Vloggercon Stories

Vloggercon Moments - The MotherVloggers

2006-08-13T18:55:00.000-07:00

Jan and I had the pleasure of spending a late evening with the self-proclaimed mothervloggers at the road node house during vloggercon. We got to watch as they went through the freevlog.org videoblogging tutorial. it was great getting to know them. They were an extremely enthusiastic and funny crew. they also had these really great waffle cookies that they left with me (all gone now).

Here's a video from that evening as they create two vlogs. I asked them about freevlog, blip.tv, yiddish vs. hebrew, holland, africa and how they came together around their "united vloggers" project and as friends.

This is a bit long at about 10 minutes and the room is a bit dark (the screens show up nice however), but i think it is a good capture of this interesting multi-lingual team from Holland.

2006-06-07T21:38:00.000-07:00

Faux Press Recon::The Swedish American Hall

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This is one warm, sweet, appropriately-sized space. You're gonna love it.

Note the wee baby grand piano. Ahem.

San Francisco Bus Stop Sign

2006-06-06T08:41:00.000-07:00

Some of the bus stop signs are pretty subtle. Once you know what they look like, it gets easier.

BART Maps for your iPod

2006-06-05T13:36:00.000-07:00

How cool is this? BART Quick Planner for your iPod. I just added these photos to an iPhoto album and then used iTunes to sync with the iPod (a video/G5 iPod in my case, but they also have downloads for iPod Photo/Color and for the Nano. There is also schedule information you can use as notes. Click the pic to view a video screencast for this.

BART trip from Oakland Airport to downtown is about $3.50 and from San Francisco Airport to downtown, it's about $5.10.

2006-06-02T07:18:00.000-07:00

Memorial Day BBQ on the Road Node 101

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Markus wrangled The Faux Press an invite to the Outhink! / Our Media holiday BBQ. These guys are doing some amazing things. Can't wait to see what happens next.

J.D. Lassica is a particular hero. His "Darknet" book haunted my dreams for 3 months last summer, most particularly during VlogEurope!.

If you haven't yet read "Darknet" do it. You won't regret it.

Imagine we'll learn more of what these folks are up to at Vloggercon.

Whoa.

2006-06-02T07:03:00.001-07:00

Media Medals

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Drawing up some designs for ways in which we might ID-entify ourselves at Vloggercon.

What have you in your arsenal of vlogger tools that can help ID-entify you and your vlog? I'm talking vlog / geek fashion here.

2006-06-02T07:03:00.000-07:00

Cooking @ Road Node 101 House

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I'm just saying, "We cook."

Vlogging on a budget? Consider hooking up with Road Node 101 House for meals. Have kitchen will save.

2006-06-01T10:13:00.000-07:00

Vloggercon 2006::Porch Smoking

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Testing out Blip's direct-to-hard-drive recording in Safari while using the cell phone as modem. Wow. It worked! I'm impressed the Cingular connection through the Nokia 6682 had sufficient bandwidth to handle the video. Rockin'. Thanks to the Digital Dojo for sharing.

It's been really great knowing that internet connection is available anywhere there's a cell signal. Worth the extra $30 / month? This month it seems worthwhile as I shouldn't like to be without the capacity to upload media. An option to consider for vloggers-on-the-go.

2006-05-30T09:38:00.000-07:00

Human Dog Goes Postal

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Here's the moment Jay, Markus and I learn that Chris Weagel's Human Dog has gone over the top of the vlogosphere's "Have Money Will Vlog" fund-raising initiative. The community raised $1000 in 4 days - over a holiday weekend mind you. Wowowowow. We are the media, damnit.

2006-05-30T08:13:00.000-07:00

Vloggers on "Lost" = Bad TV::London Elise on Christianity & Spin

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Vloggercon::saying it like we see it::outside the box.

BART - Bay Area Rapid Transit

2006-05-27T15:57:00.000-07:00

Here's a short (4 min) excursion down into one of San Francisco's subway systems, BART. The Bay Area Rapid Transit system connects much of the Bay Area and is probably the best way to get into the city from the airports.

BART fares are calculated by distance traveled. The ride from Oakland Airport to downtown is about $3.50. From SF Airport, it's about $5.10.

2006-05-27T11:42:00.000-07:00

Vloggercon 2006::About San Francisco Busses

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Markus Sandy and the Faux Press talk about San Fransisco busses.

This video was originally shared on blip.tv by Jan of Sound with a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial license.

MUNI Bus fares are $1.50 (seniors and kids travel for $0.50)

Media Happens

2006-05-25T23:57:00.000-07:00

We're in San Francisco now and every day presents new wonders. Today was something else. I had the fortune of getting together with some folks from Yahoo!, SFSU, OurMedia and Outhink. I can't even begin to share what we are talking about except to say it's very exciting and has great potential for the Videoblogging community.

Right as we were really getting down to some interesting talks, we realized that we were being overwhelmed by the sound of drums. This is the sort of thing that happens here and you'd better be prepared if you want to capture things like this.

Media happens. Be prepared at all times.

For a good time and great mexican food, go to the "Mission District".

Tommorrow is Friday and the Vloggercon Volunteer meetup. It will be good to see everyone again. I can't wait to see you in two weeks. Yeah, you.

Charging Station::Tip

2006-05-24T17:03:00.000-07:00

Prep your charging station in advance. Baubles are your friends.

Brooklyn Goes to San Francisco

2006-04-25T23:13:00.000-07:00

I'm up in the bay area this week for the Vloggercon Volunteers meetup on Friday at Maxfields Coffee House (see the map for location. I'll post some video from that soon. I also shot some video of the Hotel Mosser and will be adding that to the map too.

There are many coffee shops and resturants near the vloggercon site and all along Market Street. I'll try to profile several in future posts.

San Francisco is a very hip town and many visitors may be suprised (and hopefully delighted) at the wild things that often go on in this big city.

Making friends in this town is easy as long as you remember one little thing: NEVER, EVER refer to the city as "Frisco".

Many folks in the Bay Area seem to have a bad reaction to that. I once did so by accident and was nearly tarred and feathered by an angry mob of hippies.

Here's a fun Archive video from 1947 of Brooklyn native Phil Foster as he tours San Francisco and comments on many places of interest.

I love the line "San Francisco streets go in six directions, North, South, East, West, Up and Down!"

I hope you enjoy. Click the pic to view the vid.

A Vlogger Tour of San Francisco

2006-04-23T17:08:00.000-07:00

I was looking for videos related to "San Francisco" on the Internet Archive for use in Vloggercon promos and I ran into this little gem. It shows the northern route into the city on a beautiful day.

What is so funny for me, is that I first searched all videos for "San Francisco" and sampled a few random items on the first of many pages. Little did I expect that I would pick a video posted by one of the good friends I have made during the past year of videoblogging. There were so many videos, the odds of picking one from someone I knew seemed very small (or are they?).

Here is a video that Chris Ritke posted for his kids and I hope he does not mind my pointing it out. I have come to know Chris a bit (we now work together with Outhink.com and 49Media.com) and I can say that this video gives both a great view of the Bay Area and Chris' passion for life, motorcycles and, perhaps most importantly, great hamburgers.

I hope you enjoy both views and come and meet our good friend Chris Ritke at Vloggercon. He is definitely one of our best local experts on finding a good burger, if that's your interest.

BTW, here's a tip for out-of-towners: you generally only have to pay bridge tolls when coming INTO San Francisco. The Golden Gate Bridge is $5 if you are not car pooling. Be sure to select a lane that makes change if you need it or they will toss your car over the edge and make you ride a bike (Editor's Note: he's just kidding folks).

San Francisco and Vloggercon 2006

2006-04-22T13:43:00.000-07:00

I have always loved the city of San Francisco. I love it for more reasons than I can enumerate here, but some include the food, the culture, friends, memories, favorite places, the bay, the bridge and the romance of this place.

And now I have another reason. Vloggercon2006. I am so excited about this event and, again, for many of the same reasons. This will be a great opportunity to meet both "new" and "old" vlogger friends and to reach out to the community and share our passion for videoblogging.

I have several ideas about how I want to participate in Vloggercon. This goes far beyond the interesting "Interactive Videoblogging" panel discussion that is already beginning online between the panelists.

First, there is the question of getting to San Francisco. I don't want to just stop in for a few days and flop in a hotel. It is my plan to sublet a place near the conference site and to share that space with a few fellow vloggers as we attempt to reconnoiter the community as Jan has phrased it. We hope to use the time prior to the conference to become more acquainted with the local community in order to both assist our visiting friends with first hand, fresh and up-to-date information, but also to help us understand the community that is hosting our conference and how we might best interact with it from the stand point of "art and commerce" as both Jan and Dave put it so aptly.

Second, out of love for my vlogger friends, geek curiosity and the constant drive for experimentation, I have set up a mapping application (as in Google Maps) that will allow conference participants to better navigate in the city, rapidly communicate and archive position related information and to keep the conference conversations going. The mapping application can be found at http://map.etitio.us. This map application is in an early phase and it is my hope that it will grow into an interesting social application as we get nearer to the conference.

Third, I am overwhelmed by the vast number of videos about San Francisco that are available through Ourmedia and the Internet Archive and so I'd like to share many of the gems I find as a way to lead up to the conference. "Video! It's just like being there!"

Last, but not least, we will be posting to this vlog as a way of providing a feed for the mapping application. We will post about new map items so everyone can keep up to date with news about the conference. We will also post related items and what are hopefully useful tips and nuggets of information. If you have some San Francisco videos or stories you would like to share and that might be of interest to visiting vloggers (i.e., things that show interesting local sites, restaurant reviews, history, etc). Please leave a comment we'll add you as an author to this vlog so you can post it.

Regarding this vlog, the header photo of the San Francisco skyline was found on Flickr and is by ka12en.

So here we go with our first real post ...

The first video is a fun little ditty that brings up an important point for the first time traveler to the "Golden Gate": BRING YOUR COAT! As Mark Twain is supposed to have said: "The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco." If you have ever experienced one of the Bay's many and diverse microclimates, you know the truth of Mr. Clemens statement. I can personally vouch for this. It can be darned cold in the summer.

Here's a quick newsreel story from 1950's fashion show that was staged on a runway set up in the middle of Union Square Park. Many of the scenes could make for some good promos and remix videos. You can find high quality versions on the archive details page. It's from the Prelinger Collection at the Internet Archive and in the public domain. Click the picture to view the video. I hope you enjoy.