Joost in time, it's vlog 8

Hi welcome to the (transcript of the) latest videolog featuring various bits of web video journalism from around the net. I'll start this week with serious plaudits for a serious piece of work from the Guardian. The newspaper's Katine Project is a highly ambitious attempt to transform the lives of people living in one of the poorest places on the planet, a village in rural Uganda.
It contains, as you would expect, news and blogs from the village highlighting different areas of its life. But there's also a fantastic rich interactive map - the virtual village - which brilliantly brings the sights and sounds of Katine to life.
It's probably the best piece of convergent journalism I’ve seen from a UK newspaper – or any newspaper for that matter - so far.

I've also been taking a look at Joost, the video on demand service from the people who brought Skype to the world. Now for a start I'm wary of anything which requires me to download a new application – my desktop's cluttered up with enough redundant rubbish as it is – but I bit the bullet with this one in the name of journalistic exploration. Joost has signed deals with some major journalism organisations, including Reuters and ITN. No sign of any ITN stuff yet, but Reuters is providing weekly entertainment and technology bulletins. Joost has a nice interface, but so far lacks enough really compelling content. Until there’s more to watch, any further visits will be hard to, er, joostify.


The Bristol Evening Post is part of an interesting new video project. It's streaming live video footage of meetings of the city council in a brave attempt to bring local democracy into readers homes. The Post reckons around 200 people tuned in for the first one, and the video remains available to watch afterwards on the site. But at 3 hours, I suggest you nip out for a packet of pro plus tablets first. Now what would really help is a Post journalist to edit it down into highlights so Bristoleans could find the bits that really interest them.

Ustream is a network that allows you to publish live streaming video on the internet.
So instead of producing this brilliantly crafted and immaculately edited videolog, I’d be able to talk to you in real time and you could contact me live to tell me what you think. Don’t think I’m quite ready for that yet – but I can certainly see some applications – conferences, for example – where it might come in handy.

Incidentally, new viewer Joshua pulled me up last week for not giving Kyte.tv a fair crack of the whip and opting instead for a cheap banana joke. Fair point. And actually I found myself watching some footage by tech blogger Robert Scoble on Kyte this week. So there is clearly more to it than fruit, and it is worth keeping an eye on.

Speaking of Scoble, I see that reports of his company’s demise were not just premature but downright falsehoods. I'm glad about that, not just because it shows there is a market for the one-man blogger and videoblogger, but also because it gives some great insight into technology that’s coming our way. Like this example:
That's Stanford Professor Marc Levoy who is working on a camera that allows you to refocus pictures long after you’ve taken them. I know a few Fleet Street snappers who'd pay good money for that.

Finally, here’s a couple of earnest young men debating the modern problem of information overload on Google Video (at about 8 mins 40)...
That's Marshall McLuhan and Norman Mailer, filmed in 1968. They should go far.

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.