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Following Trendy Videos

Published May 31, 2009 by djsteen in Featured

The ‘featured section’ of the Viddler Blog is here to bring you a mix of the diverse range of videos the Viddler Community has to offer. Of course, throw in some of our awesome partner videos for good measure and you have quite a lovely resource of videos to watch through.

One such partner is The Digg Reel (subscribe), hosted by Andrew Bancroft. I watch videos all the time. 3:30 a.m.? Yup, I’m watching videos! Dinner time? Yup, I’m watching videos. Andrew is much like this too. He keeps up with all the popular videos on Digg.com and then puts them in an episode of The Digg Reel for you to enjoy.

I’ve usually seen most of the videos Andrew highlights by the time the show is released, but if you need a quick update on what’s trending in videos then you need to watch The Digg Reel!

These days day-to-day jokes can rely heavily on popular videos online and other memes; “Puke In My Mouth” is funnier if you’ve seen “Jizz In My Pants“. This is why it’s important to watch The Digg Reel. Otherwise, you might have a conversation with a friend and not understand the humor in a conversation they have with you.

This episode of The Digg Reel features everything from the ShamWow guy in jail to the Celebrity Jeopardy scene in the recent season 34 finale of Saturday Night Live.

WARNING: This video contains videos and language that might not be suitable for kids and uptight workplaces. If this includes you, then here’s some kitties for you to watch.

Fresh episodes of The Digg Reel are released every Monday. Yup, there will be a new one online tomorrow. Make sure you subscribe so that you don’t miss it!

For more interesting Digg articles that don’t just include videos check out Diggnation — weekly shows covering interesting articles on the social news site Digg.com.

If you’d like to suggest a radical video for the Viddler Blog, just send me a message an tell me why you like it.

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Nine Months Left

Published May 30, 2009 by djsteen in Featured

While on-air one of the most popular non-reality-TV shows is LOST. To date it has won 46 awards and been nominated for over 100 more. If you haven’t already been lost in the confusing future/past/present times of the 5-year-old television show, then you’re probably big fans like Jay and Jack, or even Colin (our rad Technology Evangelist).

Speaking of popular, Jay and Jack are pretty darn popular themselves! They’ve won numerous awards for their show The Lost Podcast, including the Podcast Award for Best Entertainment in 2007. Yup, they don’t just dish out LOST rumors, gossip, and conspiracies. They entertain at the same time!

LOST stars, such has Jorge Garcia (whom plays the character of Hurley), have been regular guests on The Lost Podcast which is why it’s continually in the top 100 on iTunes when LOST is on-air.

The fifth season of LOST recently concluded and now there’s a nine month hiatus in which fans have time to discuss what’s going on in the show, what predictions they have, and even catch up on episodes they may have missed. I would be in the latter category; I’m about seven episodes behind.

In the most recent episode of The Lost Podcast Jay and Jack discuss the new ABC promos for upcoming seasons of their top shows, and insert a couple of fan submissions just to name a couple things. Watch it for more LOST fun!

Jay and Jack also host a slew of other podcasts and decided to created nuDia.tv — a Nu Media Network. Yup, it’s cool to spell words incorrectly. The network features original online content from a wide range on genres. Of course, The Lost Podcast is on there, but they’re always looking for new content to add to their lineup.

Whether you’re a fan or an artist, nuDia.tv will have something for you to spend your time with.

You can subscribe to all the nuDia.tv content on Viddler.

If you have a dandy video you’d like to suggest for the Viddler Blog and front page, then feel free to contact me and tell me about it.

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Street Lesson

Published May 29, 2009 by djsteen in Community Spotlight, Featured

Since as long as I can remember I’ve always been positive about life, the universe, and everything. I’ve been extremely fortunate to do all the things I do, and I’m only twenty-two. Family and friends all keep me happy and that’s all I need in life. Sure, I’m not perfect; I take things like clean running water for granted just like most of the first world.

Even if you think your life isn’t that great right now, I can assure you that it’s probably pretty close to as great as mine is; chances are there’s people that don’t even have access to reading this blog post (and watching the video below) even if they wanted to.

Dpzramon (subscribe) is a super-giddy fellow! Not only does he help hook up customers at the six Dominos Pizza stores he operates in Chicago, but he actively goes out in the community and makes new friends and relationships because he’s that awesome. If you’re hankering for some Dominos while in Chicago, make sure you send @dpzramon a message on Twitter and see if he’s around!

He was recently in Las Vegas and met a homeless person named Eric whom had a very positive attitude towards life. Dpzramon captured a few minutes with Eric on camera. It’s truly inspiring!

Dpzramon has been dedicated to serving his neighborhoods through social networking for over five years. Search around; you’ll find him everywhere. :)

Not everyone may be as friendly and optimistic as Eric, but how will you know unless you go and say “howdy”?

Do you have a video just as inspiring as the one Dpzramon made? Feel free to suggest a video for the Viddler Blog and front page by sending me a message.

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TubeMogul 2.0

Published May 28, 2009 by djsteen in Featured

If you’ve ever uploaded a video to Viddler, then this news will most likely excite the heck out of ya!

TubeMogul (subscribe) — by far the best site for syndicating your videos across multiple video sharing websites online — just released version 2.0 of their service, and it has some features that other services would charge a lot of money for!

In short, TubeMogul allows you to upload a video to their site and then distribute it to Viddler, Daily Motion, Revver, Veoh, YouTube, and over twenty other video sharing websites you may have accounts on. This saves hours uploading the same video to those multiple websites, entering in the title/description/tags, and waiting for it to be processed. TubeMogul’s dashboard will show you the status of the upload to each individual site.

Once your video is successfully viewable on sites like Viddler you then may want to know how many views it’s getting. Sure, most sites allow you to see a few simple statistics about the video, but TubeMogul goes above and beyond by displaying geographical demographics, audience attention span (how many people watched the video for how long), and where your video is being embedded on the web — just to name a few.

This update has also made TubeMogul much prettier; it’s a pleasure to view and use on daily basis. Check out just how awesome these new features are in the video:

Now the only thing you ever have to do on the sites you launch to is interact with your viewers by replying to their comments and discovering what they want.

Go ahead and launch some of your videos to Viddler today!

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Minus the Helmet

Published May 27, 2009 by djsteen in Featured

For years there’s been a disliking between the authorities and the population that ride bikes, skateboards, and roller skates. Skate parks have helped minimize the wear and tear such activities can have on public property, but if there isn’t a skate park close to you, then you have to make do with what you have.

Dustin Beauchene (friend him up!) reminds me of some of my friends in high school that could do just about anything on a BMX bike. Some of my friends would even do sweet tricks on a mountain bike. I had a pretty sweet mountain bike and could get some pretty good air time; just sayin’.

The most important thing to forget when trying to take a recreational sport to an extreme sport is fear. If you’re always worried that you’re going to hurt yourself, then you probably will. You also won’t get as much airtime because you’re thinking the higher you go the more ouch there will be if you fall off. As you’ll see in this video, Dustin is very fearless.

The only thing Dustin is missing is a helmet and some padding on his joints. Oh. But that would be fearing that he’s going to fall off, right?

I attempted to use the awesome mobile application, Shazam, to find out the name of the song in this video, but the band is far too indie for that. After some research I discovered that the name of the song is “Get Me Naked 2: The Electric Boogaloo” and it was performed by the band Minus The Bear.

As always, feel free to suggest a video for the Viddler Blog by sending me a message and telling me how awesome you think the video is.

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Unbracing Panera

Published May 26, 2009 by djsteen in Featured

People typically don’t like the dentist or orthodontist. I like both. I’m weird like that though. A lot of my friends have had braces, I’ve had braces, even you may have had braces. No, not the braces that hold your pants up. The kind that realign your teeth for an even prettier smile. It isn’t all for presentation though; straight teeth allow for easier cleaning, easier eating, and all that good stuff.

If you’re not fond of the dentist/orthodontist, then squint while watching the beginning of this video. There’s subtext to explain what’s happening, and the music is pretty awesome (although, I think it could be an Apple loop — a rarely used one, if so).

Dentist? Squinting? Okay, so David Moore (subscribe) just got his braces off and he decided to share this momentous day with by capturing it with the magic of video. Afterward, he heads to Panera Bread to celebrate with some chomping!

I always love David’s videos because they’re so clean and minimalistic in the editing, and that makes them very unique. A lot of people try so hard with editing their videos when they could be making more videos. David pops in a few fun things and is on with it.

You can follow @MacDavid on Twitter, check out his website, or view through his awesome videos.

Note: Technically, this could be considered a MeToday.

Would you like to suggest a video for the Viddler Blog and front page? All you have to do is send me a message and tell me what you like about the video. Giddy on up!

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MVM: Inkheart Art

Published May 25, 2009 by djsteen in Featured, Music Video Monday

Update — September 26th, 2009: Changed the embedded video because

" href="http://www.viddler.com/explore/condensedmovies/videos/187/" target="_blank">the original was removed by condensed movies.

By now you should have a sufficient supply of music that should get you groovin’ on a Monday. Now it’s time for something a little more heartfelt.

These days anything can be considered art. From the way a bed is made to the programming code used to create applications for mobile phones. This doesn’t lessen the value of more traditional art forms like photography and pottery, rather it allows artists of more obscure art to take pride in what they create and eve share it with like-minded people.

A great promotional piece of art is a music video for a film. Typically, these music videos feature a song from the film, a singer or band, and combine shots from the film with the musician(s) performing.

“My Declaration”, performed by Eliza Bennett, is a great example of promotional movie art. The song is in the soundtrack for the film Inkheart — which Eliza stars in with Brendan Fraser. It has all the aforementioned aspects, plus throws in a little behind-the-scenes of the cameraman recording Eliza’s singing parts.

Some might find these film/music combination music videos a little confusing if they haven’t seen the film, but that is a great promotional advantage. I hadn’t even heard of the film Inkheart until I came across this music video. Now I’m intrigued to check it out when it comes out on DVD/Blu-Ray on June 23rd (in the U.S.A. — it’s already available on DVD/Blu-Ray in the U.K.).

Condensed Movies (subscribe) kindly uploaded this video for everyone to view because they serve the finest entertainment, old films, and new videos. Their video library is filled mostly with movie trailers, special features from movies, and clips from various films, but they also have a bunch of government propaganda videos thrown in for good measure. Weird Videos, Awkward Politics, and World News? Yeah, they have all that too.

Are in you in a band, know a band, like a band, or just have a passion for great music videos? Then you probably have something worthy of a Music Video Monday feature. Just send me a message and tell me about it. :)

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New Internet Pipeline In Australia!

Published May 24, 2009 by djsteen in Featured

This is the most exciting news for Australians in a long time. If you’re an Aussie using the Internet, that is. Just last week a new submarine cable owned by PIPE International surfaced on Sydney’s suburb of Collaroy. Named PPC-1, the cable transfers 1.92 terabits to and from Guam. Before this fast new connection arrived Australia had about 4 terabits worth of bandwidth to other parts of the world, but only 15 percent is being used. This is believed to be because all of those 4 terabits are owned by the large telecommunications companies and they restrict the amount of bandwidth that can be used.

Enough with the facts. You’ll get more in the video.

Australia has some pretty fast download speeds but that doesn’t even matter because most ISPs restrict bandwidth usage to around 40GB per month (on average). For that, you’ll pay over AUD$110 per month. If you exceed the cap (which some companies falsely label as “unlimited”), then you’ll either pay outrageous excess fees or have your be connection slowed to dial-up speed.

By comparison, most ISPs in the United States, Sweden, and other countries have unlimited Internet plans for reasonable prices. In Sweden you can get 100Mbps download/10Mbps upload for around US$25 per month. Yeah.

In case you don’t know, I’m an avid user of the internet, I’ve lived in Australia for the majority of my life, and for the past year I’ve been traveling around the U.S.A. discovering how much Australia is being ripped off on by its ISPs. I don’t even want to get in to how frustrating it is to have to watch how much I use the Internet every month. I’m traveling back there in less than a month and I’m not sure I’ll be able to adjust back after having so much unlimited freedom in the States.

This video is quite geeky, but it will effect the 11 million (half the population) Australians that use the internet.

Who made this?

Midnight Update (subscribe) is a daily technology podcast for Australian geeks. Australia usually gets technology months after countries like Japan and the United States, so it’s great to have a source that will inform us of when we get the goods. Seamus, the host, is has written for publications such as APC, Australian Macworld, Desktop, Rolling Stone, The Sydney Morning Herald, and tons more. He’s an uber geek he updates you at midnight (AEST).

What kind of Internet do you have where you live? Do you have full freedom or are you restricted on what you can use? Leave your comments.

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Flight of the Conchords Series 2 Mini Mega Mix

Published May 23, 2009 by djsteen in Featured

What’s your favorite television show? Do the characters break out in song every now and then? Family Guy? Flight of the Conchords? The Simpsons? Too many questions? Mini Mega Mix extraordinaire, Craig Moore a.k.a. ambergambler (subscribe), seems to have somewhat of a secret identity online, but who cares because he creates some wicked song mixes.

No doubt, you know of the television shows I mentioned above. If not, clicky the links. All of those shows contain songs sung by the main characters. Usually very humorous songs. When mixed together it just creates a wave of laughter and memories (of the episodes) that you can ride from beginning to finish.

Here’s ambergambler’s Mini Mega Mix of Flight of the Conchords – Season 2:

Yeah! He is awesome!

You can also check out his Family Guy MMM, here.

I’m sure if you send ambergambler a Mini Mega Mix request, he’d be happy to fulfill it. You can also follow him on Twitter: @AmberGamblerAV.

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Roz Savage is an Inspiration

Published May 22, 2009 by djsteen in Featured

In the year 2000 Roz Savage (subscribe) was 33 years old and had what most would call a perfect life. She had a home, a job, a husband, and a little red sports car. Sounds like what most people aim for in life, right?

In March 2006 she was 38, divorced, homeless, and floating in a row boat in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. No, she didn’t lose it all in some reality television show. She chose to do this. She chose to change her life. This is what makes her truely happy.

She’s on a mission to row solo across the oceans of the world. It’s an ambitious task, but she has the will power and support from countless people all over the planet! She has already completed her solo crossing of the Atlantic and is now one-third of her way across the Pacific Ocean. In 2008, she rowed from California to Hawaii, and this Sunday she’s leaving for stage two of the adventure — heading to Tuvalu. Tuvalu is the fourth smallest country in the world and receives royalties for the ‘.tv‘ domain name.

In 2010, Roz will travel from Tuvalu to Cairns on Australia’s North-East coast.

While in Hawaii Roz talked about her adventure to Rox on Beach Walks TV (subscribe) Roz describes what it’s like spiritually and psychologically to row alone for such a long period of time.

My first introduction to Roz’s inspiring adventure was on an episode of TWiT in 2008. I remember they talked about all the technology she was going to take in the ocean crossing, and that included $500 worth of audiobooks from Audible. Audiobooks can range from 5-20 hours long. That seems like a lot, but when you’re rowing 10 hours at a time you can listen to a book in a day or two. Along with iPods, CD players, GPS devices, and other navigation equipment she’s set technology-wise.

Roz also has her own podcast called Roz Rows The Pacific and is the author of Rowing the Atlantic: Lessons Learned on the Open Ocean.

This is only a small glimpse in to Roz’s inspiring story. You can find a plethora of information about Roz, her previous/future expeditions, various media, ways to contact her, and much, much more on rozsavage.com.

Would you drop everything to inspire the world with what you believe in? Leave your comments below.

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