My 600th Blog Post!

The Silver Surfer by Jack "The King" Kirby

I started this blog to join the voices of the streaming media community as a way to share my knowledge, ideas and analysis of the online video industry. That was 599 posts ago, with my first post written on November 22, 2007, and so much has changed since then. This blog has become my main channel of conversation and more than anything it's helped me connect with so many amazing people in communities all over the world. While I wasn't a journalism major in school, which I think shows sometimes in my writing style and errors in punctuation and grammar, I do love to write and report on the online video industry as it has matured and grown over the last several years.

This blog has help me develop my voice and define my brand. Before I started blogging, I'd been in the enterprise video sector producing corporate videos, videoconferences and live events for the better part of 20 years, and while I had a challenging and rewarding career, I wanted to step out of the daily grind and do something different, something new, something of my own, something that would give a me chance to break out of my rusty cage.

I actually thought I'd start a podcast since I lived and breathed media production and just weeks before starting this blog I had the opportunity to be a guest host on an episode of the Lame Podcast, which was created as part of Jose Castillo's pre-conference seminar on "Planning, Building, and Launching a Successful Podcast" at Streaming Media West 2007. It was my first attempt at podcasting and it turned out to be a lot of fun and incredibly easy to do. I didn't realize it then, but the seeds were planted for what would later become my series of videos I call, "Online Video Conversations with..."

If you're interested, you can listen to that podcast below.



So when I returned from Streaming Media West I was inspired to start my own thing and "join the voices of the streaming media community", but rather than launching a podcast I followed the advise of my good friend Juan Aguilar who suggested that I start a blog since I could add audio, video, pictures and text, and as the the old cliche goes... the rest is history.

AP: Klessblog celebrates 600

As I approached this 600th post I thought a lot about what I should say and how best to reflect on own experiences and the massive changes within the online video, technology and social media landscape. I decided that I really didn't need to go into great detail on the industry or even delve to deep into myself to acknowledge this milestone. I really wanted to say the same thing I said on my 100th blog post, and that is to take this opportunity to thank you all. Many thanks to all my friends, followers, readers, subscribers, community members, colleagues, people who I've interviewed, PR people who've kept me up to date on the latest news and really to everyone who has helped contribute, support, read my posts, comment, retweet, watch video and share something.

I also want to say a special thanks to my friends Eric Schumacher-Rasmussen, Joel Unickow and Dan Rayburn at Streamingmedia.com and OnlineVideo.net who have given me great opportunities over the years to get more involved in the Streaming Media conferences; to Mark Robertson, online video superstar and publisher ReelSEO who has been a great friend and supporter of my work; and also to my friend Kris Drey, founder of VidCompare who has been a great supporter and also a sponsor of this blog. Last but not least, a heartfelt thanks to my wife Elaine for being my biggest supporter and for putting up with me and my crazy schedule and to our kids Marley, Mitch and Sam for their ongoing inspiration.

For many of you who have followed this blog for some time, I'm sure you've noticed the frequency of my posting has decreased, largely due to that thing we call life. Since blogging is not my day job and something I usually do by night, I generally fall behind on reporting the news. But with so many great new sources covering the space, I've tried to shift my focus from the daily news to provide richer content and analysis in the form of video interviews and conversations with industry shakers and movers, thought leaders, innovators and entrepreneurs. What I love most about writing this blog is that I get to meet so many people across the industry and learn how their companies, products and services and technology innovations help shape the online video industry.

It's been an incredible journey and I appreciate the encouragement, advise and guidance from so many of you along the way. I've grown so much since that first blog post and the online video industry has come a long way since then as well. I'm excited by what lies ahead and for the adventures that are in store for all of us.

Thank you all for your continued support and stay tuned for much more to come!