I'm putting together some notes for my session on the Masses' Media at vloggercon next week and decided to aggregate some comments I'd left on blogs around the web. If there was a better tool for this than my blog, I would have used it. ;p

From CamWorld. Original post- link.

Mail for December 28, 2001

From: Eli Chapman
Subject: metadata

Hello Cam. I see you're getting interested in metadata. I've been stopping by camworld (and reading the cms-list) for sometime now and have always enjoyed your thoughts and insights. I've been working with companies that do media asset management, and have seen the potential power of metadata. BBC and CNN (and the software vendors they work with) are some of the pioneers in this. There's an interesting project on sourceforge (aaf.sourceforge.net) that is moving towards an open format for media and metadata which would allow someone to see how an asset has been used and referenced throughout its entire life.

On a sidenote, I believe there is an opportunity for a new media asset management product which I'd love to see if you were interested in. The goal is to utilize metadata and user-history/interactions thereby creating an intelligent search, retrieval, editing and publishing system for video. At the onset, the system would be made for newsrooms (like BBC and CNN), where I know there is a demand. Much of the system has been developed already. We are going to license SDKs, integrate them together, and then develop the core funcitonality we need. I'm working on the requirements doc right now.

Anyhow - here's a metadata link: Media Asset Management - Getting meaning out of metadata (from BBC Technology) http://www.bbctechnology.com/pdfs/metadata.PDF

Have a nice new year and holiday.

-Eli

From Joi Ito's blog. Original post on Blogs and small green pieces of paper

9- Eli Chapman @ August 7, 2003 08:45 PM
The whole game depends on whether or not self-actualization can produce little green pieces of paper. Participatory applications need to provide sustainable economic models for their power users. Growth stalls without power users because newbies have neither role models nor feedback to inspire participation.

If a blog like Gawker is economically self-sufficient (and I don't know if it is), then smart money packages up the model so that the most competent and prolific participants can focus 100% on what they love to do- thereby inspiring others to join the party. For better or for worse, little green pieces of paper nourish the soil. And healthy soil encourages new waves of participants to depart from the safety and selflessness of traditional content.

With new faces come new ideas, new attempts at gaining approval, and new ways to participate. If today's Gawker is sustainable, then tomorrow's wave of new faces will generate new opportunities. In the near future, a Gawker with an extra handful of green paper might be the economic incentive that inspires competent audience members with camera phones to become moblogging gawkerazzi, further fueling growth and participation. And once again, smart money packages up the process into a reusable model and spreads the wealth.

In the long run, little green pieces of paper will fuel the growth and success of participatory applications, making it easier and easier for audiences to participate and for participants to feel acceptance and recognition.

From Joi Ito's blog. Original post on WITNESS: Human Rights Advocacy with IT and video:

10- Eli Chapman @ September 23, 2003 11:37 AM

The gap between Video and Information Technology. That's the problem and the opportunity.

I can blog because I have the tools, techniques, and technology to read, write, and share text. Plus, there is an active community of real people blogging daily and there are inspiring examples for me imitate and learn from. I can get feedback and build a reputation. Where is all this for video? Where is the Google for video? Where is spell check? Where is the Internet? Video blogging needs these things to truly exist and help democratize media.

Joi, rather than constructing the final video (which will, in most cases, end up needing to be updated and revised) it would be easier to simply apply basic rules during production (i.e., shooting, digitizing, editing) so that the video can be dynamically pieced together on the fly, depending on who's looking. By deep linking, I think you simply mean presenting video (and other media assets) based on some sort of contextual analysis. Otherwise, you're simply describing iMovie and 100 other basic video editing applications.

WITNESS and other NGOs, as well as most other media-making organizations, would benefit enormously from IT-based video production. New global support networks, communities, and technical development efforts would make it easier and easier for media consumers to become media producers. Media-making tools and techniques would evolve, and help make the process easier and more tangible. And an entire economy would form around these new participatory media models, and the concentrated wealth among the global media and entertainment corporations would fragment among participating audience members.

From MIT Media Lab's Interactive Cinema blog (Interactive Cinema is now known as Media Fabrics)- original post archive link, comment link:

Cinema becomes ordinary and casual when cinema is a social activity and video cameras are social devices. The structures and systems of filmmakers that approached cinema with this in mind are glorious examples of the democratic cinema that is being shaped today. The potential for a decentralized process based cinema requires the building of a complimentary cinema-Internet: where the act of blogging text, and the resources of Google, and the dictionary, and news sites and news aggregators, and inspiring people and interesting portals have been shaped and defined out of neccessity and progess by the filmmakers themselves.
posted by Eli Chapman on October 20, 2003 @ 08:40 AM

Democratization and decentralization of media tools and processes play a critical role both in shaping the current opportunity and in defining the current need. Traditionally, great stories are models for learning and emerge through iteration at the intersection of experience and culture. The next generation media stories will be co-constructed by decentralized social frameworks and will allow us to creatively explore responsibility and choice.
posted by glorianna on October 20, 2003 @ 05:52 PM

Decentralized social frameworks that unify media production, annotation, and publication provide a natural collaborative curriculum for critical media analysis and consciousness. Such frameworks provide experiences that forever alter existing perceptions of media and entertainment, perhaps even permanently repelling us from media we are not socially or creatively connected to. This cycle will help fragment and democratize established attention channels, hopefully redistributing the vast and concentrated economic media marketplace among individuals and small organizations. New cultural experiences emerge with the possibility and reality of sustainable media lifestyle frameworks.
posted by Eli Chapman on October 20, 2003 @ 11:08 PM

From SmartMobs. Original post on Who's Out There? Smartmobbers sign in, please!:

I tune into Howard and Smartmobs to remind myself of the urgency and fragility of the p2p media movement. While there are substantial collective efforts toward development of alternative media and realization of media reform, my focus is on the development of decentralized television and film production systems that transform video production tools and techniques into social activities. I'm currently seeking partners to build out the core infrastructure for video blogging- participatory media frameworks designed for smartmob media production, peer-to-peer production management, citizen journalism, and media games. The inevitable fragmentation of the highly concentrated media and entertainment economy is an opportunity to propagate sustainable economic models for media citizens. Connected committed citizens mature and flourish by organically cataloging, annotating, appropriating, transforming, and redistributing independent thoughts, feelings, and actions. Technologies and techniques that nurture this sustainable economic independence simultaneously fuel collective interdependence. And at the end of the first chapter, the mass media of the future is playground and battlefield for an audience that finds it natural to educate, entertain, and inform itself.

Posted by: Eli Chapman at November 18, 2003 02:22 PM

From Adrian Miles' Vlog. Original post here:

Nice discussion starting here. My big problem with video blogging is that the capture medium for me is the camera. The camera is where I am blogging. Not the web. The web (and the video blog) should be a byproduct of the work and ideas I am exploring in physical real world with my camera. Editing, encoding, posting, and titling are, to me, steps that need to be eliminated (skipped). I totally agree that, as Adrian writes, blogging "assumes (requires, or teaches) a particular hypertextual literacy." However, more important than any skill or literacy with Quicktime, Final Cut Pro, or MovableType is a literacy with the physical world, people, relationships, and the video camera and microphone. The network literacy of video blogging "assumes (requires, or teaches" social activities and interactions.

Posted by: Eli Chapman at February 5, 2004 02:18 AM