things less interesting than a pigeon walking in a circle.
Don’t worry if you don’t understand the indepth technical aspects of the internets, here are a couple of videos which will help you get surfing in time:
If that’s a little advanced, here’s a primer:
Happy Webbings!
Through my work at Yarned, I’m involved in a new charity – Child’s i Foundation, which is building a babies’ home in Uganda on the outskirts of Kampala for 50 infants, from newborn babies to five years-olds. The home will have medical facilities to help with premature and sick babies and children with special needs.
This is happening in two ways:
1. To build a “transitional orphanage” with full medical and educational facilities that provides a safe haven for babies and young children.
2. To place these children into secure and happy families, giving them something we believe every child has a right to – a loving home.
Child’s i Foundation will connect supporters to our work in Uganda in real time. Through emails, blogs and videos, people will be able to see exactly where their money is going, and we will have the opportunity to appeal directly for additional help should we need it.
Members of the community can be involved on many levels, from community fundraising, making donations and suggestions to actively volunteering at the Home in Uganda.
Interaction and mass collaboration are the keys to building the charity and achieving our goals.
We are creating a Web 2.0 version of a letter from a sponsored child and creating a new way of giving.
I’ll write more about the approach we’re taking from a technical perspective over the next weeks, but in the meantime, please go and visit the website:
http://childsifoundation.org
Also, follow us on twitter and flickr.
I’ve not been allowed to talk about this before, but it has just been nominated for an award, so I guess it’s all pretty public now. This was one of the last projects I was involved in at de-construct – a filtered art experience for Amstel.
Visitors would arrive at the gallery space, and be given a personal identity card – which they would take around the exhibit. The first port of call is to a booth where you are asked a series of questions, following the pattern of a multiple choice quiz. The aim of the quiz is to get an idea of your psychological makeup, and see where you sit in one of the three Hans Eysnick scales of neuroticism, psychoticism and extrovertism.
Once profiled, you would enter the gallery where we had about eight different spaces for watching short films and video art. You would arrive at once of the viewing areas (a mix of large cinema spaces, tiny shower like audio showers or plasmas screens with headphones), swipe your identity card, and you would be presented with content to sort your temperament (or to get your N, E or P juices really flowing).
We originally built a three screen prototype for demoing to our clients Amstel and 180 (their advertising agency) and then the project culminated in a 200 person event in Amsterdam in the basement of the old Post Office building. The private party was a resounding success, and many of the artists who were also invited found the experience extremely enjoyable. The viewers/interactors in the space found themselves discussing with the person next to them why they’d been shown a particular piece of content, swap cards to see other people’s content, generally discuss and chat over the art – which for any gallery experience is a huge measure of success.
Technically, the system was completely bespoke. Based upon RFID and wireless technology, we created a local network which allowed each unit to communicate to a central database server. Upon profiling, each user was stored and could be referenced upon demand. The swipe at each unit would check the person’s ‘profile’, and display relevant content as required. I was involved from the outset, helping to expand upon the original idea, taking it from a concept to delivery – developing the underlying code for the system itself, as well as the hardware, working with the curator to ensure the experience felt right from a content perspective, and installed and setup the space alongside the production team. It was a solid three days of work once we arrived in Amsterdam to setup the machines (most of which were completely smashed up in transit from London) install the software/hardware, test and the deploy in the live space, not to mention the inevitable problems which plagued us right up until the 11th hour.
I was really proud of this project, especially how deeply involved I was from the outset to completion. It was great working with a very talented team on a unique concept. I’m in the video somewhere, turning on a computer. A prize for spotting me.
I also took a range of photographs for the project which are available at Flickr.
This post is from my blog over at Turn Off, Tune On, which discusses innovation in the online video space, as part of my work for Endemol.
You can’t have failed to miss the Youtube Live event which is taking place today. If you read even one single tech blog, or use Youtube, you’ll have seen the chatter everywhere.
Celebrities, Web celebs and major artists, including the mad scientists from the Mythbusters crew, will.i.am, Lisa Nova, Michael Buckley, and Joe Satriani will be joining the celebrations, and YouTube will be offering three live streams direct from its Live channel.
Why blog this? Youtube moving into live streaming is an additional string to the monetisation bow, something they’ve yet struggled to really find models beyond simple adserving and partnership deals. It also puts Youtube into the broadcaster space, allowing them to compete with a wider range of other services. It will be interesting to see the next steps they take to push this service with commercial partners.
Perspectives – Andrea from BaseMOTION on Vimeo.
Really nice video project from the lovely people at Base Motion. Sometimes the pauses, ponderings, ahems, erms, hesitations and ruminations between the words we say are more loaded with meaning than the comment itself. The body language of thought presented in its raw beautiful form.
I’m currently in Amsterdam at the Picnic 08 Conference, and have managed to see Clay Shirky speak twice (which brings my attendance level up to to three of his talks). I managed to fail miserably in giving him a disposable camera, having seen him wandering into the press/speaker lounge at the conference, but scrabbling around in my bag took too long and he’d disappeared, but hey ho, just getting to hear him chat around topics of collab is always good enough. Here is one of the Picnic TV girls talking to him outside the Gashouder about the changing concept of ‘we’
Ah, the power of music.
More stuff from The Vacationeers
Flicking through a copy of .net magazine this weekend at a service station on the M4 revealed my smiling face peering back at me. For a minute, I couldn’t help thinking I was having an out of body experience; perhaps some Harry Potteresque moment where my soul had been captured in print, never to escape; maybe some fiendish teenager had put mirrors in all the periodicals to frustrate and annoy eager readers; or just my short article had been printed this issue. I purchased a copy in any case to do further tests. I hope for my own sake that my spiritual being is not trapped in ink and paper form.
These animations (I posted one just before we got Harriet) are wonderful, and pretty much spot on. Here is ‘TV Dinner’. Youtube him for more.
Happy Fourth of July.
More Zittrain goodness, add Colbert, a bit of D&D and you have the Colbert Bump for Firefox 3.
Awesome. The world’s first ‘live ad’ last night on Channel 4.
Brandon’s band – The Outside Royalty – and their debut single video on the ‘tube
Succinctly elegant as ever, Clay Shirky talks about why participation is the revolution
Awesome! (I know how it feels)
This is one of the reasons to leave Hoxton:
American Apparel from Chris Garcia on Vimeo.
