Momentshowing

How to search for Creative Commons media

Lately I've been running up against the issue of finding good Creative Commons licensed media to use in my own projects: music, photos, video. While the concept of CC media is great, the practice is still evolving. Creative Commons is simply a license you can out on your own published work that makes clear how other people can use it without asking your permission. This is the way we build a reasonable sharing culture. Mike and Jon are the heroes over at CC.

We just launched a new search tool at SpinXpress that lets us search for CC-licensed media to use in our own work. Check it out.

So let's say you want to find some video of a nuclear explosion that you can cut up to use in your video. You want the choice of using it commercially. Just choose the fields...and you get back permalinks and descriptions of each piece of available media. You can also see Previews right in the page.

You can even get a specific URL to a search for sharing. Here's an example. I know Rudy and Casey have been using it to find CC-licensed photos in Flickr to use in their work.

Music is still a challenge to find by keywords, but it's a challenge we got to take on if we want to get off the "illegal use of copyright" train.

Chinese Videobloggers

Someone just pointed me to a ouser-genrated video website in China called TooDou.com.
Supposedly it is a community that has grown into the thousands since earlier this year.
People are uploading video and audio in chinese. awesome.
Here is there about page with some articles in English.

Wong of Duller says:

Toodou has been up since april of 2005.
currently its members have reach -unknown-
anyway, they have more than 13,000 channels now and increasing rapidly for both members and channels.
everyone can be a member, "Everyone can be director" is the slogan they're using to promote their service...
like blogger, everyone can have several 'channels' and each channel are given 100 mb.  users are encouraged to use p2p software... lol... i'm not from china so i'm not very sure how popular about that... but one thing i'm sure is podcast is more pop than vlog in china... what's more concern by china blogger/podcaster/vlogger is the revenue they can make

It's something exciting because I have had very little success finding Chinese videobloggers. The language and cultural differences are still very dense, but maybe this is changing as people start making their own media. The "bridge builders" will show up and start introducing their community know what's happening "outside". Then a common language can start forming. This is the dream.

We Are The Media : Vlogosphere Event Calendar

Link: We Are The Media : Vlogosphere Event Calendar.

Check it out. A videoblogging Calender. Open to all.

Videobloggers are now taking over this Planet

Want to where all the videobloggers are based?
This just in from Matt at VlogMap:

The VlogMap.org data is now available for Google Earth.
The Google Earth application is currently only available for Windows,
but I highly recommend you check it out (especially the 3D buildings
in major cities).

Instructions are here.

How to watch videoblogs on your TV

Richard of the Richard Show made me a how-to video.
I love these things.
He explains how he watches videoblogs on his TV with his wife.

Come to the other side....

I just got done reading JD Lasica's Darknet.
JD, who is known to videobloggers as the co-founder of OurMedia, is also an accomplished journalist.
In the book, he describes the challenges we face moving into a world where all information is able to flow seamlessly.
Much of it has to do with the laws that are being pushed by traditional media afraid of this new world.
Longer and longer copyrights, hardware that comes with anti-piracy built-in, tougher laws for file sharers. He does a great job explaining technical and legal arguments through personal stories.
The idea is this: flowing digital information is a reality. If companies continue creating walled gardens and make what people do illegal...then the "Darknet" will continue to grow....and more and more people become "criminals".

So go and buy the book. Remember reading books made of paper?

Get FireANT

In my spare time, I am helping create a free media aggregator called FireANT.

Our team is made up of Daniel Salber, Erik Radmall, Josh Kinberg and myself.
We work on weekends and late into the night making it happen.
These guys are powerhouses who truly believe in what we're all doing.
We recently made this awesome screencast (edited by Ryan Hodson) to help explain how the PC version works.

FireANT is the first software application that comes complete RSS subscription, Video Search, built-in BitTorrent, and the ability to sync media onto the iPod and Sony PSP.

The PC version is a beautiful monster.
The idea is to make an open platform that plays anything you can put into an RSS feed.
Read text posts.
Watch videos and flash movies.
Listen to audio.

You can grab feeds from our ever-growing Directory of feeds.
You can use the Yahoo Video Search to make feeds out of any search term you enter.

You can browse through feeds and download what you want.
You can also choose to download everything from all your feeds...and watch the videos like a TV channel in wide screen mode.

We want you to tell the creators what you think of their work...so click the Comment button to leave them a note.
We will soon have "email this" and "blog this" so you can let people know what youre finding.

We will also have Tagging enabled so you can tags videos.
All tags will be made into feeds automatically.
Taggers will become the filters of the videoblogging and podcasting world.
Sense will be amde of all the media we are now creating.

We need your feedback...so download it and give it a whirl.
We want you to go crazy with it. (It's exteremly addictive)
We hope to help people connect to each other and actual participate in their own lives by seeing media made by non-traditonal sources and realizing we can make our own video/audio that the whole world can see and hear.
Video distribution is now democratized.
It's now up to us to make it happen.
Learn to Videoblog here: Freevlog.org.

A new Directory for Videoblogs

At Vloggercon in late January 2005, there were about 20 regular videoblogs.
Three months later there are well over 200...with new videoblogs popping up everyday.
I see no sign of this slowing down.

So how do we keep up?
Linking, filters... and directories which Michael Sullivan has done.
Introducing VlogDir.

Michael says,

VLOGDIR is a new Videoblog Directory Service that allows you to add a link to your vlog along with descriptive details, rss feeds and attached media.
Every VLOGDIR entry will ping and inject itself into the videoblogging.info community page which will display the most recent 20 vlogs added to the VLOGDIR.

So add your videoblog to the directory and get listed.
This way everyone will know how to find you and subscribe to your feed.

VlogDir is a great complement to Videoblogging.info, which is the public site for the Videoblogging Group. We are building a smart ecology of tools. A real community is developing.

Keep up with all the new Videobloggers

There is now a videoblog listing all the new videobloggers.
You will get the first video of every new videoblogger that comes through the Freevlog tutorial.
Subscribe with ANT.
Vlog: http://freevlog.org/wordpress/
Feed: http://feeds.feedburner.com/freevlog/newvloggers

It's just blows me away the variety of people creating video.
Since Freevlog opened up last week, a bunch of people have already followed the instructions to make their own videoblog.
If you have a video on your desktop, it's easy to get it on a blog.
All hail Verdi and Ryan who made Freevlog.

How to Videoblog: Freevlog 2.0

Michael Verdi and Ryan Hodson have updated Freevlog.

This is probably the most powerful resource that has come out of the Videoblogging Group.
In 8 easy steps, anyone can now make a videoblog for FREE.
They have added videos to walk you through the whole process.
Please link to this far and wide.

Let it be known that the most important step is actually creating a video.
Just use your digital still camera and make little video introducing yourself and your world.
Connect into the community.
It's really ours for the making.