We apologise for the interruption in transmission

Yes, well it's been a while. I’d love to tell you what hugely important work has been keeping me from your screens, but you'll have to sign a non-disclosure agreement first. Just click the NDA button to the left and our team of lawyers will take one round to the local post office picket line.

My new academic stipend means I have a little more time to indulge myself, so I'm making an audacious bid to return to the vlogosphere. The plan, such as it is, will be to do a weekly video blog, along with a rough transcript containing the various links - which is what this is. And perhaps the occasional list of links to interesting video projects.

So what's been going on in the world of web video journalism in the intervening months? Well quite a lot actually. It’ll take me a while to catch up, so you’ll just have to forgive the fact that some of these examples may be a little long in the tooth.

One notable trend is the launch over the summer of a number of online tools to help the web video enthusiast. Some more compelling than others. Take kyte.tv, whose founder explains here what it's all about. Sort of. With the help of a banana. Is it me, or is he not quite convinced?

Also new – to me, anyway - is Friction TV, a UK site that specialises in video comment. It's the online equivalent of going down to speaker's corner to get harangued by opinionated loudmouths. Anyone can upload their ranting videos to the site, and its staff also have their own pet subjects, such as Project FreeSheet – a bid to close down the free London newspapers… including a familiar face collared for a vox pop at what looks like Waterloo Station. Note how Peter Snow has to cross his arms when he hasn’t got a swingometer to play with.

Like any journalist I'm always on the lookout for new ways to be lazy, so my antennae perked up when I saw this new search device featured on The Scoble Show. Spock.com is a new search engine that’s specifically set up to help you find information about people, as one of its boffins explains. I tried it out with a search on 'British Newspaper Owner' to see what it threw up. Three of the top four results were: Richard Desmond, Robert Maxwell and Conrad Black. Well they might be a perfect cross section of the good men and true who control our press – but I guess it demonstrates that spock.com has some way to go before it’s much use outside the states. By the way, you can take control of your own spock.com identity - which might make the search 'British journalism blogger' a bit less sparse. Just a thought.

So much for the technology, but how are the journalists out there faring?

It's one thing as a regional reporter to learn how to shoot and edit a bit of video for your paper’s web site. It's quite another to do the whole thing clinging on to the siderail of a round-the-world yacht. So it’s a full naval salute to the Hull Daily Mail's Jane Harper, who has just touched land in Brazil.

Now it also seems that there’s a new question for news editors to ask themselves. Namely, should you allow your reporters to sing? For the New York Times's David Pogue evidently asked and the answer was yes. His musical report on the launch of the iphone is now a cult classic. And he gets away with it – just - mainly thanks to some game volunteers he finds on the street. The one with the deep voice is from a Broadway show, apparently.

And finally, the Onion TV's news anchor gives a perfect lesson in how to handle viewer interactivity.

For previous videoblogs, see here.