In our last episode we covered the basics of what makes Web 2.0 so… 2.0ish. In this post we’re going to look at some of the User Generated Video that’s out there, and what your options are as far as hosts.

First and formost, lets look at some of the biggest hits out there. I’m sure you have all heard of the “Chocolate Rain” meme:

You might even have seen this on TV, but I assure you, it all started here on Web 2.0.

There’s been a lot of variations on this theme, my favorite of which stars someone we’re going to touch on later in this post: Chad Vader.

I must admit, I’m pretty partial to Chad.

Of course, there are a number of other viral videos out there, like “Leave Britney Alone!!!“:

Nearly three million views as of this writing on this video alone. Wow. Good job, Mr. Crocker.

Now, remember above where I mentioned one Chad Vader? Well, he actually has his own series: Chad Vader - Day Shift Manager. One of my personal favorite shows, I can’t wait to see more (there are only a few episodes out):

Eh? Pretty sweet, huh? VERY well done, I say. Another good series is a new one, known as ./shutdown:

GREAT SHOW! At least in my opinion. Very super high quality production values, you can get a VERY high quality watchable version on Stage6, a subdivision of the DivX crew. Only a few episodes, but they are GOLDEN.

And of course there are a number of other greats out there, enough to keep some going for a long, long  time. Ask a Ninja, Snowman Hunters, God, Inc (or anything by Francis Stokes for that matter), Mr. Deity, and another personal favorite: Goodnight Burbank

Absolutely amazing.

Now, if you want to get into generating user generated video, the first place I’d go is YouTube. It doesn’t get much more straight forward then that. After you’ve gotten your feet wet you can try some of the others like Veoh, Stage6, Metacafe, or even the venerable Internet Archive (circa 1996).

Stay tuned (via RSS perhaps?) for next time when we delve into the beautiful chaos that is a user generated knowledge base: The Wiki Family.

And now, I bid you adieu with a delightful triplet for the road:

“The Polite War”

“Code Monkey Dance”

“A Love Song from Skullcrusher Mountain”

Tags: Video, Viral, YouTube, Wiki, UGC

Ah… good ol’ Web 2.0. We’ve heard about it for a while (starting with the first O’Reilly Media Web 2.0 conference in 2004), but really, what is it?

Web 2.0 is not so much an advancement of technology (in fact, many of the fundamental technologies are fairly old - recognizable components of AJAX (Asynchronous Javascript And XML) are over a decade old), but more a collection of Memes. I suppose, to put it simply, you could view Web 1.0 as mostly a “Read Only” Web (you surf around to other peoples pages and view them, or other people come to yours and view it), where as Web 2.0 is more of a “Read/Write” Web. A participatory culture, if you will where a person will go to someones site and add content to it (be it in the form of comments, videos, news submissions, or nearly anything else). Think Geocities vs. Blogger. There are a number of sites that epitomize this “Read/Write” web, and over the next few posts we’re going to take a look at some examples across different media formats.

First, let’s look at so called “Social News” sites. There are many out there, but the two biggest that I’m gonna focus on are Slashdot.org and Digg.com. They are similar, but different in some very important ways. Slashdot has been around for a while and they seem to have (in this writers opinion) a more erudite crowd (Caveat Emptor: there are trolls on both site in fair quantity). Digg is a younger site, and seems to have slightly younger users (not a knock either way, though). Both sites provide a stream of user submitted news (Digg is a bit more broad in terms of content, with Slashdot more focused on tech topics), both sites allow users to comment on each news article. They both offer social networking features (such as friends lists, and RSS feeds of just about everything). The major difference between the two is that Digg is quite democratic in how it decides which stories get to the front page, where as Slashdot stories are promoted via a number of editors. You’ll tend to find (again, in this writers opinion) that Slashdot tends to have a better “Signal to Noise Ratio“, where as Digg will often catch stories that would just slip through the cracks. However, there IS quite a bit of overlap between the two. There used to be a site that kept track of the various submissions and duplicates, but I won’t link to it because it’s since become a link farm.

Stay tuned next time when we delve into user created Video - all the world’s a stage, and all of us are the star!

-Note: I’m currently laid up with Back problems (we’ll find out for sure what’s going on Wednesday when I go see the results of my MRI), so I should be able to put aside a little more time to get articles up. Thanks for reading!

Tags: Web2.0, Digg, Slashdot, Social News, Narcipost, History

Yup. They are SUPER Sweet. I was a ninja for Halloween. Well, at least, for the party I went to on Saturday. I didn’t have time to dress up on the day itself.

However, while I was not able to take pics, this is likely what I looked like. Assuming I was able to be seen at all (as I was an ninja after all):

But yeah, Ninjas are sweet. And they have swords.

Also, this is a good time to test out how well my ‘blog handles YouTube videos.

Tags: Ninjas, Halloween, YouTube

Well, I didn’t get to blog from onsite, but at least I’m getting in one more post this weekend. Deanna’s driving, and I’m just hanging out. It was a good time. If you ever have a chance to go to Hershey Park, do so. It’s quite a blast. They’ve got very good rides (I recommend The Great Bear, it’s named for The Big Dipper (Ursa Major), and it’s just as impressive. It’s a top down coaster (meaning you get strapped in and the floor goes out from underneath you), and it has 7 different points of interest - one for each star in the constilation. All in all, though, it’s a great park. Just DON’T GO TO THE WOK AND ROLL!!! The food is horrable, and the price is nuts ($8.99 for a small plate of pepper steak, cruddy lo mein, and some roughage they claimed was pork fried rice (if there’s any pig out there that tastes THAT bad, I feel sorry for it). But yeah, beyond that nonsense it was great.Worth noting if you plan to go, is to keep an eye on the candy bars. Below you can see this creepy Hershey Bar staring at me. I can only assume he wanted to eat me. Frankly, I don’t know if I can look at a candy bar the same way again:

Anyway, we’re now heading home, and fighting our way through 8 hours of joyful traffic (hopfully there won’t be a 2 hour traffic jam this time). Wish us luck!
UPDATE: Before I got a chance to upload this, I got this great pic of Matt. Like father like son, eh?

Or at least that’s what I would have said a half hour ago. I had this whole post written up (using cellphone typing none-the-less) about how I’m all modern using my Moto Razr to moblog. Then, after blowing an hour typing up three paragraphs or so I tried to upload it and BOOM! I had run out of cell service . But hey, that’s the way it goes. Anyway, moblogging is neat, but better is using my laptop in the car to type up a post and then post it as wifi becomes available. Heck, we’re headed into PA, who was trying to get wifi all over some of their cities a little while ago, so wifi shouldn’t be TOO hard to come by.

Anyway, we’re headed to Hershey Park for the weekend (that’s how I’m able to blog: vacation!), and we hit this HUGE traffic jam (I guess this trucker jacknifed his rig and killed himself and a maybe some other people, anyway it was a lot of cars). As we were trying to get back on our way (which took going in circles like 3 times) Deanna told me to nose my way into another lane, so I did. However, as I was trying to get in front of this chick (who was glued to her cell phone) she just keeps going ahead! We scrape, and she got the gift that keeps on giving: free paint on her new SUV. Witch with a capital B, if you ask me. I just can’t beleive people are that numb. SHE DIDN’T EVEN NOTICE ANYTHING BAD HAPPENED!!!

But yeah, people are stupid. Yes, I know I’m using a computer, but I’M NOT DRIVING!!! That makes a difference.

Anyway, I have the laptop with me this weekend, I’ll try to post again as I’m able. Later, and remember: if you’re going to moblog, do make sure to save your work often so you don’t run outta cell service.