Voice to Text Software Images I found:
PON Solution from CommScope
Image by CommScope
CommScope’s new PON solution is flexible to accommodate both EPON and GPON technologies. CommScope’s new PON family of active and passive optical devices (optical line terminals, optical network units, system-management software and installation components) provide rural communities, electric cooperatives, multiple system operators, municipalities and governments the ability to deliver advanced voice, video, and data services to their subscribers using fiber optic cables.
Vloggercon 2006 is sold out!
Image by mmeiser2
I’m posting this here because blogger.com has gone to pot.
24 hours till vloggercon!
Hopping on the plane tomorrow morning.
I wanted to share my thoughts on meeting over 400 vloggers and vlog fans for the first time.
In a word.
Vlogebrity!
Vlogebrity is the term.
We have a little saying amongst vloggers, "We are the media".
And so by proxy we are also our own celebrities.
What does vlogerbrity mean?
It’s the long tail of celebrity.
It is more niche than blogebrity, and yet far more powerful a celebrity.
It’s about strong bonds.
Imagine if you will.
Tomorrow and Saturday I will meet for the first time 150 or 250+ people I’ve never met in person, but whom I’ve gotten to know intimately through video blogging over the last 2 years.
They are from all over the world, Norway to Australia, and pretty much every continent.
I know their names like I know the names of old friends.
I know their faces, their personalities, their mannerisms, their humor, their interests and passions.
When we meet we will recognize each other. We may shake hands, but like old friends our introductions will be very brief and we’ll dive into specific topics and detailed subjects based on our shared interests.
There won’t be silly icebreaking questions. No, "So what do you do?" or "Where are you from"… No idle "get to know you" chat. Just diving into the common subjects we share.
Vlogebrities have known backgrounds.
Vlogebrities have shared history.
The shock of meeting all my vlogebrity friends at once face to face. This is the thing I’m most looking forward to at vloggercon at this moment.
This is on the surface what I want to capture and understand. Because in studying vloebrity it will tell us something about the future.
A future where we’re all the media, where we’re all celebrities to someone, mentor’s, peers, and friends of people the world over.
Regardless of geography.
Another step in the progression of the global village.
I relish this idea.
Vloggercon is going to be a completely unique, great and erie sort of culture shock that is probably completely unique to video blogging. I’m expecting a powerful sort of deja vu.
With Introductions a side (almost unnecessary) vloggercon will be about getting right down to business.
It may sound like a preposterous thing to say, but I ask you to consider, that never before has such a large group of people whom know each other so well met for the very first time.
Actors may meet and they know each others faces and characters, but they don’t know each other for who they really are.
Intellectuals, writers, scientists and infinite professional groups may know each other by reputation, by exchanges of writing, even by photos, but again they don’t know each other as intimately as vloggers. They don’t know each others voices, facial expressions.
Vlogebrity is powerful voodoo.
Unlike hollywood celebrity, which gives a powerful false sense of knowing people, vlogebrity gives a true and powerful sense of knowing. But how true is this celebrity? How much do we really know each other? We shall see.
Needless to say vlogebrity is a very unique type of celebrity. An intensely personal sort of celebrity.
Vlogebrity creates powerful bonds and friendships.
…and I expect since we all know each other so well while never having met, that the conversation will be so furious at vloggercon I seriously hope I don’t loose my voice. 😉
So soak up and take note of the power of vlogebrity. Breath it in, think about it. What is the truth of it, what is false. As McLuhan famously said the medium is the message. If we are the media, then what does it say about the future, what does vlogebrity say about the future of a truly global culture of closely bonded niche communities.
To me this says one thing. This new world that is evolving that is bonded by a democratic, open, participatory media system, a property fundamental to the internet. It is fundamentally going to make the world a much more human/humane place then a world shaped by cars, and TV, radio and newspaper. The world is becoming more human.
We are truly living in the future in many respects.
And yet we’re living very far in the future.
7000 video blogs is nothing.
The massive popularity of a Youtube, (which I’ve never seen anything like in all my .com years) is impressive, but really it is nothing in the big picture
This is not about a 2.0 .boom. We’ve barely entered an era that’s going to play out over the course of generations, perhaps this whole century.
What happens in the first 7000 video blogs is fun and very interesting, (not to discount the very much related and very important blogging, podcasting and photocasting)… but in order to understand the true power of open acess media / new media, it’s impact on the world, we have to listen carefully and study carefully, because the majority of it’s power, of the possibilities for change lie below the surface. They have yet to be discovered.
The question we must ask, is what happens when the other 99.99% of the world has access to not just rich media, not just blogs, videos, photo, and VOIP communications… but the tools and applications, the project management tools, the wiki-collaborative writing tools, the processing power, the connectivity?
The reason I like vlogging, is not because I’m a videographer, it’s because I’m a student of media. It’s not because vlogging IS the future. Who knows where we’ll be in 5 years. Who knows if vlogging as we know it will even exist. The reason why I am fascinated by this thing is because it is an opportunity to look into a window of a *possible future*, to understand something about how media shapes our culture and our identities now and how it will like the inventions of the printing press, the radio and the television before it.
If mass media nationalized and mobilized the world, what will internet mediated media do?
And therefore the reason why I’m going to vloggercon is two-fold. Both to understand, study and interpret this fundamental change in the way the world is connected and how it will change the world.
And secondly and just as important to collaborate and discuss with others to distributing this future. TO make it available to as many people as possible.
This initial success, this web 2.0 boom is a a misnomer, a distraction to what is truly significant to what is going on here. Myspace and Youtube the current media darlings of this space are but short sited mischaracterizations of this era, false gods at best. Who is going to bring this evolution to the other 99.99% of the planet? The majority of the planet that doesn’t speak english, or one of the five more popular languages. Proprietary, walled garden systems fundamentally lack this capacity. I suspect it will evolve as has open access media out of open source software as it is the only model flexible enough to bring these technologies to the rest of the world.
And don’t even talk to me about "big media"… they lack the vision to see beyond delivering plastic disks and DRM laden content to .0001% of the world. That’s some sever myopia.
Oh, and here’s a random but very cool vloggercon promo from the vlog, The Memeing of Life.
Watch it: Vloggercon Promo from Mark Raheja, The Memeing of Life (Quicktime, .mov)
So! I’ll see you all at vloggercon!
🙂
-Mike
Keywords: vloggercon, vloggercon2006, vlogebrity
Photo From: laughingsquid.com/2006/06/03/vloggercon-2006/
laughingsquid.com/wp-content/uploads/vloggercon_flyer.gif
