It's all about pictures

Everywhere I turn people are talking about video on the web.  You Tube is about to take live feeds. What took the TV industry 40 years (to move from scheduled to live services) has taken them about 18 months. SImilarly, everyone is playing with Qik - which allows you to live stream from your mobile phone and your audience to chat and message as you do so. Disappointing content so far however. (Apart of course from Robin at Cybersoc who has been playing with it...)

The Guardian two weeks ago featured DiggNation and BoingBoing TV as examples of the boom in new online video programmes.

Then there are sites like NextNewNetworks which allows people to effectively produce and schedule their own content.

Or if you want to engage with the broadcasters, for £60 you can become an Executive Producer at HaveYouGotTheNerve TV and collaborate on new formats and - maybe - get them commissioned.

And of course blogging is going video - with Seesmic and YahooLive for example. ("Yes this is what my built in webcam from my laptop on my desk looks like!")

All on top of aggregators like Blinkx, LiveStation or Internet TV like Joost.

On the other side of the ledger, Doughty St TV seems to have stopped at the end of last year presumably as its funder decided not to go on paying the bills, and some commenters think very few people are watching.

(ALthough the FT disagrees...talking about "websites such as vidShadow, Veoh and Youku dominating the list of the fastest growing websites in the UK. )

Dangerous to generalise, but the success of the BBC's iPlayer with half a million streams a day, suggests the appetite for online video is growing.

It's early days: easy to predict that video would be part of the next wave, much harder to get it to work in a strong and economically viable way.

However, it will happen, and it contributes to making online conversations more compelling and faster.

Basically, assume we can soon all be on air, live, to the world all the time. Wasn't there a movie about that?

Any other good video experiments? Please post below...

[UPDATE: Here's some more to try - launch your own channel with Mogulus.com - Live and recorded video, or Blogtv.com - you bring the webcam they "bring the stage"...or ustream.com, live webcasts streamed. And Rory Cellan Jones reviews FLixwagon on the BBC Tech Blog, dot.life. Blogging has gone video - we just need to find the ones worth watching.]

And try just watching the live stream of any of hundreds of channels on LiveNewsCameras.com or ChooseandWatch.com - please note not all of them legally streamed.

Comments

[Graham]

MediaStorm has impressed me. Marcus Bleasdale's piece from the DRC first alerted me to them

http://mediastorm.org/0022.htm

I think with all these tools it all keeps coming back to the root of being able to tell a story and tell it well. Qik, Seesmic and all that are all tools - if you can tell a story using them all the better.