we love the new wistia super embed.  seriously, it's awesome.

ok, sure i'm bound to say that because i'm kind of an unpaid/but paid in kind of brand advocate exploring and using their service instead of posting my content on services like vimeo or youtube (although i'll be using youtube for traffic/money generation this year in some areas unless wistia partner with someone regarding monitizing content streams - think blip.tv,boxee, settop box) and actually i really like the system for clients -- having a web secure system for showing clients potential drafts is brilliant.  it's a real highlight.

please ignore the jerky quality in the video btw, it was really a test on something that i'm working on that i explain below, we were streaming over wifi and it was supposed to be a test that ended up being an hour catchup video! - i'm hoping that the super embed can be expanded to also include a block underneath that has either a jump bar or something similar to jump to timed comments in the video (reading this wistia?)

the above video embed is one of the new super embeds - you can customize so many features to do with how the embed acts and looks within your website (even call out url at the end which works really well - i wonder if they capture the click rate on that for the stats view?) the feature i'm currently looking at however is taking the admin chat comments (the logged in user on bambuser doing the stream) and piping them into the wistia api as a .flv conversion of the archived video stream after an event, conference (i.e ontheground event) - once on wistia i'd like to automatically take the bambuser chat commands and put them as timed comments for jumping to different sections in the video.

what is even nicer about this arrangement is that we can also build in an element of triggering for a transcript if we are recording and streaming live for a client on the ground like i hope we will be doing for audiences europe this year (crosses fingers) - it means we can have the embed and the video all tagged when certain presentations start or interesting things have just been said, piped over to wistia, tagged and embedded into a blog for offline viewing by those that never made it to the live stream. 

having those additional timed markers opens up lots of other interesting areas which we are currently experimenting with similar to the old rezpondr system i tried to build a number of years back with a difference this time, more lightweight less db management and with layers onto of the ui and experience that allows you to do actions with the media you have pulled together.  other people do this in some apps i have seen but they are dedicated applications with gobs of money thrown at them.  we are building something a bit more homebrew.

i've met with some local phonegap and full fat ios developers to discuss my options and how these things work and which way to go with it.  right now we are looking at creating a webapp and wrapping that into a phonegap chromeless browser style applications to get on the appstore that we give away for free that queries my content to start with.  i expect this will take a few more months of development to get it to the place i want but it opens up the ideas i have about social media and advocacy develoment throughout this year.  oh, and i'm aware it's time sensitive. another year and this stuff will be on your television.

• New Bambuser apps optimize mobile live streaming (gigaom.com)
• Wistia Further Enhances Video Embed Player (readwriteweb.com)
• 8 Things You Can Give Away to Earn Links + Mentions - Whiteboard Friday (seomoz.org)
• New Embedded Video Player From Wistia (readwriteweb.com)
• the flat screen has been installed @lacemarkethouse for .tv (fibrecamp.tv)
• Live video streaming app Bambuser's update takes it completely mobile - no computer required (thenextweb.com)
• Bambuser exec streams live from New York, for 24 hours (gigaom.com)

we seemed to get back in rapid quick time on monday.

i've been relaxing around the house and catching up on sleep and blogging while i have a few days before i jump on a plane and head home - purposely left myself with an additional few days either side of the trip to make sure i was set to go back and not just rushing around like a mad man which normally happens.

doing this allowed me to rest and relax and form my thoughts about the blog posts i would be writing too so that i would not be leaving any media and content open for when i get back - i know i'm straight back into the breach when i get back and i still have to find those stable monthly retainers! - i've started one for a solar blog which is perfect with the ark (more on that soon) funding news about to hit any day now.

it's been an amazing, probably life changing experience on many levels to have gone out to the town.  it made me realise that my concerns about the environment are fact and seeing what mother nature can do is a validator that the path i have decided to head down is the right one from a viewpoint of short term futureproofing - if that statement makes sense.

i feel i need to be agile and nimble to be able to react to the ever changing rapid world we live in now and living outside, in between the grid yet on the cloud is based on my lack of 'kiss ass and kick my head down' in an office environment - the data, social computing arena has gathered a pace with entertainment and on demand delivery exploding with lots of people wanting to know how best to adopt and serve these areas - i feel that i'm in a perfect place to finally collect on the years of effort i have put into doing what i do.

it was an absolute pleasure to meet all the town folk in phil campbell, alabama - i've never met such an engaging and surprised close community that have pulled together in their own of need so much and meeting the other phil campbells was a trip.  it was very odd to be in a room when people shouted phil and to have been branded by our region - i think i was called 'nottingham' or 'england' or 'techboy' in the few days we were in the town.

one thing is certain i'll be back to that town. ..

morning!

been a busy week this week but i have to tell you that it has been a good one on many levels.  a big chunk of work done on the themes for nomads, ark, philcampbell and my new me.dm refresh which tbh i've been wanting to do for ages.  it was gonna be all whizzbang and clever with lots of things getting pulled in but i've gone for a more subtle build it up approach that is light weight and means i can rapidly prototype ideas - like the nomad one.  that's gonna be a videoblogging style nomad tech video show for different areas of being a social digital nomad that it leads into me making an ebook about it perfectly.

right, i'm heading out for coffee and to blog and be inspired.  i wrote a bunch of titles in my notes application on the ipod last night and i'm chomping at the bit to get in there and start writing some drafts out.  in the meantime, why don't you catch up on my bambuser live stream.  hit the streams button on the left side and have a walk through of the streaming we did for the 100milestories.com project recently and think about how awesome that is going to be amplified for this trip stateside in june.

i have plans people.  watch this space.

ipad2.  it's faster and it has cameras.

it has a front and back camera but more than anything it has that sweet new a5 chipset with duel cores.  it should have a lot more power to be able to do stuff than before - i even saw a newer version of imovie out for it which got me thinking about what could be next for someone like bambuser.

taking the quality up a notch
obviously the first place for bambuser to go is with optimizing their platform for the ipad2.  i personally see a lot of refinements coming from apple regarding the cameras.  the hardware is there but i think they still need to optimise the quality there.  also for me the ipad2 is not a native way of doing any kind of streaming because currently it's a two hand operation which makes it difficult to use for a videoblogging - i'd also like to be able to switch between cameras while streaming and have an external microphone setup on both sides of the ipad so i can get decent audio front and back inside of at the top.   it's great if your doing face to camera videoblogging journals everyday however and i think that is something that bambuser should develop out further on top of their api.  i think they could do a lot in this area - i've got a bunch of mashup ideas here.

building a mixing application
because of the extra screen real estate my first thoughts were of taking the old mixing desk idea that bambuser has of mixing lots of bambuser streams and making something more concrete for managing lots of 'ontheground' people at an event with an editor mixing between the sources.  it's a perfect unit for it and bolting on a universal chat room for all of those channels combined.  i'm also thinking that you could initiate intro/outro and text rollovers for each source - it would be a pretty slick controller for something like that.  again, something i would love to develop on top of the api - it would certainly optimise the 'news gathering' experience of nomad jackets walking around austin with an editor switching to things that were interesting.  

a 'pulse' style app for video clips
one of the things as a digital nomad that i have a problem with is consumption of clips in a manner that makes it easier for me to watch on the go.  i want almost a curated experience or newspaper style timeline approach to clips and content from an event with maps and the ability to add ambient context and edit clips to get to the 'good stuff' - taking a similar approach to the way that the 'pulse' application works making an application that allows me to sweep through content on bambuser from an event, venue would be excellent.  similar to the way that rezpondr worked but themed for that conference.  i guess it's the viewer part to the controller part i was talking about for the mixer application.  i'm sure people would pay a small amount for it as well if it was developed.

i hope i can get some stable work in the near future that will enable me to play with an ipad2 myself and look about getting in a team to develop something through the bambuser api.

so welcome back for part two on the third day of getting the unit.

day three. ..

different day, we ran the flash media encoder over night to bambuser and that worked fine.  we realised we need some more lighting obviously in the shot (maybe we will automate some lighting at certain times or look at low power led ropelighting of sorts - might be solar panel powered) but it ran absolutely fine and was a good test. we need some more controls over audio playback in the stream and looking at setting up the other camera but on the whole a good solid start.

this morning was a bit of a nightmare moment as i logged into the machine and changed the administrator password and then forgot what i put.  bad move, so i had to bootup from the osx install disk and reset it with the utility tools in there.  after booting backup i created new keychains (it asks you and as a fresh install not a problem to do this) and set about setting up the remote access and file sharing.

this allows me now to run the macmini headless (that is without any monitor) and remote control the machine via screen and access the files on that machine over the local wifi network connecting them together - my macpro is currently serving the macmini a wireless signal as i have shared my ethernet from it to the macmini - once we have been given the static IP address i'll have access to the machine from anywhere in the world.  at that point i'll be doing a tutorial about VPN - virtual private networks to give it some much needed added security.

as we had got it to the headless stage i also installed boxee to test what that ran like on cjs projector and although we do not have the white screen put up yet it looked really impressive and sharp and that is a reasonably priced projector.  means we can have gathers and ted talk inspiration day events in the fibrecamp - this is building up to us having 3/4 people who drop to use the space as a crowdworking/co-working space.

we are looking at the monthly membership for something like this and how about we extend that into future fibrecamp locations.   i feel a naturally relaxed space where you can also produce webtv content and stream live to the web is a very niche but much needed service.

btw, did i mention this thing runs super quiet so great for recording audio and podcasts - i'll be recording the audio over the top of my presentation at some point over the coming days over on the sofa because the mac pro is quite noisy compared.  i've installed audio hijack pro with some custom presets so we can record audio via the blue snowball and also direct to the line-in. .

i'm currently working on the streaming settings for each of the logitech sponsored cameras.  looks like we might need some replacement lights so we do not get the banding like we get on one and we will need to relocate the other camera once we have a usb2 extension lead to put it near the main desktop facing the other way. guess we should push for a third dv camera as well seeing as the macmini has a firewire input.

i also installed a bunch of other software today including.. .

spotify, audio hijack pro (for podcast recording), fission, screenflow, desktop presenter from telestream

other notes

1. installed spotify, playing a shared list attached to sounddock
2. boxee plays to projector perfect via displayport/vga
3. now have remote control via vnc screen sharing
4. start flash media encoder on startup if restarts (1 camera)
5. installed some pixel fonts for camtwist
6. setup fibrecamp1 and fibrecamp2 bambuser streams