Real People

Wrapping up BlogHer 2008 from JD Lasica on Vimeo. Here's a quick video interview I did with Jory Des Jardins, co-founder of BlogHer, on Saturday night as the fourth annual women bloggers' conference was ending. Jory talks about some of the highlights of the gathering, which drew about 1,100 attendees. The lighting at the Westin St. Francis in San Francisco is poor, so apologies for the subpar lighting here. Watch video in H.264 on Ourmedia Watch video in Flash on Vimeo

Visualization tool: ManyEyes from JD Lasica on Vimeo. At the Future of Civic Media conference at the MIT Media Lab in June, one of the best presentations came from the co-creator of ManyEyes. Here's a 7-minute video interview I did with Fernanda B. Viegas, research staff member of IBM's Visual Communication Lab in Cambridge, following her talk. Fernanda describes some of uses of this visualization tool. For example, during the Congressional testimony of then Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, a visualization Word Map graphically showed how often he used the phrases "I don't know" and "I don't recall." Watch or download video in high-quality (H.264) on Ourmedia (480 pixels)Watch video in Flash on Vimeo Here's a dataset I just uploaded to ManyEyes on civic engagement and mobile media. You can see it as a tag cloud, as a word tree, or in other ways.

Young actors: The magic of performing arts from JD Lasica on Vimeo. I met Cie Probst, a fellow resident of Pleasanton, Calif., just a week ago, when she came by to pick up a rocking chair I was giving away — for use on the set of The Music Man. Then I swung by for a few minutes yesterday as her group of young actors were putting on their final performance of the musical. (The clip contains a short singing scene from the show.) Cie talks about the nonprofit Tri-Valley Young Performers Academy, which she founded a year ago with another mom and two directors. In this 7-minute video on the set of The Music Man, she talks about "the magic of performing arts" and watching the development of young people — in terms of social skills, not just acting ability — in such a short period of time. The academy is a wonderful addition to the San Francisco East Bay's cultural scene. Watch video on Ourmedia in H.264 (at original 480 pixels wide) Watch video on Vimeo in Flash

CEO of OneWorld.net from JD Lasica on Vimeo. I've been under the gun with the upcoming relaunch of Ourmedia.org so I have a backlog of video interviews to get online. Here's the first one: At the annual NetSquared conference for nonprofits and social change organizations in San Jose in May, I interviewed Michael Litz, CEO of the US edition of OneWorld.net. In this 4-minute interview, Michael talks about the mission of OneWorld, its global scope, the kinds of organizations that participate, its growing role as a citizen media news aggregator, and its plan to implement social networking capabilities. Watch the video on Ourmedia in H.264 (420 pixels wide)Watch the video on Vimeo in Flash

Sarah Austin on Pop17 from JD Lasica on Vimeo. In this 5-minute hi-def interview, Sarah Austin talks about her popular new pop culture site, Pop17.com, which launched in February. It chiefly focuses on Web sensations — grassroots efforts that make a splash — without the trashy, celeb-worshipping aspects of TMZ.com or Perez Hilton. I'll be working with her as part of the Intel Insiders program at Intel headquarters in San Jose, Calif. Watch the video on Ourmedia in H.264 (at the original size of 480 pixels) Watch the video on Vimeo in Flash (reduced to 400 pixels)

iJustine from JD Lasica on Vimeo. At the first meeting of Intel Insiders at Intel HQ in San Jose the other day, I finally had the chance to meet Justine Ezarik, better known by her online handle, iJustine. She gained instant Internet fame (she now has thousands of friends on Facebook and Twitter) when she began "lifecasting" her life 24/7. Yep, wore a webcam, just like Justin Kan of justin.tv. She has no regrets (turned her into an Internet celebrity) but wouldn't do it again. In this brief 4-minute video she talks about the downsides of total transparency, and about her upcoming new Internet TV show, The Really Big Internet Show. Here's a recent announcement about the show with another photo of Justine. For more, read her blog at Tastyblogsnack. Watch video on Ourmedia in original H.264 (480 pixels wide) Watch video on Vimeo (transcoded to Flash and reduced in size) Cross-posted to SocialMedia.biz.

Maplight: shining a light on politics and money from JD Lasica on Vimeo. Sean Tanner, research director of MAPLight.org, talks about how the organization provides transparency to the political donations system through widgets that tap into pubic information databases. We spoke at the NetSquared conference in San Jose, Calif., in May 2008, where MAPLight won top honors last year. Here's the current Presidential Money Race Widget, one of several widgets you can customize: Watch video in H.264 on Ourmedia Watch video on Vimeo

Miro, the democratic media player from JD Lasica on Vimeo. Here's an 11-minute video interview I conducted with Nicholas Reville, co-founder and executive director of the Participatory Culture Foundation, maker of Miro at getmiro.com. Miro's a cool application that lets you watch and subscribe to millions of channels of content created by us (any video with an RSS feed, for example). You can browse through more than 4,000 channels in its directory listing. I've been using Miro for almost two years now (free, open source, what's not to like?). I interviewed Nick as the NetSquared conference in May in San Jose, Calif., was winding down, which accounts for the distracting noises in the background. (Apologies for the lighting; the aperture kept closing and opening due to a bright object in the distance. Live and learn.) Watch video in H.264 on Ourmedia Watch video on Vimeo

Amazee from JD Lasica on Vimeo. Dania Gerhardt, co-founder and chief of finance and operations for Amazee.com, discusses "the world's first social collaboration platform" that was launched just 10 months ago in Zurich, Switzerland. She discusses her company in this 7-minute video interview conducted during Supernova 2008 in San Francisco two weeks ago. I'll definitely be following Amazee's progress in the months ahead, since I'm working on a couple of other media collaboration ventures right now. Watch the video in H.264 on Ourmedia Watch the video on Vimeo I liked the quality of the video, helped my natural lighting and fill lighting from an LP-Micro Litepanel, so i encoded it at 800 bps and at 480 pixels wide. (We're working on a new embed player, but see it at its original size and in its original format at Ourmedia.)

Leah Culver on Pownce from JD Lasica on Vimeo. At Supernova last week I caught up with Leah Culver about her way-cool file-sharing tool, called Pownce (at pownce.com). It's a way for friends and co-workers to simply share their digital stuff in a social network environment. As it happens, Pownce celebrates its one-year birthday — today! I can't make it, but the Pownce birthday party is in San Francisco tonight. When I interviewed Leah, I got a tweet from Jason Pontin, editor in chief and publisher of Technology Review, telling Leah thanks for posing for the magazine's July-August cover. It's now out, with a cover story on social networks. Social Networking Is Not a Business.* Web 2.0--the dream of the user-built, user-centered, user-run Internet--has delivered on just about every promise except profit. Will its most prominent example, social networking, ever make any money? Here's our 6-minute interview on Vimeo. The Internet Archive seems to be having issues, so the version on Ourmedia won't play right now. And here is a Flickr set of Leah taken from the interview with my Canon HV20 hi-def camcorder.

'Goodnight Burbank' from JD Lasica on Vimeo. Here's a 5-minute video interview I did with Hayden Black, the mastermind behind the Internet video comedies Goodnight Burbank and Abigail’s X-Rated Teen Diary. He also stars in both series. Hayden also offers some tips for anyone who wants to produce webisodes or just a simple series of videos. We spoke at poolside at the Renaissance Hollywood Hotel during the Digital Hollywood conference last month. Watch video in H.264 on Ourmedia Watch low-quality Flash version Watch high-quality Flash on Vimeo Interestingly, Kara Swisher of All Things D and the Wall Street Journal just did a similar 7-minute video interview with Hayden (though I suspect Kara uses a small video production team to put these up). Contrast and compare (the audio turned out a bit better on mine):

Sarah Lacy on her new book from JD Lasica on Vimeo. One of the people I had the best time bonding with on our Innovation Israel trip to Tel Aviv in April was tech journalist Sarah Lacy. Sarah has a new book out: Once You're Lucky, Twice You're Good, a narrative-driven look at the rise, fall and resurrection of Silicon Valley's startup culture, from Mark Andreessen to Mark Zuckerberg. In this 11-minute video interview conducted on a windy beach in Tel Aviv, Sarah talks about startup CEOs and her phenomenal access to get some insidery info about the people driving the Web 2.0 revolution. This is also the first time I've used the video sharing site Vimeo, which is aiming for producers creating higher-quality works. I liked the experience. Watch video (in H.264) on Ourmedia Watch video transcoded to Flash on Ourmedia Watch video in Flash on Vimeo (they do a better job of transcoding; their embedded Flash player is above)

Here's a quick video I did today with Prof. Edward Felten of Princeton University (famed for his opposition to black box voting) about the Future of News conference I'm attending (speaking tomorrow). He also mentions his new Center for Information Technology Policy. The video was conducted with my Nokia N95 cell phone.

Social marketing expert Ayelet Noff talks about the social media and Web 2.0 scene in Israel during this 9-minute video interview I conducted with her during our blogger posse road trip to Israel. A former New Yorker, Ayelet is a rising star in Web 2.0 circles in Tel Aviv and helped us with all phases of our trip. (Apologies for the lighting — this was the first interview I did on my Samsung hi-def camcorder.) Watch video in H.264 MPEG-4 on Ourmedia Watch in Flash on Ourmedia Watch video in Flash on Veoh (with ads) Cross-posted to SocialMedia.biz.

At the Tech Policy Summit in Hollywood the other week I had a chance to sit down for a few minutes with Ellen Miller, co-founder and executive director of the Sunlight Foundation, which fights the good fight in Washington, DC, trying to bring transparency to the nation's legislative hallways and public policies. They launched the Congresspedia and PublicMarkUp.com efforts. Sorry for the bad lighting, this was pulled together very quickly. Watch MPEG-4 video | Ourmedia page Watch Flash version on Internet Archive

I've been doing an informal series of video interviews with people about the issues on their minds during this pivotal election year. Recently I caught up with Kate Aishton, a resident of Washington, DC, who's a staffer at the Aspen Institute's Communications & Society Program. Kate talked about the lack of representation in Congress for residents of DC. Here's our 2-minute video interview: Watch video in MPEG-4 | Ourmedia page Flash version on Internet Archive Cross-posted to SocialMedia.biz.

Here's a 5-minute video interview with Mircalla Wozniak and Katie Muehlenkamp. co-founders of Good O' Girls, a poliitcal, professional and social network for women in the San Francisco Bay Area. Watch MPEG-4 video | Ourmedia page Flash version on Internet Archive Cross-posted to SocialMedia.biz.

Here's a 3-minute video interview I conducted with Joaquin Alvarado, director of the Institute for Next Generation Internet at San Francisco State University, on mobile technology and education, following a conference organized by the Aspen Institute on mobile technology and civic engagement. Watch MPEG-4 video | Ourmedia page Flash version on Internet Archive Flash version on Blip.tv

A 3-minute video interview with Stephanie Eastman, a San Francisco stylist who has worked on several music videos and video productions. Conducted at the Culture Catch Salon during Macworld Expo 2008 Watch MPEG-4 video Flash version on Internet Archive

A 2-minute video interview with Michelle Mills of DataPilot, which makes products that sync your cell phone to your computer. Conducted on the exhibition floor of Macworld Expo 2008 in San Francisco. Watch QuickTime video Flash version on Internet Archive Cross-posted to SocialMedia.biz.

Also at the Good Ol' Girls gathering in San Francisco last Thursday night, Jeff Soukup, California co-chair of the John Edwards campaign, gave a short talk about why John Edwards is the most progressive and most electable candidate running for president. Watch MPEG-4 video Watch Flash version on Internet Archive

On Thursday night I attended a political gathering, sponsored by the group Good Ole Girls, at the Blue Space art gallery in San Francisco. Speakers from three of the candidates for president — Phil Ting, co-chair, California Asian Pacific Islanders for Hillary Clinton; Jeff Soukup, California co-chair of the John Edwards campaign, and a spokesperson for Barack Obama — gave short presentations to a crowd of about 30 women, and then answered questions. Here's a 6-minute video of the talk given by Margaret Richardson, director of California Women for Obama Watch video on Ourmedia (MPEG-4) Watch video on Blip.tv Watch Flash version on Internet Archive

Last month the Aspen Institute brought 29 thought leaders in the mobile space together during a three-day event, Mobile Media and Civic Engagement. On the final day I interviewed Charlie Firestone, executive director of the Aspen Institute's Communications and Society program about the conference and the broader program. Here's the 4-minute interview, captured with my new Canon HV-20 high-def camcorder. I apologize for the less than optimal lighting and sound.

Online Videos by Veoh.com At the 5th birthday party for Creative Commons on Saturday night, the great Gilberto Gil — musician, Brazil's minister of culture and a Creative Commons supporter — performed several acoustic tracks. Here is a 3-minute video of his popular hit Andar com Fé, captured with my Nokia N95 camera phone. I'm still hoping others who shot video at the event Saturday will send pointers to the footage.

At Digital Hollywood recently I interviewed Jack Perry, CEO of TitanTV.com, which has great positioning in the Internet TV space. Here's a 4-minute video interview of our chat: Ourmedia page | watch or download video in H.264 MPEG-4 (hi-quality)Too slow? Watch video in Flash on Archive.org Cross-posted to Socialmedia.biz

I met some very cool people at the Pixelodeon festival two weeks ago. I'll be posting interviews over the next week or so. Here's a 3-minute video interview I did with CNET associate editor Veronica Belmont, who has quite a following over at veronicabelmont.com. She hosts CNET's Crave Video Podcast. I'm starting to experiment with some larger video dimensions. This one is 480x360 pixels. See what you think. Ourmedia page | watch video in iPhone-friendly H.264 MPEG-4 Watch in Flash at Archive.org

At Pixelodeon, I met the stars of the popular Internet TV show Richprettygirl, host Jacqulyn Joy and Cornelia Gibrand, or C, who does currency markets. The show's concept is pretty straightforward: a pretty girl (Joy) sits on a couch and talks about stuff, like hot Ferraris, with occasional interviews tossed in. The show airs a new episode every Friday. Joy remained in character for the shoot, and it's obvious that she's a smart and savvy businesswoman, giving her mostly male audience what it wants. Here's the 3 minute 40 second video: Watch MPEG-4 video (480x360; 38MB) | Ourmedia page Watch MPEG-4 video (320x240; 17MB) | Ourmedia page Flash version (320x240) on Internet Archive Cross-posted to Socialmedia.biz.

At the Pixelodeon conference at the American Film Institute in Hollywood last month, I finally had a chance to meet Casey McKinnon and Rudy Jahchan, creators of the Internet TV sci-fi show Galacticast and, more recently, A Comicbook Orange. Here's the 5-minute video interview I did with Casey and Rudy at AFI: MPEG-4 video | Ourmedia pageFlash version at Internet Archive

At Pixelodeon last month I had a chance to chat with Sari Gelser, news editor of Truthout.org, a distributed citizen news network that's doing important work. Here's our 3-minute video interview: MPEG-4 video at 640x480 | Ourmedia page Flash version on Internet Archive MPEG-4 or Flash version at 320x240 on Blip.tv

Do video producers and video bloggers need to obtain a right-of-publicity/model release form from the subjects of their videos if they plan on using the video commercially (including making money from ads)? I posed the question to San Francisco attorney Colette Vogele at the recent Web Video Summit in San Jose, and then caught up with her in the hallway to capture her answer in this 3-minute video interview taken with a Nokia N-95 cell phone. Ourmedia page | watch MPEG-4 video