Josh Kinberg

I added Notes to my hacked-up Tumblr theme. Now when you visit a permalink page, you’ll see a list of Notes (likes, reblogs, etc) if they exist.

That’s right bitches, I’m spreading the Tumblr link-love.

This is written mostly for Schlomo (you are my muse!)

I think the Streamy Awards are important - There, I said it!

Here’s why…

We’re still in the early days of the Web Television industry (or whatever you want to call it), and in many ways it’s like the early days of Motion Pictures and Broadcast Television. I want to see this industry continue to evolve and grow, and recognizing achievement is important to the professionalization and growth of the industry.

The organizers of the Streamy Awards seem to be taking an admirable approach, and I think establishing the International Academy of Web Television as an independent organization comprised of members with a mutual interest in the growth of this industry will encourage a long-term perspective that was lacking in the short-lived Vloggies, Winnies, or YouTube Awards (all very fun events!).

I was honored to be invited to participate as a member of the IAWTV with a group of people whom I greatly admire and respect, and who have each been important to the development and growth of this industry in many ways.

Unfortunately, starting something like this can be difficult. It’s inevitable that some people will feel excluded, especially in an industry as open and low-barrier-to-entry as Web Television. First, don’t take these things too seriously — the goal should never be about winning awards anyway! Some people care about these things, other peolpe don’t and for good reason! Second, it’s important to remember that this is the inaugural Streamy Awards and the IAWTV is a newly formed group that admittedly has a lot of room to grow. Clearly, the membership of the IAWTV does not yet make it a truly international organization, and there are definitely more people and shows who should be recognized and included. I hope this will continue to grow

It’s also pretty obvious that this isn’t the first awards show of its kind, and I totally understand if the “awards show” concept doesn’t score points for originality. In addition to the other events mentioned above, there’s also the Emmy Awards for Interactive Media and the Webby Awards for Film and Video, and other film festival events (The Emmy’s and Webby’s each have their own academies - I’m also a member of the International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences (IADAS) which is the academy for the Webby’s).

I think these events are healthy for the industry. I hope we see more awards shows and festivals to celebrate and recognize Web Television! I love celebrating achievement! Parties are fun and I love having fun!

That being said, there are other ways to help the industry other than throwing a party and handing out awards. I hope the IAWTV continues to evolve and finds other ways to support the industry, too. I believe this will happen because I’ve seen how dedicated the founding members (NewTeeVee, Tilzy.tv, and TubeFilter) have been in supporting the growth of this seedling industry. The education and thoughtful criticism they provide has been enormously valuable. I think they’ve been good at listening to the feedback from the community and I wish them the best of luck in taking these efforts forward in a way that benefits the industry.

I’ll be participating, and I hope to see you at the party, Schlomo!

Via Rupert

Earlier TechCrunch post where Arrington wonders why the Flip has been so successful when it’s not as good as the video feature that most people have on their digital stills cameras.

The answer is in the comments - like this one:

Here’s why I like my flip:
Number of videos of my kids shared with the grandparents before the flip = 0
Number of videos shared after the flip = zillions

Sure, I can probably do all the same stuff with something else, but I didn’t. That’s why it’s great.

Non-techy people love 1) the fact that there’s no cable and 2) that
the Flip software lets you can transfer, edit and upload to youtube
really easily. They’re prepared to sacrifice quality and features
for simplicity and ease of use. Having better quality pictures isn’t
worth it if you’re less able to share because the technological
process daunts you.

Also, it’s a purpose-built video camera - therefore people
instinctively trust it more than the extra video feature on what is
supposed to be a stills camera.  They assume that the video shot on
their stills camera won’t be much good, and that it’ll be hard to do
anything with it.

Josh says: I like the phrase “purpose-built” when it comes to product design. And for the Flip, it had to be as easy to share video as it is to record it. If it’s hard to share, why would people take the trouble to record the video anyway? Sure, there may be other cameras that can record better video, but the Flip makes it easy to make stuff and share it - they were targeting not just a different market but a different purpose.

Of course, piggy-backing on the popularity of YouTube certainly didn’t hurt either. Even though PureDigital started selling cheap video cameras in 2002, the culture of video sharing still needed time to catch up. Flip was ready when their moment arrived. They made “instant gratification” look easy, however as TechCrunch points out, getting there took a lot of time, effort, and frustrating setbacks.

Congrats to PureDigital, and don’t lose sight of purpose at Cisco.