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.

Is Linux ready for video editing?

To get videoblogging to spread in non-western countries, we really need to get free software for video editing. At this point, most people are just pirating software since $500 is like 2 months salary in many countries. You can't buy FCP for that.

Linux has a lot of promises, but it never really looked good for editing video.
That may be changing.
Here's a great article explaining how you edit video on these free tools.
Doesn't look perfect, but getting close.

The whole process is not quick, and the software puts heavy demands on the CPU, RAM, and disk space. However, none of these problems is specific to Linux.As far as convenience goes, Linux may present a sharper learning curve, but this learning curve is worth the trouble. Once you find your way around all the steps, you will feel comfortable using the whole chain. The stability and predictability of the free software, as well as the active community of users and developers, is a huge asset.

How to raise money for videoblog projects

We have been using a cool Wordpress plug-in to raise money on HaveMoneyWillVlog.
It's called Pledge Drive built by Devlon Duthie.
The plug-in is open source...here's the code.

We use to raise money for ambitious videoblogging projects that need startup funds to get going. We got to fund the video we want to see. It's pretty easy to raise a couple thousand dollars each month using the web if the project is any good.

Why did we build it?

• We wanted a way to directly connect a creator and a donor without an extra fees that other services take.
• We wanted to be able to set a Goal...and have a progress meter show how much money we were raising.
• We wanted donors to be able to leave comments and get a linkback in addition to just donating.
• We wanted to have a list of donors show up so people could see each other.
• We wanted it open source so anyone could update and customize it for their own Wordpress blog.

Anyway, I'm really excited about pushing the next evolution of the plug-in: Automatic subscriptions.
Pledge Drive would work the same way, but a creator could set a goal that she wants to raise each month. For example, she needs $1000 a month to do a weekly videoblog. So Pledge Drive would let people sign up to have x-dollars taken out of their Paypal each month. Those people would then be the sponsors for this "show". That's just 100 people giving $10 each month.

So this next version of Pledge Drive will help set the monthly goal, set up the reoccurring payments from each donor, and make a list of everyone who signs up. We're looking for people to help us code it up....so email me if you want to help out.

How to Videoblog

Steve Garfield let me know about a project he helped create.

It's walks you through how videoblogging works and some of the history.

I was inspired by Steve's work back in 2004. I remember he was the first person to ever email me back about videoblogging. Shit, he was the first person I knew who was really videoblogging in a regular, puroseful way. He helped me understand that blogging was about educating each other.

As the online video world grows, we have people coming from it at different angles. Though there are many similarities, I think videoBLOGGERS come at video publishing different from Youtubers. Check out the project...the videos help lay out some of the ideas.

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.

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.

We're making a stage

The Videoblogging group has exploded over the past several months.
It's getting difficult to keep up with all the videos that people are posting.
Peter made me-tv, which is an RSS reader for video.
It's definitely very cool.

We have worked on another tool to distribute and watch video.
It's called ANT.
ANT stands for Ant's Not Tv.
A funny play of the GNU (GNU Not's Unix).
haha so geeky.

ANT is a free application for MAC 10.3.
( we are working on a windows/linux version)
It is a video aggregator.
You subscribe to RSS 2.0 feeds with video enclosures.
ANT downloads new videos automatically.
You can arrange the video in the playlist, and then watch them in the viewer.

ANT automatically trashes videos you've watched.
You can also tell ANT how much space you want to give video downloads so your hard drive never overfills.
If you see a video and want to save it...just drag the video to a folder on your desktop.
Maybe you use it to find video you want to remix for later...since many feeds are under Creative Commons licenses.

The coolest feature is the "comment button".
When you watch a video...you can go to the original permalink of the video post...and make a comment to the creator.
This is where the blogginess comes out and creates that positive feedback loop between viewer and videoblogger.

So you can add any video feed...and we are building directory.
But we really hope its used to distribute and watch ORIGINAL video.
We loaded ANT with some default feeds.
So just download and hit "REFRESH ALL".

I got to give props to Daniel Salber who actually developed ANT.
I approached him with the idea and he intuitively understood what we needed to do.
He also busted out a professional, smooth tool in about 2 months.
Word.

Josh Kinberg is the other part of the ANT triumverate.
It was his vipodder that started all this.
He is a supertester..pushing each version to the max...and helping work out the bugs and design new features.
Josh also created the cool ANT logo and website.

Click.

ANT is what we make it.
What i'd love to see is a completely decentralized system of videos feeds.
All these creators publish their own video...and put them in RSS feeds.
Everyone can use a tool like ANT to create a "channel' of the videos they want to see.
And when you watch a video you like, you always click "comment" to tell the creator what you thought.
That's why any of us make video anyway...to create that conversation.
And if creators feel like their work is appreciated....a stage for performance develops and spawns more creations.
Hopefully, that's what tools like ANT can provide.

 

 

Solutions to the Bandwidth Bottleneck

The Problem:
Ever since Michael Verdi's daughter, Dylan, posted her first video blog and had 1600 downloads in 24 hours....Ive been thinking a lot about bandwidth issues.
In the near future, watching video on the internet will be part of our daily web process.
I see no reason why 10,000 people won't watch a simple video post.
But there is NO way current bandwidth allotments can handle this traffic.
Even 50 gigs of bandwidth is not enough...and that's the max bandwidth that most servers allow.

Solution #1:
One solution is using the Internet Archive.
Started by Brewster Kahle, this service has been around since 1995 mainly for archiving web pages...so we could have a record of what the web looked like in the past.
But now they are opening it up for video and audio.
Brewster Kahle, who got rich off the web in the 90's, says he wants to have all human knowledge on the internet.
This is the motive behind giving us free bandwidth and storage for our videos.
Ourmedia.org, the Creative Commons, and the Archive.org are teaming up to create a network for original content.
So you can upload your video to the Archive, slap a Creative Commons license on it, and use Ourmedia.org to join a community of other people who are sharing their videos.
The project officially starts in mid-January.
(though you can use the CC Publisher to upload video to the Archive now and have them store/serve your video for free)

Solution #2:
But is the Archive the solution?
Can any place serve up thousands of videos being downloaded thousands of times?
Maybe Bit Torrent is the answer.
Bit Torrent is a file sharing system...kind of like Napster or Kazaa...but perfected for large video files.
How does it work?
Many computers are "always-on"...using cable modems/DSL to connect to the internet.
Why not make each of our computers servers?
(You'd have to be serving A LOT of video before your ISP started complaining.)

Though Bit Torrent is easy to download, it's been difficult to serve...though some people are making heroic efforts to make it easy.
One of these people is Gary Lerhaupt of Torrentocracy who I met at BloggrCon3.
He created a new service called "Prodigem".

If you haven't already heard of Prodigem, it's a new peer to
peer hosting service and content management system.  It makes
use of bit torrent to enable you to distribute your content
regardless of how large your content is.  It removes all
complexity of distributing via bit torrent by automating the
entire process from uploading your content to actually having
the Prodigem servers seed your torrent so that it can be
distributed.

To make a Torrent:
Gary invited me to test his service a couple weeks ago...but i hesitated....until today.
Gary's sevice will host the file and makes the torrent for you.
I just followed the empty boxes he gave me.

In 10 minutes, I uploaded the video about me-tv to Prodigem, which is now seeding the torrent file...ready for anyone to download.

How to download a Torrent:
Go here and get the torrent file.
There will now be a torrent file on your desktop.
This is a simple file that tells your computer where the real video is. (on Prodigem right now)

You must have a Bit Torrent application to download the real video...just like you needed the Napster/Kazaa/Limewire application to download music.
Download Blog Torrent...its easy to use.

Open Blog Torrent.
You just drag the torrent file into Blog Torrent and it starts downloading the video.
The video will download directly from someone's computer...so no server bandwidth is used.
Once you download the video, you start seeding it automatically...meaning that the next person to download the video will get it even faster....etc.

This stuff is really easy...it's just new.
I could sit down with anyone and walk them through it.
But the goal is to make bit torrent should be completely invisible.
We're getting there. It can be even easier.
It's going to work.
We should be able to post a video and never worry about too many people watching it.
In fact, with Bit Torrent... the more people who download it, the faster the download is.
Think of it like Napster...but better...and it's all about distributing original content.

CC Mixter: make audio together

This is not about videoblogging, but it is about what we're doing.

When Napster erupted in the late 90's, it was huge.
Suddenly people from across the Earth could share their music.

But if you think about it, the tool was weird. Blank and dumb.
There was no way to search for anything...unless you knew what you were looking for.
You had to type in popular names to get copyrighted music.
There was no way to search for stuff you'd never heard of because there was no interface to suggest cool original songs.
So you got 237 versions of "Sweat Leaf".
So of course it got shut down because it was bascially a tool to steal music.

The next generation is here...and Creative Commons is leading the way.
Why bother so much with commercial music?
Most of it sucks anyway.
Let's look to ourselves.
Adn this is the tool for to find original audio.

CC Mixter - The remix family tree
The Mixter lets you download people's music(spoken word, noise, etc)...add your own flavor to it...and upload it to be shared.
Or upload your own music to be shared.
This is a collaborative Peer-to-Peer system.
No one can call this illegal.

And all work is published under the Creative Commons License of your choosing.
The site allows you to search for styles, intsruments, vocals, etc....till you find the stuff you want to play with or use.

Logic, my friends, is here. (go lucas)

Send HUGE video files as easy as sending email

You got a big video file you want to send someone, but email doesnt allow you to send this much stuff.
So you hear about this Peer-to-Peer network called Bit Torrent that lets people trade huge files easily.
Anyone who's ever tried to put use Bit Torrent...knows how frustrating it is.
You got to create a tracker...deal with plug-ins in Azureus.
You realize that only a few people even know how to download torrents...or even bothered to load the software on their computer.

The folks at Downhill Battle have finally released an easy torrent creator.
Blog Torrent - Simplified bittorrent .

"Why does Blog Torrent matter? Making it easy to blog large video files means that people can share their home movies the same way they share their photos or writings. It lets people create vast networks of truly peer-to-peer video content-- video that was made by individuals and shared with individuals, no bandwidth budget or distribution deal needed. Does this mean that we can do for television what blogs have done for news? Let's find out..."

Once enough people start using the torrent software, it's going to work.
But it's one of those things with Peer-to-Peer networks..enough people got to be sharing.
Blog Torrent looks great...real rich...going to take some time to really appreciate what they've done.
The upload tool looks like the killer app...but they only have it for Windows.
Just wait. Mac users...donate some coins.
This stuff is being done by people who believe and dont get paid.