebook seem to be doing the same thing with their video application (i.e. allowing you to click 'Record' and automatically uploading the video to their site). I wonder if it's something they developed in-house, or if they're using something like Whistlebox.

Alex mentioned a webcam teleprompter. Here's a link to a free online telepprompter that works with it. You can also order the teleprompter on the same page for only $59.95. http://www.freeprompter.com

Love your stuff, Cringley!
Video will be the way of the future .. with a few writtin words thrown in for good measure and emphasis -- kind of like chapter titles!
-r