The Naga Crew

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The first day of the Air Jaldi Summit was an amazing hike in the mountains-a great way to get to connect with people before a conference. I happened to be talking with Tracy when I mentioned that Jay and I were in India primarily to teach people videoblogging. Tracy freaked and told me that we needed to teach this crew of kids from Nagaland, whom she's been working with, to videoblog. We had a couple extra days in New Delhi before heading home, so of course we were thrilled. This Naga crew has interesting stories because they are from a part of India that wishes to be the sovereign nation that it once was before British Colonial Rule. I have a list of their blogs that I will post when I get home to SF.

UPDATE

here are the naga crew's blogs (see jay's post about why they might not be posting):

Yoyo- http://crazynaga.blogspot.com/
Abu- http://dzii.blogspot.com/
Chon- http://kazing.blogspot.com/
Soso- http://aliensos.blogspot.com/
Apam- http://nativesky.blogspot.com/
Bangyaa- http://bangyaa.blogspot.com/
Sorei- http://khuiralung.blogspot.com/

Selling Out Isn't Easy

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What Jay said (I've been on a plane all day, I'm tired and I think he explains it well. Thanks Jay!):

"Ryanne and I have just signed a one-year deal with Podtech to license our videos on "sustainable culture". For over 2 years now, the Videoblogging Group has discussed money and advertising. I've always been a pretty big opponent of traditional models creeping into our new art form. Check out this video I made in 2005.

Here are three reasons the deal made sense to us.

We own our content. After a year, Podtech will have paid us to create a library of videos. They didn't even flinch when we negotiated this point. They deserve credit for this alone. Podtech will have exclusive rights to put ads on our videos.

Shows are different than our personal videoblogs. Ryanne and I each have our own blogs where we'll keep posting our crazy videos. Advertising would never work there. But RyanisHungry is our attempt to create themed content that basically takes the best part of TV viewing and applies it to the web. We'll be focusing on personal stories of people changing their habits. Here's an example of what we'll be doing. So far, Podtech has made clear that we have artistic control as long as we focus on sustainable culture.

Guaranteed money. Podtech is giving us a set amount of money each month. We certainly aren't getting rich, but one of us can work on these videos full time since it's content we believe in. I'm not sure I trust the "advertising revenue sharing" that other sites like Revver are pioneering just yet. To me, only the most popular videos can make a decent living for ads clicks. I also don't have time to go out and find customized sponsorship.

I hope that we can set the example for future deals that will be fair to both videobloggers and companies. I give Podtech props for being so progressive during this honeymoon period. We expect to continue working well together. I give a big shout out to Morty Wiggins and Colette Vogele (who wrote the Legal Guide for Podcasters) for helping us through this process.

So watch our for the first videos starting on January 15th. Two videos a week for a year. oh boy.

2 Years Videoblogging

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today is my two year videoblogging anniversary. i can't believe it's been that long since i started. 2 years ago to the day was when jay dedman sent me a comment in response to this comment i made on his blog saying "get a blog, get an RSS feed, link your videos there" (you can see the whole conversation there! -don't you love the internet?). and i did. and here i am. check out my first post. today is also my mom's birthday. happy birthday mom!

Carp Caviar Season 2 Promo

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It's that time of the year again. Funny that videoblogging has even been around long enough for me to say that. Erik Nelson over at Bottom Union is starting up the Carp Caviar series again in December. Join the fun, make a promo and send it to him. He'll gladly post it over at BU.

Music created in Soundtrack. Footage from, you guessed it, India. I'm going to try to make a straight cut of this footage, because it's too damn cool, and the original music is rad too. But no serious promises.

Tech Conferences: Where Are The Women?

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This has been bugging me for a while now. Whenever I attend a conference (excluding BlogHer) there is an incredible lack of women presenters. I found this to be true at Air Jaldi in Dharmasala India, so much so that I felt the need to make a point out of them. It makes me feel like these organizers think women's voices are not as important to search for as men's. I've heard the excuse several times of "Well, there aren't that many women doing this kind of work." Bullshit. There are tons of techie chics doing all kinds of work, many of them end up in the audience, but rarely on stage. I commend the organizers of BlogHer for documenting and showing the tech world that, hey, there are lots of women doing this kind of work and they have a lot to say. Goddamnit.

Another typical example is The Future of Web Apps summit scheduled to happen again next year. I received an email from Mel (just found out Mel is female!), the organizer, saying "get your tickets early!". I remembered the San Francisco summit looked like this:


I suggested a list of women that should be invited to speak and she responded telling me that most of their spots are filled, but they have secured 2 women to speak, Tara Hunt of Citizen Agency and Gina Bianchini of Ning. Well that's something. I guess 2 is the magic number for women speaking at conferences.

My humble solution as of this moment is to not just complain that there are not enough women speaking (though this is a start to help people realize it's a problem) but to start making a list of women media makers, programmers, bloggers, project managers etc. so that when I get the excuse "We couldn't find anyone." I can pull out the list of women that they couldn't find and make some suggestions. So, ladies, help me out. Lets get a list of women who should be speaking at these things and make their names more known. What say you?

Random Moment: Jay is sick

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Tibetan Kids Vlogging!

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We've had some flaky internet the last couple days. Moving around from a family's house to a hotel where we have internet thanks to the German hackers who wired up a mesh network over there. Hurray for wifi hackers!!

Check it out though, we've been teaching some Tibetan teenagers how to vlog. It's a difficult task when they have a computer lab full of donated PCs with Windows 98 on them. Thank goodness some folks donated a Mac mini so it'll be possible to edit and upload some imovie fun. Check out what they've done so far at http://tcvvideo.blip.tv.

I'm getting a little homesick and last night Jay had cold chills and couldn't sleep. Getting sick in India sucks and we hope it's not malaria. Please god, not malaria.

Tibetans Killed Traveling to Dharamsala

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The television footage you see here has been circulating the internet for the last couple weeks. It originates from Pro TV a Romanian TV network. It really emphasizes the power of video as hard proof of what happens in the world. The Chinese government denies that the Tibetans were killed in cold blood. They claim they shot in self defense and that the Tibetans were threatening them. We can clearly see in the video that this is not the case. For a more in depth story see the Boing Boing post. I made this video for myself as well as all you, to try to communicate the reality of what these people have gone through and continue to go through to live free lives. Every child at this Tibetan Children's Village in Dharmasala have made that dangerous trek from Chinese occupied Tibet. Some never make it.

for more info on Tibet's struggle- http://www.freetibet.org/


for the full video from Pro TV

Hangin with Parasher

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After we presented at the University (see that video at Momentshowing), we hung out with Parasher and he showed us around Mumbai. Mumbai is huge and filled with people and traffic and food and sounds. I generally dislike shooting out a car window, feels lazy to me, but man, the stuff you see out the car window in India is unlike anything else. I also like to see what TV is like in other places. Equally as bright and flashy, but so different. Well, except for all the American programming that gets played. And Cricket! Cricket is nuts.

p.s. while i'm fully enjoying my time in Dharamsala at the Air Jaldi conference, something that is pissing me off is, as usual, there are all men speakers and panelists. WTF! Here I am half way around the world and I'm at a fucking boys club tech conference again. I guess it's the same everywhere. See the Schedule HERE, help me find the women, because i'm only seeing like 2.

Party Unbelievable

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man this took all day to finish!! first my compression was fucked up- h.264 does this thing sometimes where it compresses fine for the first half of the video, and then the second half is all shitty looking and super compressed. that kept happening every time i tried, finally i pieced it together in QuickTime Pro. Sheesh! and then i tried to upload to blip and for some reason, here in india, uploading to blip is a pain in the ass. because it says it's all uploaded, but it's tricking you and just sitting there with the progress bar full while it continues to upload for real. so it's midnight...and i'm finally publishing this! just for you to see some monkeys and cobras- it was worth it!

today i was sick. which i think is normal for me when i travel, i tend to get easily overwhelmed and this translates into a head cold. this is exactly what happened. and i'm sad i missed out on some cool things, like hanging out with FTI Pune film students and telling them about videoblogging. SIGH. but i got some rest, and that's what i needed. boo.