div whisperer

I don’t profess to be an expert on creating hugely popular episodic content online - if you need one I’d recommend Amber, Chris and Jeff from MGImedia - but as a consumer of such content I’ve noticed some unfortunate trends.

YouTube is a fantastic content incubator. Adam Ostrow of Mashable posted news from ComScore today which stated that in October, of this year, 147 million people watched videos online and 100 million of them watched those videos on YouTube. That’s more than two out of every three videos watched online are on YouTube.

It’s no surprise then that very well written, five minute niche web shows like my favorites Mr. Deity and The Guild found their audience on YouTube. Through volume of visitors alone you’re likely to find a following for great content.

Continue reading The Easiest Way to Kill a Popular Web Show

I had a fantastic time at the New Brunswick Third Tuesday event on Tuesday and surprisingly I was sober until after the show when Liz invited me for a drink. That’s a significant oversight for me - especially considering I subtitled the event “Don’t drink alone.”

It was fantastic to see Jeff, Chris and Amber again. They did a terrific job. The reviews have been universally positive. I’m looking forward to seeing the new episode of commandN.tv that they shot in Moncton before and during the show. I’m holding out hope that the guys at Razor Creative get their Shatner shout out in the web picks.

UPDATE:

Chris and team at commandN.tv have posted the latest episode which includes a shot of me introducing the awesomeness of Stephen and Rich’s Shatner endorsement.

I look horrible. They say the camera adds ten pounds but nobody warns you that it also makes you look like you’re overdosing on prescription medication that comes with a warning about operating heavy machinery.

I’ve been helping to organize the Third Tuesday event in Moncton for September - and people keep asking me when it is being held.

Third Tuesdays are all the rage across Canada. All the cool cities are hosting them. They are essentially networking events for people in the social media world. In New Brunswick, the event rotates between Moncton, Fredericton and Saint John every month - so there is an event in Moncton once every three months (I explained that part for the people who ask questions like when the Third Tuesday event was happening).

This month we are bringing Chris Dick, AmberMac and her brother Jeff MacArthur to Moncton to give a workshop about engaging an audience online using video and other Web 2.0 tools. They’ll also be shooting an episode of their vidcast commandN.tv.

You should come out to the event. It’s, unsurprisingly (to most), on the third Tuesday of September, the 16th. Go to the semi-official web site for directions, maps, more event info, etc.

Just last week I made a post about how to properly embed YouTube videos so that they’d validate for those of us who use a strict XHTML doctype. I recently discovered commandN.tv through work and it’s become an instant favorite.. They use blip.tv to post their weekly podcast.

Disappointingly though I found that the code that blip offers for sharing doesn’t validate strict, so I wrote them an email asking why they didn’t and actually got a response fairly quickly back from a rep there going by the name of Angus. It was refreshing to not get a canned message back and the dude was helpful.

Continue reading Embedding Strict XHTML blip.tv Videos