For a good basic introduction to HTML 5, see Dive into HTML5 by Mark Pilgrim. Rich media and dynamic web content has outgrown the ability of HTML 4 to describe the content of web pages. Video, audio, and dynamic interfaces that rival desktop applications are now commonplace. By adding additional HTML elements, HTML5 will provide web developers with a better way to describe the content of a web page. Significant new features include <video> and <audio> elements, improved forms handling, a <canvas> element that allows image scripting on the fly, and new ways of marking pages to support user interaction.

Video, especially, should be shown with a video player that is HTML5 compliant in order to include the new generation of mobile devices like the Android, iPhone, and iPad. With the right HTML5 player you can support HTML5 for these devices and newer browsers but fallback and use Flash in the event the viewer is using an older browses. Two examples of video players capable of this include the JW Player for HTML5 and the Kaltura HTML5 Video Library.

Industry players are currently debating the merits of HTML5. Apple, with its large deployment of iPhones and the iPad growing in popularity, neither of which supports Flash, has taken a strong position in favor of HTML5. Even after you factor away Job’s famous reality distortion field, he still makes a compelling argument for embracing HTML5, although Adobe might disagree.

Image source: HTML 5 Video Element – New Open Video Format Tags by Mark R. Robertson.

Anna Pinker works for a multimedia production company producing museum exhibits and blogs at stillindie.com which is building an interesting collection of posts of interest to independent filmmakers.

Julie Donnelly is a journalist with eight years of experience in radio and television, mostly with public and international broadcasters. She hopes to transition to a public affairs or media relations role. She is trying to learn as much as she can about new media and interested in fun video and audio projects. On Twitter she’s djcitymaus and she’s also can be found on LinkedIn and Facebook.

Steve Garfield is now teaching at Boston University and did a recent blog post on trying to mail in his Boston Absentee Ballot that got quite a few hits after he submitted it to CNN iReports. It’s quite a story. Check it out.

Steve mentioned that Bre Pettis has a new show pilot for the History Channel called History Hacker. Looks pretty cool (there’s a trailer on his site at the moment).

Yours truly mentioned that DIY DAYS is coming to Boston. How do independent filmmakers sustain themselves as filmmakers in this day of shifting film distribution systems? How do filmmakers monetize their work and get the word out without mainstream distributor support? DIY DAYS aims to answer these questions with a day of panels, roundtable discussions and workshops. DIY DAYS will be held in Boston on Saturday, October 4th, along with a screenings of From Here to Awesome films the night before on Friday, October 3rd. Both events take place at MassArt.

We’re looking for suggestions and/or volunteer presenters for upcoming Media Tech Tonic sessions, this is a series of monthly demos/seminars on media technology topics for media makers and artists held the third Wednesday of each month at MassArt which allows us to go into more depth on a specific topic than we can during Boston Media Maker meetings.

John Herman is a web video producer, artist, and teacher. He talked about the various web serial productions that he is working on. First looks at ‘Odd Noggin’ and ‘Thomas in Wonkyland’ are on his blog. He is also working a second season of interactive web series Gravityland and the energy conservation reality show EnergySmackdown. Apart from his web video work, he asked for support in promoting an exciting bipartisan grassroots Voter Registration Night that his brother Justin Herman is hosting at the Washington Nationals Stadium. Also John is the host of New Hampshire Media Makers and invites everyone to attend.

Chris Herot (blog | twitter) is an entrepreneur, consultant, working in the digital media space, video conferencing, digital video, digital music, etc. who is currently in the process of starting a company, something in the area of digital media, television, and the internet. He’s looking for creative people to collaborate with.

Jennifer Goodwin runs InternetGIRLfriday.com, a group of virtual assistants that will do your work (administrative, bookkeeping, marketing, websites, shopping carts, project management etc.) so you can have your free time back to do whatever you want with it. They can provide administrative assistants, graphic & web designers, bookkeepers, travel/event planners, marketing & PR gurus, receptionists, computer organizers, lead generators and partners of many business vendors. For freelancers and growing entrepreneurs, just-in-time personnel can help you remain small and nimble as you compete with “the big guys” delivering better quality and lower cost with more efficient resource allocation.

Matt Searles makes ultra modern super awesomeness type experimental electronic music. He also blogs on philosophy, archetypal psychology, comparative myth, music production, composition, aesthetics, new media, guaranteed to creep out a few of your brain cells, as I can attest after listening myself several times. You can keep up with him on Twitter too: mattsearles. Some people are x-axis or y-axis off center, but Matt is z-axis off center (that’s a good thing).

David DeBlaiso (dm Design started doing graphic design, moved to web design, 3D rendering, store redesign, hands-on work with owners, he’s now working at APC as a production designer, he’s interested in where television and the web is going. He suggested that MosaicGlobe is a good place for artists to place their portfolio sites with multiple pages, galleries, blogs, audio, and more.

Sean O’Connor is a filmmaker who made a short mockumentary which is in the festival circuit and is now in the process of writing a feature length feature, he wants to discuss issues of independent filmmaking, DVD release, and alternative distribution. He also wants to get his hands on a Red. So do I, but I’m actually waiting for the Scarlet which I think will be as significant to documentaries today as was the Eclair NPR forty years ago.

Cort Johnson is co-founder of goSwoop, a site that helps international students accomplish their education goals to study in the United States. The site started in Madrid and moved to Boston and now most of the team lives Dhaka. The site seeks to connect international students to students and institutions here and to talk with admissions counsellors, etc. They just launched a newsletter/podcast series, interviewing college counsellors, high school counsellors, and getting this information to interested to students around the world. They are interested in learning how they can get their word out more effectively to students.

I spoke with Philip Hodgetts at the New Media Expo in Las Vegas and asked him about his new venture, the Open Television Network which I blogged about several weeks ago.

 Play Video

Music by Colin Owens.

Online video has become a vibrant part of our everyday communication landscape and an important component of political discourse. Increasingly, video creation and sharing depend on the ability to use and circulate existing copyrighted work. As more and more video is being shared on the web, financial stakes are raised and the legal status of inserting copyrighted work into new work has become an important issue for online video makers, video hosting providers, and content owners to understand the legal rights of makers of new culture. What some people claim is “piracy” in the online environment might be lawful use protected under the fair-use doctrine of United States copyright law. Mashups, remixes, and parodies are part of an important cultural practice: recycling of old culture to make new, and this process of copying other author’s works is woven into the social bargain at the core of copyright law in the fair use provisions, which are not well understood by most online videomakers. This new document should go a long way in helping to narrow this gap of understanding among online videomakers.

This document provides a long-awaited and much needed code of best practices that will help online videomakers, copyright holders, hosting providers, and other interested parties in developing a better understanding of the copyright doctrine of fair use in the context of online video. Fair use is the right to use copyrighted material without permission or payment under some circumstances. What are these circumstances? Most often it is acceptable when doing a parody, or making a critical comment or appropriate quotation. Many of the uses you see online are acceptable, many are not. This code of best practices does not clearly define the limits of fair use rights (that’s determined by the trends in case law, quite complex), however, it does provide much needed guidance to what are currently acceptable practices and draws upon actual activities of media creators as discussed in the study, Recut, Reframe, Recycle: Quoting Copyrighted Material in User-Generated Video and backed by the judgment of a national panel of experts. It also draws upon the professional judgment and experience of documentary filmmakers, whose own code of best practices has been recognized throughout the film and television businesses and is described in the document, Documentary Filmmakers Statement of Best Practices in Fair Use.

View slides (on Slideshare): Cinematic Language PC3

Download slides as a PDF document (from SlideShare): Cinematic-Language-PC3.pdf

Related to this presentation, see also my previous post, “Notes on the Interview” (January 23, 1006). This is a set of notes I’ve collected that I use to remind myself of things to think about when I’m preparing to do an interview.

View slides (on SlideShare): Art of the Interview PC3

Download slides as a PDF (from SlideShare): Art-of-the-Interview-PCB3

List of example clips screened and discussed (year, description, roles):

“Student Activities Midway” (2006, video podcast story segment, MIT ZigZag Episode #10, Co-Producer, Director, Editor)
“MIT Freshman Experience” (2007, video podcast episode, MIT ZigZag Episode #14, Producer, Director, Editor )
“Journey to MIT” (2007, excerpt from series produced for 2007 MIT pre-commencement show, Co-Producer, Director of Photography)

Some of these clips can be viewed at: kino-eye.com/about/reel/

If you’re interested in blogging, podcasting, video on the web, social networks, and how you can get the most out of Web 2.0 and new media, PodCamp is the event for you with two days of great conversations, knowledge sharing, and insights into the leading edge of new media.

Check out the schedule, you’re sure to find something of interest. Yours truly will be doing two presentations on Saturday morning following the Opening UnKeynote: “Improve your video using cinematic language technique” (10:00 – 10:45 am) and “Art of the Interview: Strategies and Techniques for Better Video Interviews” (11:15 am – 12:00 noon). I’m also participating in the “Project Reviews” session with Larry Lawfer on Sunday morning. Hope to see you there!

Steve Garfield announced that we’re going to have to change meeting venues, as Sweet Finnish in Jamaica Plain has closed. We also want to expand the scope of Boston Media Makers, nothing changes regarding these meetings, but starting in May, we’d like to host a technical and/or creative in-depth demo of a tool or technique one evening in the middle of each month. We’re in the process of crystallizing this idea, so make your suggestions known on the Boston Media Maker blog.

John Herman has been working on Gravityland a new websodic. The current episode (Episode 6: Joni’s Dream) was writtend by viewers who pitched their ideas on the Gravityland blog. He just did a 48 Hour Film Project film which debuts on Tuesday. I recorded an interview with John Herman after the meeting for the next episode of my audio podcast, Art Film Talk, so if all goes well, I’ll post the interview tomorrow.

Mike Mooney, FM Crew Productions, has finished What is Joppa and he’s now involved with Dr Dunbar’s Mystery Spot.

Curtis Henderson, General Manager of Boston Neighborhood Network (BNN), reported that they are now settled in their new headquarters at 3025 Washington Street in Egleston Square, formerly an MBTA power plant. They are right in the midst of the analog to digital conversion. BNN is having an Open House Ribbon Cutting next Saturday at 1:15pm w/ Mayor Menino and other local ploticos in attendance. BNN operates Boston’s two public access cable television channels: BNN’s News & Information Channel (9 Comcast/15 RCN) and BNN’s Community Access Channel (23 Comcast/83 RCN). Membership is open to Boston residents and non-profit organizations serving the Boston community. You can learn how to create your own TV program, have it broadcast on BNN cable, or produce projects for the web. Their facilities include two studios, digital cameras, non-linear edit systems, and a mobile production truck for doing multi-camera shoots on location.

Adam Green, CEO, Grazr, talked about his social networking application which allows you to create reading lists. Adam is currently looking to hire MySQL coders, Perl programmers, and CSS experts. The basic idea behind Grazr is that Everything is Miscellaneous. Grazr is a collection of tools to create and manage multiple reading lists, and share them with others. It makes it easy to keep up-to-date with the ever-increasing number of blog posts, web pages, and tweets of interest. The key insight is that they post-filter as needed, rather that requiring you to tag and sort in advance. Grazr can search each stream by keyword, date, or media type. Free accounts can merge and filter up to 50 feeds. Paid accounts can process up to 1,500 feeds in a single stream. And you can share your Grazr results on your web site using a widget they provide. Adam also blogs at Feedonomics. And speaking of tools to make sense of all the bits in your life, check out this video from Michael Wesch: Information R/evolution.

Jason Pramas, Editor/Publisher, reported that Open Media Boston is off and running. Their next meeting will be held tomorrow (Tuesday, April 8, 2008) from 6-8 p.m. at Encuentro 5, 33 Harrison Ave., 5th Flr. in Boston Chinatown (corner of Beach St. and Harrison Ave. close to the T Orange, Green and Red Lines). They will be talking about making the site really go now that’s it’s and running and start thinking about what direction to take the site design for full launch next month). Open Media Boston is a project of Media Working Group (a non-profit organization), Open Media Boston is a new audience-centered online media outlet dedicated to publishing fair and accurate news, views, arts, and entertainment content in text, image, audio and video formats from a progressive political perspective for the Boston area. They want to balance open participation with editorial control. They are soliciting submissions and commentary from the general public using the latest social media technology while maintaining professional journalistic standards at all times. Their site was built with Drupal, an open source content management framework that has become a popular choice for people building online media community sites.

Anna Pinkert, a media producer, talked about the Women, Action & The Media Conference that was recently held at MIT. In attendance were some really cool people, but she was surprised that the ratio is still heavy on print media. She’s getting into editing and asked the group, what are the differences between Final Cut Express and Final Cut Pro? Basically, Express only comes bundled with LiveType and the older 1.5 version of Soundtrack Pro. Final Cut Pro is part of a complete bundle that includes Soundtrack Pro 2 (much better than 1.5), Motion, Compressor, DVD Studio Pro, and Color. The interface is pretty much identical, especially now that the latest version of Express adds key-framing. Express does not support third party capture cards and the full range of video formats, however, it does support DV and HDV, so that covers it for most people. Express only has the secondary (two-way) color correction tool, it does not have the three-way color correction tool which once you start using it, you’ll really miss it. Also, Express limits undo to 32 levels. If you want to explore the differences in great detail, take a look at Final Cut Express Technical Specifications
and Final Cut Pro 6 Technical Specifications on the Apple web site.

Andrea Mercado, co-manager of PLA Blog, the official blog of the Public Library Association, recently aquired a Zoom H2 digital audio recorder and she’s very excited about it. I can see why, it’s a cool little recorder. One thing that makes the little H2 unique is that it has 4 built-in microphone capsules that simply put provides excellent stereo imaging.

John Carr has done short films and documentaries and is now venturing into audio. He’s getting involved in some podcasts and writing a radio drama. He’ll be doing a show at Improv Asylum on Saturday night (April 12, 2008). He’s been using Zhura, an online screenwriting application. Zhura is most easily described as Final Draft meets Google Docs. It provides a way to create formatted scripts with revision control online. Youc an create a private group and invite friends and colleagues to collaborate in a workspace. You can also use it in public mode to collaborate with others under a Creative Commons license, letting other people read and comment on your script, they can even help out with edits. Software is rapidly becoming a service and Zhura is making a play for the screewriting sector.

Jeff Cutler, who does Bowl of Cheese (self-described as “gentle, and not so gentle, ramblings about the inane and insane”) is taking some time to write.

Reiko Beach of TRB Design talked about Geek Girl Camp (which takes place on April 17, 2008 at the Heritage House in Hyannis). It’s a meetup and unconference for girls/women of all ages geared to empower, educate, evangelize, excite and improve the overall knowledge of the ever-evolving world of consumer products, computers, and the web.

Tom Beach of TRB Design recently aquired a Sony HVL-LBP LED camera light ($500, add $100 for NP-F970 battery, $100 for single charger $150 for dual charger). After the meeting we experimented with the light and I did some shooting with the light and a Sony HVR-V1 camcorder. The light is a little heavy mounted on-camera for handheld shooting, but it certainly works as a daylight balanced battery-powered LED light to add some fill or act as key when there’s not enough light to shoot sans light. It works with Sony L-series camcorder batteries, Tom discovered the smaller L-series batteries do not work with the light, it requires the higher capacity models.

In terms of price/performance I think the HVL-LBP fits somewhere between the more expensive Litepanels Mini ($740, add $164 for rechargeable battery) the less expensive Litepanels Micro ($300), a lightweight alternative to both lights that is well suited for handheld work with smaller cameras, but not as bright as the HVL-LBP and Mini. And on the high end of LED camera lights is the Zylight Z90 ($950 w/ mounting accessories, add $180 for rechargeable battery and cable) that lets you dial in any color. It has two built-in preset colors (5600K, 3200K) and two user preset you can program to display any color. This is where the Zylight differs most sharply from the Sony and Litepanels, no gels are needed, instead, you dial in the color you need. It also has a plus/minus green mode, or tungsten/daylight mode, allowing you to choose the color of “white” you need quickly. The number of LED lights is proliferating and expect to see continued price drops and innovation.

Alecia Orsini will be putting her film, Combustible Russ , on the net for sale. She’s interested in hearing from people the pros and cons of the various options available for filmmakers who want to sell their work online.

I suggest checking out a recent New England Film article by Rhonda Moskowitz, Distributing Your Short Film in the Global Marketplace. Also, in New England Film you will find two related pieces by yours truly which ran last year: Delivering Video on the Web, and Prepping and Posting your Video to the Web, most of what’s in there is still relevant, however, the field is in constant flux. Another suggestion is to take a look at Video on the Web: A Resource Guide, an evolving guide of compression tools, hosting services, and video players for delivering video on the web. It’s a work in progress, so let me know what else should go in there.

Steve Albanese, Tutorial Depot, provides tutorials for users of Logic, Pro Tools, Digital Performer, and more. He continues to do his very fun video show, Friday Brew, check it out.

Media scholar Heide Solbrig , a Professor at Bentley College, and her student Mai Huynh talked about Bentley’s program in Media and Culture. Mai is a graduating senior and the first graduating media major at Bentley. She had a Zine at 12, has been with new media for a long time. She’s doing a project mapping bloggers in the Boston area and hopes to talk to many of the people here at this meeting and beyond.

I’m fascinated by Bentley’s new program, and how forward looking it is, requiring students to balance their media major with a business minor and students do a media-related internship or project. Given the rapid change in the media industry, this fresh program strikes me as a savvy alternative to craft oriented programs that only teach tools and techniques on the one end, and traditional film schools on the other end, which definitely provide a good liberal arts education, but your major prepares you to enter an industry that will most likely not look anything like it does today ten years from now. It’s very fresh and timely that Bentley is providing students the opportunity to mix of business and media studies, along with a good solid liberal arts education, this strikes me as a very smart way to educate the new generation of media makers who grew up using editing tools and cameras in high school and don’t need to learn the craft so much as building their knowledge of history, trends, aesthetics, critical thinking, and business. You can’t go wrong with a good liberal arts education focused on the future yet still firmly planted in the fundamentals.

Joe Cascio continues to work on Social Logic and he’s also involved in starting up Providence Media Makers, their next meeting is on April 20th.

Mike Walsh is putting together another Barcamp on May 17th and a MacCamp on May 10th.

Phillipe Lejeune has been creating amazing video using Flash and lately he’s been using Seesmic which he really likes, he finds it “ten times more powerful that Twitter ,” especially as a visual artist. For him, Seesmic offers “something extra,” allowing you to see the “personality of the other person.” Phillipe also mentioned that for people who find using WordPress difficult, Phillipe suggested taking a look at Jimdo, which is very easy to use.

Brett Stilwell is involved with Pecha Kucha Boston. He talked about Pecha Kucha, an event format for presenting creative ideas. The name is onomatopoeia, the sound of conversation in Japanese. Fifteen or so speakers each present exactly twenty slides. Each slide automatically advances after twenty seconds. The next one in the Boston area will be focused on architecture, design and technology: Pecha Kucha Boston 4, hosted by Harvard GSD on Thursday, April 10, 2008 at 8pm in Gund Hall, 48 Quincy Street in Cambridge, MA. The event is free and open to the public. In June they will be doing another one with a more diverse speaker set. He had with him a copy of a beautiful book, Pecha Kucha Night: A Celebration, celebrating the phenomenon now running in over a hundred cities around the world. The book looks at how the event has grown, where it’s been held, how to run one, and why it has gone viral. Brett has put some videos on blip.tv

Adam Greene, Marksman Ship Pictures, does family history videos, he’s looking for people w/ web skills needs help with production and promotion. He’s also a certified Final Cut Pro trainer, so if you need help with Final Cut, give Adam a call.

This month I did show and tell about using an MS Stereo microphone (in my case an Audio-Technica BP4029) for hand-held documentary in-the-moment shooting. In the past I used two microphones to capture what’s in front and to the side of the camera, but it’s a drag to do a two handed technique. I’ll be posting a detailed article on this in the future covering both production and post-production details, so stay tuned.

Monte Ladner is a medical doctor who does Fitness Rocks, a health and fitness podcast. He suggests that there is something missing in the interaction between doctors and their patients around the dissemination of research on lifestyle and health. Health care costs are a big issue these days, and the shocking statistic is that 75% of the money is spent on chronic disease, over a trillion dollars a year is being spent in the United States on things that could be prevented if people were more active and ate healthy.

Brian Agusta has a show he started last summer, he’s an actor, performer, and singer, he helped form the professional vocal group, Almost Recess. Brian is looking for opportunities to do acting and performing, his first standup show is this Wednesday at Improv Boston.

Mike Ball talked about the wonderfully progressive Left in Lowell site, which is an excellent example of local progressive journalism. He has been running into some podcasting and Joomla problems, so if you know about both, he can use some help.

I’m sad we are no longer meeting at Sweet Finnish Cafe in Jamaica Plan, which closed its doors. We will miss the lovely cafe, it was a perfect environment for our meetings. Coffee, old-world pastries, new media, conversation, more coffee. We will miss Ulla’s hospitality, she hosted us for the past two years. This month we met in the back room of Doyle’s pub in Jamaica Plain and had what came close to record attendance.

I did not take notes about everything we spoke about, or everyone who spoke, so if I left someone out, sorry about that, nothing was meant by it. I think we might need to find some real-time wiki technique for taking notes at these meetings. It would be nice to explore how we could write notes of the meetings in a more collaborative manner. Any ideas? Until next month, keep making the future of media.

Enjoy, feel free to contact me if you have any questions.

Steve Garfield spoke about the debates on television last week, Dave Winer opened up a chat that Steve participated in, 30-40 people chatting during the debates, they will be doing it again, Steve really liked it, check out Scripting News (Dave Winer’s blog) for info on joining the IRC chat. Chatzilla works if you don’t want to do IRC the old fashioned way. Steve will be at SXSW this week blogging, shooting video etc. so keep an eye out for that.

Steve also mentioned that the Independent Film Festival of Boston (which takes place on April 23-29, 2008) wants Boston media makers involved with the festival this year. They will be attending the April meeting to talk about that.

John Herman is launching Gravityland tomorrow, has been working on it for six months, first two episodes debut tomorrow. They will be posting episodes once a week and blogging five days a week.

Philip Kliger (unclephilms on YouTube) had a camera attached to his head and was shooting video of the meeting, which he’ll use in some way. He showed us the camera/recorder he was using, the Archos 404 Pocket Digital Media Player and Camcorder that has an internal 30GB disk for long recording times (limited to battery life, which is under two hours while recording). It can play a variety of video formats and records MPEG-4 (AVI 640×480 at 30 or 25 fps). It appears to work only with it’s own proprietary camera. Too bad it can’t record from any video camera. In addition to his YouTube presence, Phil is an actor working on Gravityland, does the Uncle Phil Music Show as well as Tune Buggy, kid-friendly rock music.

Alecia Orsini is a filmmaker (Combustible Russ), artist, and is currently working with the Miele Law Group which represents artists, entertainers, and inventors. They do a lot of free consulting, they share a lot of information with media makers, it’s good to say, “I know a lawyer” whenever you have to negotiate contracts with other parties. She started working with then when she was swamped in paperwork, they helped demystify the legal process.

Scott Lebeda is also working with the Miele Law Group, he does research for them, he’s a filmmaker, does graphic design work, and starting up a multimedia site for film, art, etc.

Also mentioned in the group was the Citizen Media Law Project and Volunteer Lawyers for the Arts.

Yours truly talked about the upcoming 18th Annual Pro Video Show taking place at Stonehill College in Easton, Massachusetts on Friday and Saturday, March 7-8, 2008. Read my blog post about the show for a description of the three seminars I’m doing at the show.

Brian Alves produces The DV Show, a weekly podcast dedicated to answering questions related to digital video. The DV Show has been running since March 2005 and has become a respected resource on the we. They will be streaming some of the free sessions from the 18th Annual Pro Video Show, very cool.

Jessica Burko does design and arts marketing for other artists, she encourages us to sign up for her mailing list, it’s one email a month with info on shows and art events. She’s also involved with Boston Hand Made, a gathering of colleagues who create a variety of handcrafted art and every spring they do an artisan fair in Jamaica Plain.

Steve Sherlock has a number of projects underway, including sherku, his form of haiku. As Dorothy Parker once wrote, “brevity is the soul of lingerie.” So here goes an attempt to write a haiku about the meeting (19 syllables):

media makers meet
each first sunday to share
knowledge, ideas, and cheer.

Joe Cascio is a software engineer who is currently working on SociaLogic, an experimental system devoted to research and development in social networking that among other things can help us manage our online social network memberships and identities, he’s also working on a better SPAM filter, a new email protocol, all sorts of cool stuff. This summer he’ll be sponsoring the Social Media BBQ (look for it on upcoming) at his house in CT. Some locals who are bummed they can’t attend SXSW this year have started up their own virtual experience, NONE (North by Northeast). Joe is also involved with two blogs, Start Rocket and Media Disruption

Reiko Beach of TRB Design talked about Stixy, an online bulletin board (which they call Stixyboards) that allow you to create tasks, appointments, files, photos, notes, and bookmarks organized in whatever way makes sense to you. You can share Stixyboards with friends, family, and colleagues. Are there other tools out there she should look at? Some folks suggested JotSpot (Google recently acquired them), Big Tent, and Remember the Milk. Another thing that works well for simple collaboration is Google Docs. Tom Beach mentioned they are looking for someone to help them put together a customized WordPress template for their new site.

Rick Burns working on a site called 9neighbors designed to feature locally created on a neighborhood level, they are currently covering the Boston area (including Cambridge, Somerville, Newton, and Brookline). You can add your feed and they will filter it. It’s a new way of surfacing content that has local relevance. Check out their site, they are currently looking for feedback as they refine what they are doing.

Rachel Happe is a technology analyst at IDC who leads research on the digital business economy, and she blogs at The Social Organization.

Ted McEnroe is an Executive Producer with New England Cable News. He’s looking around to see where broadcast television is going, he just moved over to work on the NECN web site, recently relaunched as a video-driven web site, and he hopes to take it beyond where it is now, do more aggregating of media from across New England as a whole, he’s thinking about the best way to bring in community voices from around the region.

Dale Cruse is a website developer who does Drinks Are On Me, a popular wine blog and he’s also the weekly drinks columnist for Bostonist (a blog covering news, events, bars, and restaurants in Boston).

Pam Rosenthal is a social media consultant helping companies use online communities to engage in meaningful conversations with their customers. She’s interested in connecting with folks who do video as she may need to develop content in the future along the lines of customer testimonials and training videos.

Mike Walsh is working on putting together another Barcamp at MIT or a similar venue soon, possibly in April.

Rekha Murthy is an interaction designer, radio producer, and graduate of MIT’s Comparative Media Studies program, check out her blog, Punctuated Equilibrium. Her research at MIT focused on street media in urban spaces, urban annotation practices, and more with a focus on Central Square in Cambridge, and this may evolve into a book, she’s open to people’s experiences and ideas in terms of book agents and self-publishing options.

Adam Weiss suggests we check out the Museum of Science exhibit on baseball coming in June put together with the Baseball hall of fame, in addition to his work at the Museum of Science, Adam does Boston Behind the Scenes, an excellent podcast. He’s is looking for new adventures in new media and podcasting if you have any ideas for him.

Nate Aune is working on Jazkarta an open source videos sharing application, your own branded YouTube, your own logo, commenting, rating, tagging, etc. Check out an example at plone.tv. He’s also working on BostonJazz.net, a site to showcase Jazz Music in Boston.

Matt Searles continues to work on Asymmetric Biz Cult, a fascinating podcast that mixes philosophy, art, business, new media, and provides unique perspectives on what is most commonly called convergence. Who else has managed to include Michel Foucault, Carl Jung, and Jack Welch in the same podcast?

And on that note, I’ll remind you that the next meeting will be on April 6, 2008. Boston media makers gathers once a month on the first Sunday of every month at Sweet Finnish Cafe in Jamaica Plain. We go around the table and people talks about what they are up, ask questions, announce events, and more. In addition, there’s plenty of mingling before and after the meeting.

When we started out to do [quarterlife], and people heard it was going to go to NBC, we were sort of damned if we did and damned if we didn’t, because a lot of people said “oh, it’s just a television show in disguise, and these are old television guys, and they are just doing television,” in fact, the difference for me was I went back to my early days, I just recently looked at the pilot of thirtysomething, and I was not so brainwashed in those days in the world of television, and the pilot of thirtysomething is so raw, and so real, it doesn’t look anything like a television show, it’s not lit like a television show, they don’t sound like a television show, and that’s what I went back to, in other words, I didn’t say, “what is the internet, I have to do an internet thing,” I said, “let me let go of the shit that I’ve been doing that I’ve taken on over the years without knowing it,” these voices in my head saying, “oh, will they like this character, you know, will people understand when you say this, will they stick around,” all these kind of things that network executives are scared of I just said, “forget it, I’m just going to do my thing for this, that”s how I did it differently, and low and behold you know what? It ain’t a television show, and it was proven last night it was not a television show (laughter in the room), it’s too specific for a big network, and that’s fine, cause we’re going to find a home for it, that will work for what we do. But that’s the difference, is I went back to my own voice.

It’s ridiculous to call quarterlife a failure, it’s simply a proof point that crossover is not always a good idea, that the audience for broadcast television and internet episodics is different, and twenty-somethings are growing up in a vastly different media world. They are not going to watch broadcast television the way my generation did. And why are we even talking about online shows making the jump to television? As if this was somehow the holy grail? Why look at new media through the lens of old media? As Herskovitz said, quarterlife is not television, it’s something different. It does not belong on prime time, which is about mass audience and lowest common denominator, it belongs on a niche cable station if on broadcast at all. Why do so many broadcast industry people talk about the internet as a new breeding ground for television shows? They sure would like to outsource creative development. But the internet is not a new old thing, it’s a new new thing, and internet entertainment properties should be judged on their own terms as their own thing. The new media revolution will not be broadcast, nor will it be rebroadcast. It will be streamed, downloaded, and shared as part of a community experience as you see happening right now on the quarterlife site. When quarterlife first launched I did an interview with Marshall Herskovitz that you might find interesting.

Personally, I find quarterlife to be one of the more interesting pieces of entertainment to come out in 2007, and part of what I like about it is its rawness, the feeling that it’s a work in progress, something evolving, and that there’s a community around it. It’s in a very different “voice” as Herskovitz said. And that’s part of the appeal for me, and probably not right for mass audience appeal. But in the world of long tail media distribution, it’s about finding a niche, not the mass audience. What is being done with quarterlife may not translate to the model for the future of television, but it’s sure working by many metrics of success. Without spending time watching all of the episodes and spending time observing and/or participating in the community, you can’t really grok what quarterlife is. Innovators in entertainment have created some flops that have made cinema/television/new media history, but at the same time where would we be without the innovative projects that showed us that there are other forms that entertainment can take, and new ways of interacting with an audience? It’s too soon to call for a verdict on the quarterlife experiment and premature to make claims of it’s demise.

OTN lets viewers subscribe to an RSS feed so they can see the titles of new videos in iTunes. When the viewer clicks on a particular item to download it, their OTN account is debited the price of that video. This is done through a technology called KlickTab. Media makers can add buttons on their site that when users click on them it add their RSS feed to iTunes. Before viewers can buy content they will have to obtain an account with OTN (OTN starts new users off with a $5.00 credit as an incentive to try it) and then whenever they click on content in iTunes from an OTN publisher, their account is debited the price of the video. Like PayPal in the early days, people are going to be hesitant to give their credit card number to an unknown entity, but I think that if OTN can collect a critical mass of interesting content, viewers will start to see the value of being part of the network. What OTN needs is a killer hit that everyone will want to download, or some free content that requires opening an account, so viewers can see what’s in it for them.

There are many things I like about the OTN model. They provide small publishers a way to get paid for their media, they are putting it into iTunes, which offers a seamless user experience for getting media to iPods, iPhones, and AppleTV that most people can manage. There are no content gatekeepers (except for clearly inappropriate content like pornography). No DRM. OTN charges a reasonable 15% fee from the money they collect, unlike other services based on old media that want to take much higher percentages. Last time I checked internet transactions were super efficient, so the percentage distributors take should drop precipitously, not stay the same.

Some media makers may be concerned about no DRM, but OTM is perusing a positive model and counting on the goodwill of most viewers out there that want to support media makers doing good stuff. Rather than worry about protecting your media, small publishers should worry about getting their media out there and sold. User convencience should be the priority. Long tail publishing actual benefits from some sharing among viewers, for that spreads the word of mouth. And as Philip Hodgetts of OTN said at last week’s Final Cut Pro Users Group Meeting in Boston, it’s about making it, “easier than piracy and almost as cheap.”

The music industry made a big mistake when they introduced CDs at a price higher that LPs rather than lowering the price. That was the beginning of the end. The video industry was much smarter in the transition from VHS to DVD by lowering the wholesale price of DVDs, and the home video industry took off. Now Apple’s iTunes music store is selling videos for too much money, are they repeating the mistake of the music industry? I think the price of a video should be low enough as to constitute an impulse purchase. Only a small segment of the population is going to pay $1.99 for a TV show. There’s an untapped market out there. The long-tail content publishers that OTN is building their system for will have an open marketplace to sell their goods. Right now they have none. The democratization of production and post production is not enough. You need the democratization of distribution. OTN is trying to take care of that. So far advertising has not earned much for media makers distributing their video online, however, for specialized an niche content, OTN might help media makers make a decent living making videos for specific audiences who are not served by the major studios.

Detailed session descriptions follow:

Web Video 2.0: Delivering Your Video Online
Friday, March 07, 1:00PM – 3:00PM, $25.00
Video on the web is hotter than ever and the excitement is moving beyond YouTube and into corporate web video, web-based episodics, delivery of films directly to viewers, and new applications of video never before possible. Through examples, demonstrations, and discussion, you will learn how you can make web video work for you. A practical how-to approach will provide you with an understanding of delivery options (e.g. progressive download vs. streaming), compression and format tips (codec and player choices), video sharing and streaming services, and monitization strategies. This session will be of interest to producers, directors, videographers, editors, and site designers who want to deliver video online and/or integrate video into their web site. Back by popular demand, this follow-up to last-years sold-out session has been updated with new material and examples to reflect the latest tools, techniques, and trends.

Art of the Interview: Strategies and Techniques for Better Video Interviews
Saturday, March 08, 9:00AM – 11:00AM, $25.00
The interview is a fundamental element of most documentary films, many video blogs, and event coverage. Through video examples and interactive discussion this session will provide you with practical strategies and techniques you can apply to your work and includes coverage of how and why to use interviews. You will learn how to: choose the right interview style (e.g. walk-and-talk vs. formal sit-down), choose a form of address (e.g. first-person vs. third person), prepare for an interview, put your subjects at ease, conduct an interview, and more. A discussion of how technical components (camera, sound, lighting, environment) influence the results is included. Designed for both beginning and intermediate documentary filmmakers, videobloggers, and event videographers. For an in-depth exploration of lighting for interviews, consider attending the “Interview Lighting” session that follows later in the day.

Interview Lighting: Professional Results On A Tight Budget
Saturday, March 08, 1:00PM – 3:00PM, $25.00
A demonstration and discussion of several approaches to lighting interviews ranging from low-budget existing light and one light techniques to classic three-point lighting using professional fixtures. Session covers: review of lighting fundamentals, survey of popular lighting fixtures and kits, screening and discussion of practical examples covering aesthetic issues and technical trade-offs, and suggestions for putting together a kit based on your specific needs. This session provides an excellent follow-on to “The Art of the Interview” earlier in the day. Prior attendance to “Art of the Interview” is helpful but not required.

I hope to see you there.

coBRANDit put together this widget of the videos they produced. Most of the videos were edited by Jessse Buckley and Owen Mack, I edited the “Intro” and “E85″ stories. The pieces are examples of minimalist run-and-gun production, but more importantly, they are examples how “tiny media” can cover an event from a different perspective.

Steve Garfield demonstrated broadcasting web video streaming from his Nokia N95 phone using Qik, which is pretty cool, you can have your own page on Qik and make the videos available on your page. Full disclosure: the N95 phone was provided to Steve by Nokia and he used a trial mobile phone account provided by AT&T. Does it matter whether we are demonstrating something given to us for promotional purposes vs. something we bought? I think in the future everyone will become an extension of a corporate marketing program for fifteen minutes (with apologies to Andy Warhol), if marketing became a more organic process it could be a good thing.

Apogee Duet Audio Interface

Nate Aune is with Jazkarta, a company delivering open source solutions for building web-based video community services branded for your own organization that can pull in video from YouTube and Blip.tv. For show and tell he showed us the Duet audio interface from Apogee, it’s a really cool FireWire audio interface with several inputs and outputs. He looks forward to using it to record performances as well as interviews in the field with his laptop. A visit to the Apogee site reveals these details: the Duet provides both inputs (2 channels of 24-bit/96kHz audio via balanced XLR inputs with selectable 48V phantom power and 2 unbalanced high impedance instrument inputs) and output (1 stereo headphone output and 2 unbalanced -10 dBV line outputs) and sports a cool multi-function controller knob for volume and input gain. It interfaces to your computer via FireWire 400 and is compatible with any Core Audio-compliant audio application and control functions are built directly into Apple’s Logic Pro, Soundtrack Pro and GarageBand. It comes bundled with Apogee’s Maestro software for control and low latency mixing.

Audio Technica ATM 10A

Nate asked, “I’m looking for a high quality microphone to record interviews,” I suggested for starters, the small mics from Giant Squid Audio Lab are worth taking a look at. Adam pulled out his Audio Technica ATM 10A, a condenser microphone available for about $100 which he uses for interviews. According to the Audio-Technica site, the ATM 10A has been replaced by the AT8010, which looks like pretty much the same, an omnidirectional condenser microphone idea for interviews with a very smooth response on- or off-axis. It runs either on battery or phantom power.

Electro-Voice RE50

My note: For hand-held field interviewing I prefer (and thus I own) the Electro-Voice RE50 omnidirectional dynamic “reporters” microphone. It is very rugged and has excellent acoustic isolation between the mic capsule and exterior case so you don’t hear the handling noise when you hand it from one person to another. It’s not as sensitive as a condenser microphone, but I’ve never found that to be a problem using it with the audio recorders, cameras, and mixers I use in my work. Both the AT and EV are excellent mics, one thing to consider is that microphones, like speakers, are a highly subjective purchase.

Adam Weiss is now using the moniker, Digital Media Strategist, and it fits him well. He does podcasts and other new media stuff, including the award-winning podcasts for the Museum of Science, and also does The Puzzle Podcast and Boston Behind the Scenes. Adam’s show and tell this month was the Circa Notebook System which he first got as a free starter kit while visiting the Levenger store in the Prudential Center. This is old analog technology designed to work like we do, Adam carries four of five notebooks, etc. looks like a spiral bound notebook, but all of the pages come out and go back in wherever you want, you can carry one notebook, take pages out and put it in the right notebook, various kids of paper are available, and you can buy a punch and make your own paper. The levenger version of this notebook is the highest quality, alternative version sold at Staples is cheap and does not work as well.

My note: if you like the Circa notebooks, check out D*I*Y Planner , a community of people who are into paper as a medium for planning, productivity, and more. They share advice and inspiration and are home of the free kits .

John Coyne is on hiatus from the social media company company he was working for and is doing freelance shooting and editing. He had a question about a site Steve and I mentioned for “instant web sites” it is Jottit which I blogged about a while back saying that Jottit is to web tools what haiku is to poetry

Gabriel Mugar, who treaches television production at Madison Park High School, is working on Press Pass TV, civic minded citizen journalism, they are looking for adults who are interested in working with youth on creation of content on a volunteer basis. They want to build a freelance network of adults that can help cover stories. Their high school program starts in February. Press Pass TV is related to Citizen Schools, which operates a national network of apprenticeship programs for middle school students, connecting adult volunteers to young people in hands-on learning projects after school.

Tom Beach of TRB Design has been reading Chris Anderson’s book, The Long Tail, his blog entries on his new book about how commodies all go to zero is really interesting to him.

I was a panelist at the recent Web Video Summit held in New York on December 10-11, 2007 and there I met many interesting people involved with start-ups in the web video space, two that stood out for me that might be of interest to this group are Kaltura (a collaborative media start-up self-described as YouTube meets Wikipedia) and Bid4Vid (a way of linking people who need media with people who make media). Two recent blog posts are related to this: “Kaltura: Wiki meets YouTube by way of Yochai Benkler” and “Linking those who make media with those who need media.” I also interviewed Shay David, Co-Founder and CTO of Kaltura in Episode #24 of Art Film Talk.

I also spoke about bandwidth checking feature of the JW Flash Player. Version 3.10 of the player introduced a new bandwidth checking feature for video. Using two simple flashvars, the players can determine a site visitor’s bandwidth and automatically switch to the file with the appropriate bitrate. While my home connection typically clocks in around 2,300 kbps, I’ve been in some internet cafes where the bandwidth is more like 350 kbps. In fact today at Sweet Finnish it was about 150 kbps with so many people at this meeting hitting the net. With this feature you can show different sized movies based on the visitor’s bandwidth, improving the overall experience of video viewing on your site if you use a custom Flash player.

Paul Day is producing a right wing christian satire in the form of a weekly radio show and he’s intersted in hearing ideas of how to make it look and sound better.

Graham English is a blogging musician who is immersed in the social web, his current project is to compose a song a week for 2008. In the near future he’ll post his Music 2.0 manifesto on his blog. Stay tuned.

Rick Burns is doing a site called 9neighbors.com they bubble up cool content created locally on a neighborhood level, they are currently covering Boston, Cambridge, Somerville, Newton, and Brookline. They and the community bubble up and highlight the best stuff. You can add your feed and they will filter it. As a user of the site you can recommend stuff like on dig.

Jeff Glasson does a podcast, diecastAUDIO for diecast model enthusiasts, , why audio for a visual hobby? He was a radio DJ in college, podcast was the natual evolution for him. He currently has a single chip Sony camera, wavering between a three chip camera or high definition, or….

John Herman really likes spaces, it’s the selling point for him as far as Mac OS X Leopard goes. He produced a stage show, Atoms, Motion, and the Void, which closes tonight (it’s playing in Portsmouth at the Payers Ring Theater). You can listen to the play at radioghost.com. John also produces improv comedy, the troupe is called Stranger than Fiction , he’ll be doing a show on Tuesday, January 19th 7:30pm on Mogulus, the link is: www.mogulus.com/improvcomedy

My note: Atoms, Motion, and the Void is a one man show in the tradition of old time radio shows with Sherwin Sleeves, the 79 year-old alter ego of 39 year-old stay-at-home dad Sean Hurley from Lemon, New Hampshire. The podcast that the play is based on won a “best of New Hampshire” podcast award. My wife Alice and I went up to Portsmouth to see the show on opening night and in one word, amazing. We really liked it.

Jared Spool runs User Interface Engineering, a user interface engineering think tank, he works with large company clients, they produce podcasts and webinars on various topics related to design and development, right now they have five positions to hire, a live events person, an editorial assistant (print and email production), a product manager for webinars, an intern web design, and a CSS guru contractor. Jared is looking for someone who has gotten rid of all the tables in their house. He also has a blog called brainsparks. He’s warning clients that social media spending is on the rise, are you ready to deal with this?

Jesse Baer is a self-proclaimed tritter fiend (misc on twitter), he says that he’s “not made much media to speak of,” but people try to get him to come to to Boston Media Makers, now that he’s got a camera and a Mac, he’s “ready to make ghetto media,” his day job is working at digital natives project at Harvard Berkman Center as an intern, studying how kids use the internet.

John Wall (The M Show, Ronin Marketeer , and Marketing over Coffee) does marketing for software companies, lots of digital media, podcasting, blogs, wants to check out what people are doing, they just got their first Mac in house, and John says it “has ruined his life,” since he used to come in the morning and start the PC booting and go get coffee, and now “he’s all ready to work” in the morning.

My note: I’ve noticed this winter, more than ever before, many people I know who have been long time Windows users have gotten new Macs instead of a new Windows machine. It’s nice to see after years of marginalization that the Mac is making truly serious inroads among creative professionals. In my circle of friends I count two marketing professionals and three media makers who have bought Macs this winter. Could this be the turning point? Has the gap finally widened enough between the complex and horrible Vista experience and the simple and elegant Macintosh experience to encourage people to switch?

Andrea Mercado is the blog co-manager of PLA Blog, the official blog of the Public Library Association, her show and tell was her new Xotic PC laptop, it’s light, white and sassy, has a camera, they offer custom skins, she’s really happy with it (of course she’s running Windows XP, not the disaster known as Windows Vista).

Amy Carpenter is a blogger, artist, who paints, draws, and makes videos. She was one of the earliest attendees of Boston Media Makers and found it inspiring, she was back to see what’s happening. She’s got a new drawing project, She’s Drawing, you should check it out. Her work is typically mixed media, with more oil around the corner.

Thinkspotting is a new competitive mini-blogging for ideas, a way to get ideas out there and do it as an organized forum, they do a podcast every two and a half weeks. The competitive aspects of the site include giving top users the ability to show their adsense ads on the idea. A similar site, half-bakery, is, in comparison, less unorganized and messier.

OK, that’s it for this month. Sorry for leaving some folks out, I could only type so much this month. The meeting of Boston Media Makers at Sweet Finnish Cafe in Jamaica Plain is the place for media makers to hang out and share knowledge and news with each other the first Sunday of every month stating at 10am.

It was another inspiring, interesting, and entertaining meeting of the Boston Media Makers , which has become carved in stone in my calendar for the first Sunday of every month. We meet at Sweet Finnish in Jamaica Plain with founder and master of ceremonies Steve Garfield. This month Steve used Mogulus studio to stream today’s meeting. It’s a little TV studio on the mac, allows you to stream live, add lower thirds, on the broadcast site you can take comments, it’s all early software, it crashed a couple of times, but it certainly points to where web-based streaming is headed. We went around the room doing updates and show-and-tell.

I mentioned that on Art Film Talk (my audio podcast) I recently posted an interview with Marshall Herskovitz on the topic of Quarterlife, a “television-style” episodic on the web that’s been generating lots of buzz in both industry and new media circles.

My show and tell this month was my Tram-50 Lavalier Microphone and its many accessories, including Rycote’s Lavalier Windjammer designed to reduce wind noise on Lavs worn on the outside of clothing. The Tram-50 delivers smooth, rich sound and was the first piece of audio gear I bought. Three video cameras have come and gone in the time I’ve owned the Tram. Good sound equipment is a worthwhile investment from which you will reap dividends for many years. If the Tram breaks your microphone budget, a good source of affordable, good quality, small microphones is Giant Squid Audio Lab.

I’ll be participating in the Web Video Summit coming up on December 10-11, 2007 at the Roosevelt Hotel in New York, on the Lights, Cameras, Sound: How to Get Great Results panel (1:00pm-1:50pm on Monday) where we’ll be discuss stratagies, tactics, and techniques for better video and sound that will not break your production budget. I offered a free conference pass to the first person who asked for it and Steve Albanese was the lucky winner. Congratulations Steve!

Len Edgerly showed us iYule on his iPhone, a 30-minute Yule Log video available for iPod, iPhone, and more. A holiday fireplace experience with crackling sounds for those on the go. Len is intersted in hearing about interesting uses of the web, video, and social media by artists. Some suggestions came up including a recent Wall Street Journal article about a visual artist using YouTube and Exit Art, an interdisciplinary laboratory for contemporary culture that explores the rich diversity of voices that continually shape art and ideas. Len has been documenting how artists and art organizations are using the web. Check out his podcast and video blog.

Bryan Person made a plug for Len’s podcast, saying “he’s a great storyteller.” Bryan is organizing monthly social media breakfasts that meets every 5-6 weeks in town or somewhere outside, network and talk, kind of on his radar are seesmic and utterz , how are these working for you? The next breakfast, Social Media Breakfast 4 will take place on Monday, December 17, 2007, from 8 to 10am at The Wine Cellar at the Mooo Restaurant in Downtown Boston.

Nate Aune from Jazkarta is building community media portals using open source software offering organizations a way to aggregate multimedia content including screencasts, he’s also recording bands, interested in promoting local boston based bands. They are building sites running on Amazon EC2, offering a scalable media cloud for your application.

Martin Freeth from Windfall Digital is a media producer from London who works on science videos, they are doing Choose Your Character, a museum exhibit project in genetics, visitors pick a card, and move through changes to your character, you learn through walking in the shoes of another person. They are also doing an IPTV story on genetics. He used to work in the BBC and set up BBC online and he dragged himself kicking and screaming into new media. Windfall Digital develops media for all platforms. He showed a wonderful one minute film titled “The Conundrum” from a series of short pieces were designed as instertitials between TV shows but now are perfect for the web. He often comes to the states where lots of good science work is being done. This is the third time Boston Media Makers has had a visitor from London.

Mark Hanser has a new web site, The Mark Hanser Show, different from his current sute, he’s getting into vlogging, exploring these woderful tools, coming to Boston Media Makers and Podcamp and learning to apply these tools as an artist and as an educator. Matt is doing the editing.

Rafael Lanfranco is working with John Coyne on Nuovomedia laboratory’s New Americans Web Site project for immigrants in the US, they are producing media for hispanic-americans, initial focus on Peru, with content on things like how to become an american citizen, how to manage personal finances, encourage them to create their own media, build this template and move to other hispanic groups, working on alpha site right now, should be live within the next week or so. In spanish. Their model public service, advertising and sponsor support. John Coyne and Rafael Lanfranco are building MixItUp, a database to bridge between talent and companies that need the takent by building list of peolle and groups of people interested in working on interesting projects with Nuovomedia.com. They also have a group on Facebook.

Bill Wendel, The Real Estate Cafe, is working on a Real Estate Unconference and has bought an Ice cream truck he’s turning into a mobile podcasting / mapping studio for use at events like real-estate open houses. Sounds really cool.

Zach Braker, Quiver and Quill, is looking to interview people on his blog. He’s working with a business partner who interviews people on management, they are interested in the intersection of life online and life offline.

Jack Hodgson has been doing uncontrolled airspace , a weekly podcast on general aviation, the podcast is literally hangar flying. It’s a very good podcast. He’s also working on Voxci , an alpha prototype that add spoken word to the web, literally word of mouth for the web. Bryan said that bookmarks become richer when there’s an audio description to go with them. Anyone can sugn up and play with it. The main thing Jack is asking for is feedback to help them improve the site.

Tom and Reiko Beach, TRB Design, need in setting up WordPress MU. They want to support multiple gymnastic coach’s blogs. It was suggested checking out WordPress for Dummies by Lisa Sabin-Wilson, the book includes help on every aspect of installing and using WordPress and insights from bloggers who use WordPress. Steve suggests that the easiest way to learn about videoblogging is to click on the “Learn About Videoblogging” on his web site. For people just getting started, Bryan suggested the Flip camera, a.k.a. the soccer mom cam, a low cost alternative for shooting video. If your looking for a miniDV camcorder, David LaMorte and I sugggested the Canon Elura 100 becuase it’s an inexpesnive, small, easy-to-use camcorder that has an external mic input. Using an external microphone is critical for getting good sound. Len’s been happy with the Sanyo Xacti HD2, a tiny 720p camera with an external mic input. If you’re using one of the tiny digital cameras without an expternal mic input, you can always do “double system sound” (recording audio and video separately and synch them up in the editing), for example, Len suggested the Edirol R-09 and I suggested the MicroTrack II. The Samson Zoom H2 and Samson Zoom H4 are also popular choices for small digital recorders.

John Herman in the short
film The Future

John Herman has a show coming up on Thursday, he’ll be doing short-form improv with Gameboyz at the Cantab Lounge in Central Square. Also, starting on December 28 he has a new show starting, producing one man show based on the atoms in the void podcast with Sean Hurley. They have compressed 29 eposides down to a story, performed in character. Catch the show at The Player’s Ring in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, it’s a small venue, so order your tickets now. John also started production last week on Gravityland, an 18 episode web show.

Bob Sherriff is an independent producer (without a web site) in the Boston area who has started to immerse one toe into the social media area, getting into corporate videoblogs, an area in which he would like to find someone to work with clients, determine capabilities, help them publish, help them put a lot of different things into their video blogs, get into different areas, right now he’s social media light, wants to become social media hevy, develop corporate blogs for mass publication, he thinks it’s an area that is growing. Most companies still just want to get their message out, they don’t understand the two-way nature of videoblogging, but other companies get it. It will be their competitive advantage.

Some book suggestions that came up in the discussion today include: The Wealth of Networks by Yochai Benkler, The New Rules of Marketing and PR by David Meerman Scott, The Cluetrain Manifesto by Rick Levine, Christopher Locke, Doc Searls & David Weinberger, The Starfish and the Spider by Ori Brafman and Rod A. Beckstrom.

Matt Searles is ediring Mark’s new video blog and he does Asymmetric Biz Cult (a.k.a. ABC), a fascinating podcast tagged, “a new philosophy of art, mind and business.” Matt’s been doing collaborations with Mark thinking business and new media from an artsists perspective, in his words, “a rich tapestry.”

As I cleaned up these notes I listened to ABC Episode 12 Out in Left Field in which Matt talks about how his new Zoom H4 recorder which allows him now to record in the field, he’s no longer limited to recording in the studio, so this will allow him to try some new things. The episode explores what is ABC about? In a nutshell the business of media in the social media space. Around 09:46 and 13:20 you’ll hear “intros” he recorded to help express what ABC is all about. Engaging in the world through both new and traditional forms of art. At 18:00 the Matt goes into who are you? What is your personality? What is your unique approach? How do you market somethign that is so unique that there are no established channels of distribution? This is a big question for Matt. At 22:00 he goes into “modes of being” and suggests that social media is reconfiguring society. Around 25:00 he goes into organizating principles, evolution of the language, the categories that we use to put things in, something to do with idea of custom in the Heidegger sense. Trippy, interesting stuff.

Dave LaMorte is in graduate school and produces Teaching For The Future, a podcast for teachers about implementing technology education and media literacy.

Andrea Mercado is the blog co-manager of PLA Blog, the official blog of the Public Library Association She’s also the Reference and Techie Librarian at Reading Public Library in Massachusetts and author of the LibraryTechtonics blog. PLA Blog is the first blog sponsored by a library organization. She’s preparing a presentation on social media tools and came to the meeting to be inspired. She suggested checking out the Second Life Library System.

Steve Albanese, Tutorial Depot, is offering tutorials on the web available for a range of media devices. Content is geared to music technology, but he’s looking to branch out into other areas. The offer video podcast, some free and others paid. He’s also been doing a video show every Friday at 5pm called Friday Brew with friends, right now more of a fun thing, though it might go into a regular podcast at some point. He’s using the Adobe Flex player.

Well, that’s it for this month, whew. Lots of notes. First photo courtesy of Steve Garfield. Photo of John Herman courtesy of John Herman from the short film, The Future

I just posted over at Art Film Talk an interview with Marshall Herskovitz in which he discusses the origins of Quarterlife, the new web-based project he’s producing with Edward Zwick. In the interview we cover the origins of the project, the writers strike, and what’s different about producing for the web compared to traditional film and television.