We've just released ourfirst State of the Vlogesphere report.
Let me know what you think!
It's causing quite a stir so far!
A friend has recently inspired me to begin riding a bike again. I think I'm hooked.
Tonight will be my first Critical Mass.
6pm, Justin Herman Plaza, San Francisco.
See you there!
So my latest big news is that I'm a metadata developer for Mefeedia now!
Feels good to have found a new home in the videoblogging community.
More details on everything on the way!
I've been Second Lifing a lot lately, and thinking about video metadata....like always...
Next week is Videoblogging Week 2007 - That means at least one video a day for a week, all over the world.
Be sure to tag all your videoblogging week videos with the tag "videobloggingweek2007" -- so they can be picked up by Mefeedia -- and other aggregation systems...
On YouTube:
Stephen Colbert vs. OK Go
This is another creation from his blue screen contest. (It's all up on the same youtube page.)
I'm trying to make political tunes that are also just fun to sing. Here
are all of them with quick links:
1. Improving
http://www.onlisareinsradar.com/archives/002681.php
2. James Brown Died On Christmas
http://www.onlisareinsradar.com/archives/002679.php
3. Democracy
http://www.lisarein.com/democracy.html
4. In the Spirit
http://www.onlisareinsradar.com/archives/002044.php
5. James and Marybeth (about copyright law and how the public is losing their
end of the bargain)
written to James H. Billington (Librarian of Congress) and Marybeth Peters
(Register of Copyrights)
http://www.lisarein.com/jamesandmarybeth.html
6. Here's myself and Audrey Howard in Golden Gate Park doing a cover of a
song Green Day's Billy Armstrong covering the song by
Aaron Elliot and PHGP called "Life During Wartime":
http://www.onlisareinsradar.com/archives/001298.php
Messing around with the Technorati site and decided to claim my feed...
Update 3/27/07 - I can't get this to work!
MySpace is trying to tell artists what widgets they can embed on their myspace pages. Think again. The backlash will kill the whole site.
It will be nice to see it happen. (Meaning it will be nice to either see the crappy myspace fail, or a smarter myspace wake up and relax these silly restrictions.)
MySpace Restrictions Upset Some Users
By Brad Stone for the NY Times.
Some users of MySpace feel as if their space is being invaded.MySpace, the Web's largest social network, has gradually been imposing
limits on the software tools that users can embed in their pages, like
music and video players that also deliver advertising or enable
transactions...But to some formerly enthusiastic MySpace users, the new restrictions
hamper their abilities to design their pages and promote new projects."The reason why I am so bummed out about MySpace now is because recently
they have been cutting down our freedom and taking away our rights slowly,"
wrote Tila Tequila, a singer who is one of MySpace's most popular and
visible users, in a blog posting over the weekend. "MySpace will now only
allow you to use 'MySpace' things."...The tussle between MySpace and Indie911 underscores tensions between
established Internet companies and the latest generation of Web start-ups.
Without a critical mass of visitors to their sites, many of these smaller
companies are devising strategies that involve clamping on to sites like
MySpace and Facebook and trying to make money off their traffic.MySpace, meanwhile, is trying to show that it can generate stable revenue.
Google will pay it at least $900 million over the next three years to serve
ads to the site's users. And last fall, MySpace announced a partnership
with Snocap, a San Francisco-based company, to sell music.Perhaps not coincidentally, this year, MySpace blocked widgets from Revver,
a video-sharing site that embeds advertisements in its clips, and Imeem, a
music buying service.
Here is the full text of the entire article in case the link goes bad:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/20/technology/20myspace.html?pagewanted=print
March 20, 2007
MySpace Restrictions Upset Some Users
By BRAD STONE
Some users of MySpace feel as if their space is being invaded.
MySpace, the Web's largest social network, has gradually been imposing
limits on the software tools that users can embed in their pages, like
music and video players that also deliver advertising or enable
transactions.
At stake is the ability of MySpace, which is owned by the News Corporation,
to ensure that it alone can commercially capitalize on its 90 million
visitors each month.
But to some formerly enthusiastic MySpace users, the new restrictions
hamper their abilities to design their pages and promote new projects.
"The reason why I am so bummed out about MySpace now is because recently
they have been cutting down our freedom and taking away our rights slowly,"
wrote Tila Tequila, a singer who is one of MySpace's most popular and
visible users, in a blog posting over the weekend. "MySpace will now only
allow you to use 'MySpace' things."
Ms. Tequila, born Tila Nguyen, has attracted attention by linking to more
than 1.7 million friends on her MySpace page. To promote her first album,
she recently added to her MySpace page a new music player and music store,
called the Hoooka, created by Indie911, a Los Angeles-based start-up
company.
Users listened to her music and played the accompanying videos 20,000 times
over the weekend. But the Hoooka disappeared on Sunday after a MySpace
founder, Tom Anderson, personally contacted Ms. Tequila to object,
according to someone with direct knowledge of the dispute. She then vented
her thoughts on her personal blog.
MySpace says that it will block these pieces of third-party software - also
called widgets - when they lend themselves to violations of its terms of
service, like the spread of pornography or copyrighted material. But it
also objects to widgets that enable users to sell items or advertise
without authorization, or without entering into a direct partnership with
the company.
A MySpace spokeswoman said yesterday that the service did not remove
anything from Ms. Tequila's page. "A MySpace representative contacted her
and told her that she had violated our terms of service in regards to
commercial activity," the spokeswoman said. "She removed the material
herself, after realizing it was not appropriate for MySpace."
Ms. Tequila and her representatives would not comment.
But Justin Goldberg, chief executive of Indie911, said MySpace's actions
undercut the notion that the social networks' users have complete creative
freedom. "We find it incredibly ironic and frustrating that a company that
has built its assets on the back of its users is turning around and telling
people they can't do anything that violates terms of service," he said.
"Why shouldn't they call it FoxSpace? Or RupertSpace?" Mr. Goldberg said,
referring to the News Corporation's chief, Rupert Murdoch.
The tussle between MySpace and Indie911 underscores tensions between
established Internet companies and the latest generation of Web start-ups.
Without a critical mass of visitors to their sites, many of these smaller
companies are devising strategies that involve clamping on to sites like
MySpace and Facebook and trying to make money off their traffic.
MySpace, meanwhile, is trying to show that it can generate stable revenue.
Google will pay it at least $900 million over the next three years to serve
ads to the site's users. And last fall, MySpace announced a partnership
with Snocap, a San Francisco-based company, to sell music.
Perhaps not coincidentally, this year, MySpace blocked widgets from Revver,
a video-sharing site that embeds advertisements in its clips, and Imeem, a
music buying service.
"Our users weren't happy," said Dalton Caldwell, Imeem's chief executive,
who was nevertheless ambivalent about the MySpace ban because he thought
the move might encourage his users to visit his site directly. "If MySpace
isn't really 'their space' after all, maybe users will think about things
differently."
In the past, MySpace executives have said that the service failed to block
companies like YouTube that began successful businesses from MySpace's
pages.
"We probably should have stopped YouTube," Michael Barrett, chief revenue
officer for Fox Interactive Media, a part of the News Corporation, said in
an interview in late February. "YouTube wouldn't exist if it wasn't for
MySpace. We've created companies on our back."
MySpace and its corporate parent say they want to find ways to support and
exploit the growing widget economy. Last year, Fox Interactive Media
introduced a service called Spring Widget. The service provides tools to
help developers create widgets for use both on computer desktops and online
networks like MySpace.
In a recent use of its technology, the studio behind the horror film "Dead
Silence" used a Spring Widget tool on its promotional MySpace page to count
down the minutes until the film's release.
Fred Wilson, a New York-based venture capitalist who invests in social
media companies, said the strategy showed that the News Corporation was
trying to take advantage of growing interest in widgets while also trying
to carefully control what made it onto MySpace.
But that could be a dangerous strategy, Mr. Wilson said.
"Every attempt everyone has ever made to try to dictate what a person's
Internet experience will be has ended up coming up empty," he said. "You
have to accept the fact that you are never going to be the be-all and
end-all of everyone's experience. They are one click away from everyone
else on the Web."
As for Ms. Tequila, who wrote on her blog that she was a personal friend of
Mr. Anderson, the MySpace co-founder, she wrote that she felt bad about
blasting the site but that she could not stay silent.
"You guys used to be so cool," she wrote of MySpace. "Don't turn into a
corporate evil monster."
Front Page of the Sunday Chronicle Baby!
My pal Kevin Burton on the cover of the SF chronicle...the article discusses the new Web 2.0-ish model of just working out of coffeehouses, rather than renting office space...
I'll be a tonight's Writers with Drinks in the SF Mission tonight.
I'll be taping it and putting it up soon too - but cha really gotta be there in person :-)
See you there!
lisa
Ah. That feels better. But just a little, because it would seem that Dick and Karl got off without a scratch. Damn!
Sure didn't take too long for the Jury to find Libby guilty of perjury and obstruction of justice.
Libby Found Guilty in CIA Leak Trial
By MICHAEL J. SNIFFEN and MATT APUZZO
Associated Press Writers
via t r u t h o u t
Vice President Dick Cheney's former chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, was convicted Tuesday of lying and obstructing an investigation into the leak of a CIA operative's identity.Libby is the highest-ranking White House official to be convicted of a felony since the Iran-Contra scandal of the mid-1980s. The conviction focused renewed attention on the Bush administration's much-criticized handling of weapons of mass destruction intelligence in the run-up to the Iraq war.
The verdict culminated a nearly four-year investigation into how CIA official Valerie Plame's name was leaked to reporters in 2003. The trial revealed how top members of the Bush administration were eager to discredit Plame's husband, former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, who accused the administration of doctoring prewar intelligence on Iraq...
He faces up to 30 years in prison when he is sentenced June 5 but under federal sentencing guidelines is likely to face far less. Defense attorneys immediately promised to ask for a new trial or appeal the conviction...
Reaction to the conviction on Capitol Hill was swift. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid welcomed the jury's verdict and called on Bush to pledge not to pardon Libby. Before the trial began, the Justice Department said it had no pardon file active for Libby.
"It's about time someone in the Bush Administration has been held accountable for the campaign to manipulate intelligence and discredit war critics," Reid said...
U.S. District Judge Reggie B. Walton ordered a pre-sentencing report be completed by May 15. Judges use such reports to help determine sentences. Libby will be allowed to remain free while awaiting sentencing.
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/C/CIA_LEAK_TRIAL?SITE=NYSTA&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2007-03-06-13-11-06
Here is the full text of the entire article in case the link goes bad:
Libby Found Guilty in CIA Leak Trial
By MICHAEL J. SNIFFEN and MATT APUZZO
Associated Press Writers
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Vice President Dick Cheney's former chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, was convicted Tuesday of lying and obstructing an investigation into the leak of a CIA operative's identity.
Libby is the highest-ranking White House official to be convicted of a felony since the Iran-Contra scandal of the mid-1980s. The conviction focused renewed attention on the Bush administration's much-criticized handling of weapons of mass destruction intelligence in the run-up to the Iraq war.
The verdict culminated a nearly four-year investigation into how CIA official Valerie Plame's name was leaked to reporters in 2003. The trial revealed how top members of the Bush administration were eager to discredit Plame's husband, former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, who accused the administration of doctoring prewar intelligence on Iraq.
Libby, who was once Cheney's most trusted adviser and an assistant to Bush, was expressionless as the jury verdict was announced on the 10th day of deliberations. His wife choked out a sob and sank her head.
He faces up to 30 years in prison when he is sentenced June 5 but under federal sentencing guidelines is likely to face far less. Defense attorneys immediately promised to ask for a new trial or appeal the conviction.
"We have every confidence Mr. Libby ultimately will be vindicated," defense attorney Theodore Wells told a throng of reporters. "We believe Mr. Libby is totally innocent and that he didn't do anything wrong."
Libby did not speak to reporters.
Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald, who has led the leak investigation, said no additional charges would be filed. That means nobody will be charged with the leak and Libby, who was not the source for the original column outing Plame, will be the only one to face trial.
"The results are actually sad," Fitzgerald said. "It's sad that we had a situation where a high-level official person who worked in the office of the vice president obstructed justice and lied under oath. We wish that it had not happened, but it did."
White House deputy press secretary Dana Perino said Bush watched news of the verdict on TV in the Oval Office. Perino said the president respected the jury's verdict but "was saddened for Scooter Libby and his family."
Perino said "I would not agree" with any characterization of the verdict as embarrassing for the White House.
"I think that any administration that has to go through a prolonged news story that is unpleasant and one that is difficult - when you're under the constraints and the policy of not commenting on an ongoing criminal matter - that can be very frustrating," she said.
Libby was convicted of one count of obstruction, two counts of perjury and one count of lying to the FBI about how he learned Plame's identity and whom he told. Prosecutors said he learned about Plame from Cheney and others, discussed her name with reporters and, fearing prosecution, made up a story to make those discussions seem innocuous.
Libby said he told investigators his honest recollections and blamed any misstatements on a faulty memory. He was acquitted of one count of lying to the FBI about his conversation with Time magazine reporter Matthew Cooper.
One juror who spoke to reporters outside court said the jury had 34 poster-size pages filled with information they distilled from the trial testimony. They discerned that Libby was told about Plame at least nine times and they didn't buy the argument that he forgot all about it.
"Even if he forgot that someone told him about Mrs. Wilson, who had told him, it seemed very unlikely he would not have remembered about Mrs. Wilson," the juror, Denis Collins, said.
Collins, a former Washington Post reporter, said jurors wanted to hear from others involved in the case, including Bush political adviser Karl Rove, who was one of two sources for the original leak. Defense attorneys originally said both Libby and Cheney would be witnesses and Rove was on the potential witness list.
"I will say there was a tremendous amount of sympathy for Mr. Libby on the jury. It was said a number of times, 'What are we doing with this guy here? Where's Rove? Where are these other guys?' " Collins said. "I'm not saying we didn't think Mr. Libby was guilty of the things we found him guilty of. It seemed like he was, as Mr. Wells put it, he was the fall guy."
Reaction to the conviction on Capitol Hill was swift. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid welcomed the jury's verdict and called on Bush to pledge not to pardon Libby. Before the trial began, the Justice Department said it had no pardon file active for Libby.
"It's about time someone in the Bush Administration has been held accountable for the campaign to manipulate intelligence and discredit war critics," Reid said.
Perino would not discuss Reid's pardon concerns.
Wilson and Plame have sued Libby, Cheney and several other administration officials in federal court. Attorneys at the liberal watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics, which brought the lawsuit, praised the conviction and Fitzgerald's team.
"Their prosecution of a senior White House official illustrates that we are a nation of laws and that no man is above the law," attorneys said in a prepared statement.
U.S. District Judge Reggie B. Walton ordered a pre-sentencing report be completed by May 15. Judges use such reports to help determine sentences. Libby will be allowed to remain free while awaiting sentencing.
Glad to finally get this up. (I was waiting to finish the video for it...but I don't want to hold things up any more.)
This song is about war profiteers who knowingly exchange the blood of Iraqis and US Troops for profit, in that they fund the destruction of the country so they can profit on its reconstruction.
It's also about how we all line up behind these scumbags and keep driving our SUV's -- and are effectively trading in the future of our children for convenience in the short term.
This song was inspired by the Bill Moyer's NOW program from November 14, 2003, Cash and Carry, which detailed the direct connections between the Shrub Administration and the main two or three companies that are profiting directly from the Iraqi reconstruction.
Vocals by Lisa Rein - Music by Gregory Howe
Lyrics by Lisa Rein and Gregory Howe.
Lyrics
We go anywhere we wanna go
Suburban assault vehicles
The calling day we all seem to know
Comes speeding at us now head on
Come on down to the fuel funeral
The pyre's high and it's burning down
We're staring at the fuel funeral
Say a prayer and then throw in your cup
They tell you all that you wanna know
The roads are paved with a heart of gold
They turn you out on the inside
Kill your world as they come alive
Come on down to the Fuel Funeral
Cause you ain't got too much more to lose
There's only trouble and obstacles
They're all waiting for you for you
This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons License.
Okay so I got a new macbook and I'm having a blast with the Photo Booth feature -- when I'm not getting weirded out about having a built-in camera in my laptop. (Yes I'm keeping a post-it note over the lens...)
