Video Prep for #dnc08
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Fri, 08/22/2008 - 12:21
During the past week, many of my friends who are going to Denver spent time exploring different tools that they can use to get their message back to their family, friends, neighbors and constituents. Even though I’m not going to Denver, I have been playing with new tools as well, helping out friends and, as always, looking for new online tools.
This week, a lot of the focus has been on video, so I thought I would highlight a few of the different tools.
Mogulus claims to be the most powerful live broadcast platform on the internet. You can use their platform to mix live video with videos that you’ve imported from other sites like YouTube.
As a powerful tool, it also takes a little bit of getting used to. Yesterday, I loaded some clips in, mostly that I had shot of various events at Falcon Ridge, and set up a ‘Clips from Falcon Ridge’ storyboard, which plays automatically when I am not broadcasting live.
Today, I brought in a few clips from other sources. Jen Just has uploaded a couple videos to YouTube about her preparation for going to Denver. Her video of all the materials she has received is particularly good.
Lon Seidman put up a nice video about the equipment he’ll be bringing to Denver to capture the moment.
I recorded my own segment as a lead in to these segments which I added to Jen’s and Lon’s segments into a ‘Convention Prep’ storyboard which I also added my auto-pilot on Mogulus. I also enabled both of the Mogulus storyboards to be played as part of video on demand.
I also spent a bit of time trying to figure out the best way to do live broadcasts on Mogulus. I’m not very good at it yet, but I’m getting better. I may try some live broadcasts at some point.
Zannel is an interesting new player on the market, that seems to have an interesting marketing approach. Word is that they will help cover expenses of some of the bloggers going to Denver if they agree to post content on Zannel. Already, there are some good test messages up. For example, be sure to check out some of the videos from Steve at Uppity Wisconsin.
Unfortunately, I haven’t been able to import video from Zannel into Mogulus, but I have managed to add their feed into FriendFeed. Zannel also has the ability to feed other systems, but because of possible feedback loops or duplicate entries, I haven’t set that up yet.
I’m getting into Seesmic a little bit more now that I have a few friends there. Adrianne from Black Women in Europe and I have been having a nice discussion as she prepares for Denver. According to the most recent update, as of this post, she is in Washington DC, has a new laptop and is going to meet some good blogging friends there.
Adrianne spoke about problems with Ustream. I found it cumbersome and like the other video services better. I don’t know of anyone using Ustream for broadcasting from Denver. If you hear of anyone, let me know.
So, how do we tie all of this together? Well, it seems like FriendFeed might be a particularly good service to use. I’ve set up the FriendFeed DemConvention room. This is a big messy feed. If I find a social media feed from someone that is going to Denver, I add it. We are approaching sixty different feeds going into the room. You have to scan through to see which entries are interesting or not. In addition, when I recognize people who have joined the room, I make them administrators, so anyone can add feeds to the room.
A different approach has been done by Andy Carvin. He has set up the FriendFeed DNC08 room. This room only has eight feeds coming into it, however they are feeds from Twitter, Flickr, YouTube and FriendFeed that are tagged in one way or another as DNC.
So, it looks like there will be lots of interesting online content to find and view.
