iPhone Mania Sweeps the Globe

The tech geeks are out in full force blogging, Twittering, singing songs, having online discussions, live streaming, camping out overnight waiting in line and doing everything they can to pass the time until the release of the new iPhone 3G.

It's not just the device that will be released in a few short hours in the US but all the new applications from the App Store like the Facebook application that people are loving.

I've been tuning into Leo Laporte's 24 hour iPhone live stream and thinking about how I can get one of these babies in my hands. I want one but I'll have to wait for now. So in the immortal words of Mike Myers' character Wayne,"You will be mine, oh yes, you will be mine..."


In the meantime, here's Duncan Riley unboxing a white 3G iPhone.



iPhone 3G unboxing from Duncan Riley on Vimeo.

How Do You ooVoo? My Video Chat with ooVoo CEO Philippe Schwartz

It's not everyday that I get the opportunity to have an in-depth conversation with the CEO of an online video platform, but I did just that the other day. I spoke with Philippe Schwartz, Chief Executive Officer of ooVoo, who hosted the first of a series of video chat sessions featuring ooVoo employees called "How Do You ooVoo?" It's a chance for the ooVoo community to talk with the people behind the scenes to share how they feel about the product and how they use it. I've already signed up for several sessions and you can join as well by going to the How Do You ooVoo? link.

ooVoo is a free multi-party videoconferencing application that's very similar in form and function to Skype. The main difference between the two is that ooVoo allows you to have up to a 6-way video chat with a paid account and 3-person video chats for free. ooVoo recently moved to a paid plan following their promotional period.

Several months ago ooVoo hosted a series of My ooVoo Day With... video chat sessions which gave fans an opportunity to speak directly with some of their favorites bloggers that included Chris Brogan, Erin Kotecki Vest, Marshall Kirkpatrick, John Wall, Robin Good, iJustine and many more. It was a promotion event headed up by the people at Crayon to get the word out and also raise money for the Frozen Pea Fund in the name of 22 charities. I participated in 3 of the 161 video chat sessions that took place over 12 days. There's a great commemorative video of the event here.

In my video conversation with Philippe Schwartz, he said that he was moved by the"My ooVoo Day With..." event and had waited a few years to create a conversation with the ooVoo community. Also participating in the video call was Robert Muffoletto, an educator and coordinator of New Media & Global Education at Appalachian State University who joined from Holland. Roberto coordinates an international online masters program and shared some interesting stories on how his students are using ooVoo. We spoke about a range of topics from ooVoo's product roadmap, their vision, community feedback and upcoming ooVoo events. Philippe recorded the session which lasted over an hour and posted it here.

Philippe said the PC version of ooVoo has about 9 months of development on the Mac OS version and that's why it has more features. But the new Mac OS version will be available July 28th and will incorporate video recording and telephony. He also said ooVoo was developed as a consumer product and not a business product and that they have focused on superior video and audio quality for multi-party calls. The quality of the video and audio is one of best I've experienced on the variety of two-way video chat solutions that I've used. Philippe said that's achieved by their proprietary algorithm. He added that new ooVoo offerings will feature moderated calls, scheduled events through an ooVoo portal he calls "ooVoo in a box", notifications through IM, more integration with social applications like Facebook and MySpace and the release of API's for web and widget development.

Regarding more "My ooVoo Day With..." events, Philippe said they are about to launch a new event at the end of this month focusing on the elections called, My ooVoo Day With, Political Edition and more of the regular "My ooVoo Day With..." events will follow later in the year.

Why not give it a try?

Fourth of July 2008

Fourth of July from Larry Kless on Vimeo.

VizThink Webinar: Creating Powerful Presentations with Nancy Duarte

How many of you out there create presentations for yourself or others? Can I see a show of hands? If you're not raising your hand then please stay tuned for the next blog post. Or if I've peaked your interest please read on.

A reoccurring theme in this blog is the "Death by Powerpoint" syndrome and the challenges that are faced in meeting rooms all over the world. How do we create an engaging presentations to get our messages across? The easy way out is to open Powerpoint and start typing using the basic black and white template. But that method doesn't take into account any design elements, visual theory or storytelling, you're only writing the presentation. It's a one dimensional approach that ultimately bores your audience. There's been so many humorous videos like the one from the other day that illustrate the pain that audiences must endure sitting through poorly crafted presentations.

But there's hope in the form of design experts who share their tips, tricks and best practices on creating better presentations. This is a recording of a recent webinar hosted by VizThink featuring, Nancy Duarte, principal of Duarte Design the firm that was created Al Gore’s Inconvenient Truth presentation, who discusses how to create powerful presentations. If you don't have much time to watch it from the start I suggest you jump sections #4 and #5.

Creating Powerful Presentations

Hint: Use the Full Screen Button to see this video in greater detail.

They used GoToMeeting as their webinar platform which is now cross platform on Mac and PC. Robin Good just posted a review of the new version here. There's also some helpful information in teh comments about how they captured and deployed the webinar recording.

Suggested reading:
Presentation Zen: Simple Ideas on Presentation Design and Delivery
By Garr Reynolds

Read an excerpt Make Presentations That People Will Remember

Nancy Duarte recommended this slideshow by jbrenman:
Shift Happens




Related blog posts:

• Life After Death by Powerpoint
• More Death By Powerpoint
• The Power of the Slideshow
• Have You Met Henry?
• Create and share your Slideshows on Slide.com
• Mashable - Forget PowerPoint: 13 Online Presentation Apps

Uncle Nalts on the Three Golden Rules of Online Video Creation

In this recent blog post, viral video genius Nalts shares his advise on the three golden rules for online video creators. He points out that the three biggest mistakes people are:

1. Emphasizing quality over cost.
2. Believing good content will get seen.
3. Caring about what the audience thinks

He says that the common counterpoints to those mistakes...

1. Higher production value generally means the content is better
2. The social aspect of the web means good stuff rises and bad stuff dies
3. The most savvy creators listens to audiences and predicts them, thus creating content that’s more popular.

... are actually wrong and if you live by them you'll go broke and be unsatisfied with your work. So here's his 3 Golden Rules:


Golden Rule #1: At all costs, manage costs
There still isn't a safe monetization model for online video and as Nalts points out, "This is actually good news for amateurs like me, because we’ll sustain while better creators come and go.." He is able to keep his costs down being a "one man band" who can write, act, shoot, edit, publish and promote his own own work. He gets it done "on the cheap" by calling in favors, bribing people to be in his videos and keeping equipment costs to a minimum.

Golden Rule #2: Good Content is Not Popular.
For this rule, Nalts says, "Good isn’t popular, and popular isn’t good... you’re responsible for getting your videos seen if you want your videos to be seen." Don't hard sell yourself but make sure you target your videos to specific niche markets. Think about how your video could cross over to another genre to expand your audience beyond your current reach. Make an effort to find that relevant audience. If your video is about food, travel or any other topic you should send it to the food, travel and any other topic bloggers.

Golden Rule #3: Screw The Audience.
I love this one because it goes against the traditional mindset that you should focus on what the audience wants to see. It's really hard to do too, because we feed on audience interaction but as Nalts explains, "almost no online-video creator is at risk of losing touch with their audience — the medium consumes them. Rather, most popular creators lose their steam because they focus on feeding the audience instead of instinct. What began as a fun outlet becomes an obligation." He says that "caring less" about what the audience thinks is "the remedy for artistic sustainability" and try not to let the critics get you down. Keep your creative edge by not focusing so much on the feedback but what is fun for you and that will shine through your work.

That now concludes today's sermon.


Three Golden Rules of Online-Video Creation was originally published by Nalts on Will Video For Food on June 27, 2008

For more on Nalts, watch his videos here:

• YouTube
• Revver
• Metacafe
• CubeBreak