Wind Power


Captured these driving back from LA from the Portable Media Expo this last weekend. This ist at Altamont Pass: the largest concentration of Wind Turbines in the world. This is just one small hill out of dozens. Music is Aubele’s Postales.

In 2004, petroleum 37.5% of the world’s energy production. Coal accounted for 25.6%. Natural gas ranked third at 23.1%. Hydro was 6.21%, Nuclear 6.20%, and geothermal, solar, wind, wood, and waste generated all of 0.9% percent total.

YouTube: Video's barometer?

YouTube Inc., operator of a hit Web site for videos, has hired Yahoo Inc. Treasurer Gideon Yu to join the startup as its first chief financial officer, according to the Wall Street Journal.

I believe watching what Yu does at YouTube will be one barometer of the health of online video. If he exits quickly, there may not be alot real revenue in their formula. Could it be they are queuing up an IPO? Shopping it for private sale?

It will be interesting to see what Yu and VP of Sales, Tony Nethercutt, can do.

Strawberry Canyon Run

Back behind UC Berkeley is Strawberry Canyon. Good trails for hiking and running. Lots of folks take their dogs up here too. Unfortunately, no bikes are allowed.

On clear days you have incomparable view of San Francisco, the Golden Gate, Mt Tamalpais, Berkeley and the surrounding East Bay.

Besides a waterfront run to Emeryville, this is my favorite course during the summer months. About 7.5 miles from the trailhead to the top of Grizzly Peak and back.

*pop!* fizzzle – * Back Online

My apologies. The site has been down a few weeks. A java code error messed the site up pretty bad for IE users. Should be ok now.

Gee, what’s up? The shoe leather gets a work out this month with the up front in less than two weeks. Online Video is white hot, and there are multiple market strategies that have been evolving over the last 8 months in the shift to digitized media.

Vloggercon is 5 weeks away. June 10-11, San Francisco. Video bloggers podcasting. Tools. Emerging businesses. You really should check it out if you think media can me more than “one-way” communications.

Universus has evolved. Need to update the site. It’s shaping up to be a strong second half.

Rainy Day in Downtown Berkeley

Still alot of rain today in Northern California. I spend a part of the afternoon in downtown Berkeley with my favorite coffee and an unexpected wifi connection.

Peets roasts some of the best coffee I have tasted. They originally started in North Berkeley 40 years ago. My one complaint with Peets is that it is rare to find a place to sit, due to the limited seating, and there is no wifi.

Science Fair: Solar Oven

My kids are working on their Science Fair Projects for school over the Spring break. My older son, Ben, explains his early model Solar Oven and how it works. Tests made “in the field” today allowed him to make some modifications. Hopefully we will see the upgraded version soon!

Encouraged by Videoblogging Week, I took the weekend off to extend the practice of posting every day. I make a commitment in this video to posting 5 times a week for as many weeks as I can. Let’s see what happens!

Stickam and 3 Bubbles – Embedded Communications

You may notice a new little box in the upper right corner of my blog*. That’s a flash widget from a company called stickam. The official launch of this new tool will be on the 15th, but I am testing it now. If I have my camera and mic on, you can talk with me directly in this blog! If I am away, you can view current photos I may have uploaded (nothing really yet), or even videos from my vlog.

There is a comment function that will allow the same threaded discussions you would expect from any other blog. Combining this with tools like 3 bubbles, (which allows a rolling chat box on your blog, and we will really see something closer to the next generation communications device where you have both asynchronous and synchronous conversations going on. Adding a layer of privacy and security would make it complete.

Update April 17, 2006: I’ve removed the widget from this post as it appears to have been giving a false virus message to IE users.

The big squeeze

Time and place shifted entertainment has arrived in 2006. This is the beginning of the end of the traditional 30 second spot, and advertisers will need to educate or entertain.

Advertisers’ response to time-shifting has been product placement and integration, something we’ve seen more and more of with the introduction of Tivo, iPod, and other devices that have enabled us to move our entertainment to anywhere, anytime and in any format or form factor.

Now, according to the New York Times, even product placement and product integration are coming under fire from none other than the Writers Guild of America West, which has demanded a code of conduct for producers that requires the disclosure of advertising deals through clear disclaimers at the start of programs. Failing that, they will seek increased federal regulation to prevent what they call subliminal, stealth ads.

The writer’s Guild launched a site in November to track what they are calling Product Invasion.

With pressure from technology on one side, and vocal writers on the other, where will advertisers go?

Perhaps they will actually find ways to offer something of value to viewers, whether it is educational or entertaining. Media over IP will be a very fascinating space to watch develop this year.

San Francisco: 19th Century Paris?

The way I work with people is changing. It might just be that my age and experience is changing the way I view my work. This could be a part of it, but somehow I think it is something much deeper than that.

For you see, I’ve started to bump into what I can only describe as the edges of a collective consciousness, and I think it is happening in many other places, in many other disciplines.

In the Hacker space, take the example of BarCamps which thrust into life last year as FooCamp outgrew itself. Or perhaps Super Happy Dev House. These self-organizing groups come together with no specific objective outside of socializing technology and sharing challenging problems to solve, or proposed solutions to existing problems.

This is happening more often as the information technology space heats up into a strong simmer. Micro camps like Mash Pit are popping up now, as are different ways of thinking about work space like Co-working.

It appears this type of collaborative work does have a precedent: Charettes.

While the architectual students of the cole des Beaux Arts in France worked through their design problems within an allotted time rushing their drawings from the studio to the Ecole in a cart called a charrette, a quartet of painters (Renoir, Monet, Sisley and Bazille) were shaping what was to become the Impressionist era.

Is this happening in your field of study as well? Is this all just history repeating?

Later this year, in the early summer of New York, 100′s of Video Bloggers will converge in an unprecedented “un-conference”. Sharing ideas in both a centralized and distributed fashion with live video streams heading in and out of the metropolis to all points on the planet that can connect and have an interest in the new changes in personal media and expression. Keep an eye out here for more details as we get closer to it.

Yes, I do believe history repeats itself.


Girls in Hawaii
New Music:
Girls in Hawaii – “From here to there”
Actually 6 guys from Belgium. Subtle indie stuff. check it out.