The Voice & Videocams of the People

Having recently carped about the limitations of user-generated content, I gotta give it up for the phenomenon of all those Real People asking the Democratic candidates their questions in the "CNN/YouTube debates" the other night. (That YouTube link is to a page with the entire debate, clip by clip, featuring tiny, animated thumbnails of the questioners, and the candidates full-frame; and some might say, full of it in general.)

It was exciting, and you got the feeling that this is what democracy was really supposed to be about. If you missed it, the candidates were asked to raise their hands only once, unlike previous rounds where they were set up to look like schoolchildren.

Jon Stewart was complaining last night that the answers were the same old pablum, but I thought it looked like the too-many, too-soon candidates reacted differently than they do to the usual Respected TV Journalist. After all, the RTJ delivers his questons with this tremendous gravitas, his mighty brow furrowed, and, being human, the candidates respond in kind. (I’ll yield to the temptation to say Monkey See, Monkey Do, but I’m scratching my side as I do. After all, this is how humans learn.)

So, yes, this was a genuine Voice (and grainy image) of the People, and will probably set the mark for televised debates from here on. But my point’s never been that there’s anything wrong with giving us commoners a direct voice; it’s simply that you can’t build a website just with free content.

Note that the user-generated debate still had the Gatekeeper: CNN picked which of the thousands of video questions submitted actually got on the air (or rather, on the cable). It’s a good thing, too – can you imagine what kinds of amazing incomprehensibilities would have been heard if they’d picked the questions at random? Kind of like the variety of comments one finds in unmoderated forums.

And, of course, they also had 360 degrees of Anderson Cooper repeating, “Time… time,” all night, attempting to corral the gathering winds of the Looking Presidentials. Now there’s a tough job.

Happy New Year, Month, Day...

In what I promise is the last of these meandering, relatively off-topic holiday posts:

I'm in NYC for a bit, so I decided to go, for the first time, to Times Square for the New Year's madness. You know, it's one of those either you've-got-to-do-it-once or once-is-enough things; I thought I'd go and see which one it turned out to be. That would be the latter; although it was fun and I am glad I went. Once.

Almost chickened out when I read in the days before that the city expected one million people -- 1,000,000 people! -- to be there, and that the police would be herding them into "pens" to keep things under control. So I decided to just go into the area for awhile earlier, then leave, just so I could catch the flavor and energy of it all. Of course, once I got there, obviously the only proper thing to do was stay for the climax.

There had to be vids of it on YouTube, because there were so many people holding their camcorders over their heads taping it, and sure enough, a search on YT for "Times Square New Years 2007" produces an ample supply.

I picked this video because that's as close as I got: at 57th Street on 7th Avenue, 15 blocks away. We could see The Ball, though it's hard to spot here; it descended into the spot where the fireworks come from. The papers suggested that you get there by 5 pm to get a penned-in spot in Times Square, where you would then not be allowed to leave for food or any other calls of nature. Uh, no thank you; I was going for a good time.


...and you are there! Sort of.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Jg-5S1U7tU

Easily Jazz Up Your Site with Embedded Video Clips

'Don't know about you, but this year I sensed the conclusive sea change to video as The fundamental medium of communication. (I can just hear the incredulous cries: "Dude! Like, get with it, man -- that's really old news!" But, look, I'm a writer -- what do you expect?)

Obviously, most people have long turned to TV for most of their information input, as sad but true as that is. But what's really tipped the scales this year is Internet video: YouTube and all its clones, where we can now be the Producers instead of just the prodigious swallowers of footage.

Why "sad" but true? Because movies are naturally superior at conveying emotional information, but a far smaller pipe where thoughts and ideas are concerned. We may live by the former, being the "feeling machines" we are, but we need the latter to build things.

But I digress. YouTube's wonderful, genius stroke is to allow you to embed a video on your site, where viewers can watch it without leaving your page even though it's stored on YT. Like this:



(This is something I just put together for Dodge Street, a music club in nearby Salem, Mass., adding it to their site -- which is not otherwise my work, thank you! -- after first getting their video "ingested" from an older analog camcorder. I will post something more erudite as soon as such becomes available.)

There's nothing like moving pictures with sound to make an impression on humans. This YouTubian technique just makes it so easy, and you don't have to store bulky video files on your own server, or send those coveted eyeballs to another site to see your clips.

(Related, here:)
"What will make the Web universal is video"

"What will make the Web universal is video"

Virginia Heffernan unfortunately chose her New York Times “Screens” blog Tuesday to make what I thought were some excellent observations about YouTube’s most popular videos, and Web video overall -- and I do mean "over all."

I say unfortunately only because the NYT requires a "free" (in return for your e-mail) subscription to read, which makes linking awkward. But that's carping, isn't it? I mean, you used to have to pay 50 cents a day for the paper. And only today we see again that "Ad Sales Continue to Sag at Major Newspapers." (According to them, it's all Craig's fault.)

Now, if what she proposes is true, it’s not exactly good news around here, because as you’ve no doubt noticed I consider myself, ahem, a writer, and this could easily be seen as implying that there ain’t no big need for me or my kind in the brave new video Webworld.

But though we writers will probably still have something to do for a while yet, I think she’s right, in what reads like a loud manifesto, about where it’s mainly going.

“The Breakthrough of That Dance Video, the Future of YouTube and the Wisdom of Google”
NYT, October 17, 2006

"Why is an overlong mollycoddle mime dancing sketch, 'The Evolution of Dance,' YouTube’s top-viewed video?

"It’s hokey and did I say long and it’s like a chumpy cousin at a family reunion, which is to say — so I’m relenting a little — not entirely without corny charm, but far from groundbreaking or bellwether or cool or Web 2.0. ...

" 'The Evolution of Dance' has drawn more than 34 million views, nearly double the number of the runner-up, because it’s . . .

" . . . not in English. That’s all. No talking. No dialogue, no voice-over, no monologue. No language but lyrics.

"...blogs are not the form that makes the web universal. Neither are news sites, or databases, or Wikipedia, or anything else that’s restricted by language. What will make the web universal, what will turn us into one magical networked planet, what will blow our minds with how much can be said in icons and images and film — and, above all, why Google didn’t overpay for YouTube — is video.”

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Just for the record, we are not at all sure about the "magical networked planet" invocation there, just so you don't think including it was an endorsement of the dream.

That's a great, swinging paragraph, and we didn't want to risk disturbing the music.

We know it's coming, to some degree or another. The question is, what type of magic will it be?