The world’s first Open Video Conference kicked off in New York City on Friday and runs through the weekend bringing together 800 creators, entrepreneurs, technologists, policy-makers, hackers, academics to share their insights on the open video social movement and to promote free expression and innovation in online video. The conference is a production of Participatory Culture Foundation, Yale Internet Society Project, Kaltura, iCommons, and the Open Video Alliance. You can view the highlighted speakers and presenters, free and open source projects represented and the full schedule for the Open Video Conference.According to the Open Video Alliance, "Open Video is a broad-based movement of video creators, technologists, academics, filmmakers, entrepreneurs, activists, remixers, and many others. When most folks think of “open,” they think of open source and open codecs. They’re right—but there’s much more to Open Video. Open Video is the growing movement for transparency, interoperability, and further decentralization in online video. These qualities provide more fertile ground for independent producers, bottom-up innovation, and greater protection for free speech online."
What started as a grassroots effort is being adopted at every level of the online video ecosystem by industry leaders such as Akamai (CDN), Mozilla (Software development and support for open formats), Wikipedia (open video content).
“We have received an amazing response on all fronts to this event. With sponsorship and participation from all the large players, an outstanding speaker lineup and over 800 registrants, this full blown industry conference is going to be a blast," said Shay David, co-founder and VP of Business and Community Development at Kaltura. “This revolutionary event will further bring to the top of everyone’s mind the concept of open video and the great value that openness brings to the industry.”
The Open Video Alliance believes that, "As internet video matures, we face a crossroads: will technology and public policy support a more participatory culture—one that encourages and enables free expression and broader cultural engagement? Or will online video become a glorified TV-on-demand service, a central part of a permissions-based culture? Web video holds tremendous potential, but limits on broadband, playback technology, and fair use threaten to undermine the ability of individuals to engage in dialogues in and around this new media ecosystem."
I was able to watch some of the Live Coverage and embedded the player below. On demand content from the last two days of the conference can be viewed.
Tim Siglin noted that there's a curious event going on at the New York University School this weekend in article Streamingmedia.com: Video Culture: The Potential Reshaping Of The Online Video Landscape and recounting a presentation by Ross Harley, Head of School of Media Arts, University of New South Wales (Sydney) titled "Open Circuits to Open Video: Can Video Artists Adopt Open Video Strategies as Their Own?" that traced the early days of open source and participation TV in the 1970s. He opened his talk with an interesting quote that Nam June Paik, an early video artist, "cassette will diversify the video culture from. . . . three networks, one-way communication to . . . mobile two-way video communication."
My background is in art and technology and I actually have several old VHS tapes of Nam June Paik and find that quote especially relevant today.
Read more about Open Video – What is Open Source Video all about? on ReelSEO. Also, stay tuned for an upcoming interview on this blog with Ron Yekutiel, Chairman, CEO & Co-founder of Kaltura.
- Website: Open Video Conference: June 19-20
- Open Video Alliance (openvideo) on Twitter
- Contact: Ben Moskowitz (conference@openvideoalliance.
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