Richard’s blog

In the space of two weeks I have gone from having just 11,000 views on my youtube channel to over 16,000, thanks mostly to videos I shot with the phone. I went to film the Geneva Lake Parade and then the Paleo. The Lake Parade generated several thousand views and already I’ve had over four hundred views to the Paleo Manu Chao and Tiken Jah… can’t remember the name.

It’s not bad and it demonstrates the trend that I think is interesting. Go out and film, put it online with the right keywords and watch as people flock to see the content that you have offered them. Of course this is just an experiment but it’s increased my visibility quite a bit. I’ll wait to see how long it takes to get to twenty thousand views and more.

What are the next events I could cover in Switerland?

Twitter is a shambolic mess, reminiscient of a 2008 version of how hotmail was back in 1998 when I stopped using it. How many of you remember hotmail pre microsoft. I do. It worked fine. Then it became popular and it become really slow. That’s when I spread to have ten to twenty e-mail accounts to see which would be better. yahoo mail and the account that came with the domain won until gmail came along.

Anyway twitter is a pile of rubbish but it’s better than anything else at what it does (for the moment.). It’s a shame we can’t get a reliable equivalent with an increased level of reliability.

update: Chris Brogan lost 7000 followers. I lost 600.

The failwhale is up constantly.

Some of my favourite tweeters were unfollowed.

Thank you twitter for being down at the only moments of the day when I could chat with friends.

Merçi au francofous qui sont venu. On s’est bien amuser ce weekend.

Voila ce que font les seesmiceurs quand ils s’y mettent

I’m sitting on the balcony with a view of the Lac Leman (lake geneva) after a good evening spent with many of the Francofous, French seesmicers.

More videos will appear over the length of the day.

That’s fun

Thanks to the Geneva Lake Parade I saw a nice jump in traffic to the twelve videos or so I streamed and uploaded yesterday. I suppose when you cover the right event there is an audience. This is just one small example of why I should continue streaming video content.

That’s also why I should get the content on a number of platforms.

I think social discovery is one of the most fascinating parts of the new media lifecycle because we are so early in determining the most efficient way of social discovery. Search has now been dominated by Google and while new companies attempt to attack what is increasingly becoming a monopoly, most companies have realized that the space of social discovery has yet to declare a winner.

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The question we as content creators must ask is where we get our information from. Where do we go to find the media content that we ingest. Do we rely on a social network like twitter, scanning through the timeline for interesting events.
Are we out with friends in town noticing the signs and billboards. Are we in an English pub where we see all the promotions? The point is that the way I consume media has left the printed page behind. It’s also left live broadcasting of pre-recorded shows behind.

I’m in an on demand world. Everything I consume is through word of mouth and general browsing. The web is a giant book shop and I want to enjoy as much of the material as I can.
I’m also generating content, and so are my friends. At the lake parade I was streaming whilst another friend was taking slow motion videos. More friends were on twitter, friendfeed and facebook. Every time a friend has a gig or a party we see it appear on facebook.

I didn’t bother going to a flashmob (water fight) because of the weather but within a few hours the photographs were on facebook. That’s because as much as people consume the media they also create it. That’s where the social dimension comes in. Many of you know that I was filming interviews of people like Katie Melua, Dionysos, Patrice, Mademoiselle K, Travis, Yael Naim, Camille and The Kills to name but a few.
All of that content was only available in France at first but there’s a website now. Musicorama.tv. That’s where you can find man of the interviews I’ve filmed recently. When the Paleo is on there should be quite a few more interviews appearing that I’ll make you aware of.

You see, 3G is the golden goose for wireless carriers. It’s technology that turns their networks from boring voice systems to multi-functional data systems. They’re going from being a diner offering three specials/day to a restaurant with a huge buffet. This buffet is enticing and offers something for pretty much everyone but you’ll have to pay for it.

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And that’s the part I like. The phone has never been my medium of choice. Too disruptive, too many factors to take into consideration.

Looking forward to when the golden goose has de-valued data to such a point it’s as cheap as broadband has become.

With a friend we’ve been playing with a slow motion camera and here are two of the results.

Today both a friend and I are among the top qikkers of the day. Whilst Documentally of Ourmaninside.com was in Milton Keynes getting an iphone 3g and streaming a number of videos on the experience I was filming dancers at the Geneva lake Parade. Both these events have appeal for different reasons.

We’re used to watching videos of Americans getting the iphone and doing a variety of geek events and for once we had the English experience. It’s not a very visual occurrence but at least it’s been streamed and shared. He also took the opportunity to speak about lifecast, a new way of sharing the media you generate over a day.

The Lake Parade is a very different type of event. It’s the type of event photographers and camera oeprators go to in order to get video and photographs of girls dancing to music. It’s only once a year and previous years have been better. I like the fact that I can go to the event with a phone, stream video straight to the web and all without the hassle of a camera and laptop.

I’m commenting on the latter because it’s the second time I see someone walking with a laptop in order to do some live streaming of an event whilst I’m very light. I could have shot in high definition but everyone’s doing that. What interests me is going to an event, finding some action, sharing it live as it happens and not have any real post production concerns.

In general live streaming from mobile phones is an interesting way of covering events that does not get much publicity. As a result the audiences are not as large as they could be but that will change. It’s just a matter of getting people used to the idea of webcams and live streams being more interesting than a static twenty meters from where the action is happening.

When I’m sreaming live you’ll be able to see it here.