DONA of which Im now a proud executive board member, has invited two of the most knowledgable vloggers, Jon Froda and Andreas Haugstrup Pedersen in Denmark to give a talk here at ITU today. I (ITU) have provided the facilities (the auditorium etc) in return for all ITU students and staff getting free entry. Great deal :)

Right now they are explaining the practical details of how to videoblog - using blip.tv as an example. Before that they pointed out that the videoblog in general has a lot in common with the weblog. Comments, social, feed etc.

Blip.tv also provides the opportunity to point to a still image that represents the video, which will be the starting point.
AQ (audience question): How heavy mb-loads can you expect users to put up with? (4 MBs per second for 4 mins, roughly 20 min).

Consumption of the blog: "read it" as a blog.
First vlog: january 2004. june 2004, around a doxen. Today: vlogmap.org 947 vlogs, mefeedia.com 7100+ vlogs. Jokers: YouTube, Googlevideo. As with blogs: we can only count the (v)bloggers that openly show they blog.
(sidenote: Im sure Adrian Miles in Australia starting doing vlogs before january 2004, yes he did, he started his original vog back in november 2000, now he is not vlogging very much anymore, but blogging about vlogs, so it goes. Should note that Adrian has approached it from a more artistic pov)

Now they have alreday vlogged the start of the talk. Sometimes I wonder whether it isnt all about documenting that we are at an event rather consuming the content of it;)?

Vlogs as medium: Andreas on the 3 "revolutions" that the videoblog brings to the communication market:
distribution: everybody have access to the creation of audio-visual products
(sidenote: do any silent vlogs exist??)
communication in a network: placed in a blog-context, part of a network (if you want!), everybody can be senders and/or receivers in this network, the form of the video is adapted: ie rather than thinking in long features, you are thinking about the vlogs as a series of short features, "chapters" of an experience (example of visit to nambia - kristjansson.dk). This is 8 feeds into the network, each of which can receive individual comments.
the power of the recipient: as vlog-user you have choice of through which media you want to view the vlog through (LK: and when to watch it too!)

The use of vlogs in organisation:
* use both externally and internally
* a human face, the reality of everyday life (the general blogs in corps argument)
* basis for discussion
* boring stuff in conversation (bad food in canteen) more fun when put in images
* getting to know your co-workers "face and body" when working in a big corp where you never meet them, but communicate with them (or receive communication from them)
* example: Microsofts Channel 9

Good advice for vlogs in corps:
know your community
learn from the grassroots
be part of networks and communities
(basically same advice as for blogs in general)


Genres in videoblogs:
* collaboration (for instance a group vlog or portal: example the israeli embassy websites in washington collecting vlogs about visits to Israel (here you can see stuff you never get to see on tv)
* diaries (example dad-blog, Siesta) - difference: can be much quicker to describe experiences this way
* news (rocketboom)
* interviews, conferences (occasional and "random" rather than linear progression??)
* videoart
* themeblogs (crash test kitchen)

Sidenote: it seems like they are making the same arguments regarding the "advantage" of images above text, that film makers were making in order argue in favour of the novel. Remediation all over again (Bolter and Grusin in their book Remediation argues that new media assert themselves by arguing that they present the world in a "better way" than "old" media).

VIdeoblogs a bit like tv-commercials: in that they operate as very efficient short stories, that have to be told in compact space, and the type of intertextuality (popular culture references)often appearing, serial. (Nikefutebol.com)

the advantages of vlogs in corps:
* show dont tell
* having an authentic visual identity online
* possibility to influence discussion in strategic direction
* crisis management
* corporate social responsibility
* stakeholder relationship nursing

Other functions of the vlog
* a hub for the local community (the roanoke.com blog), also serving as collective memory
* independent political rallying, campaigning (former senator john edwards, interesting example of users sending videos with q's to Edwards who then responds in another video, a good point from the audience: this appears to be more authentic, because a video cant be ghostwritten! shows that it is really him that have chosen to dedicate himself to answering this)

the future: remixing culture (f.i. youtube), "mobility" (jup!), few-to-few broadcast

(and while I blogged all this, Kim Elmose of Mediehack blogged about me blogging this, and now Im blogging that. But we are still "here" too. Sort of.)
# posted by Lisbeth at: 16:43