Bwana.org » seesmic

Intense Debate or Disqus? I’m torn.

Bwana — Wed, 14 May 2008 19:17:28 +0000

I can’t decide.

I’ve used and loved Disqus in the past, but felt the data portability options were limited. I loved the data portability options of Intense Debate, but found it lacked support with FriendFeed. Recently, I went on record as to my reasons for liking Intense Debate. One of those reasons included their willingness to support Seesmic video comments. Today, Disqus has added Seesmic Video comments to their system. I’m left with the following:

Intense Debate allows me to import/export comments to and from my WordPress blog with relative ease. That is good feeling to have.

Disqus integrates with FriendFeed very well and has gained great popularity due to Dave Winer and Robert Scoble‘s seal of approval. Their (Disqus) community is very bullish about the platform.

So part of me wants Disqus for the Seesmic/FriendFeed support while the other part likes the data portability options (the ease of it) of Intense Debate. Now here’s another thing: This post may draw people from the Disqus AND the Intense Debate communities. Since I currently have Intense Debate installed, I doubt many Disqus users will bother commenting. That’s a whole ‘nother bag of apples.

I really miss video comments and was willing to move to Intense Debate because they expressed interest while I heard nothing from Disqus. Now, Disqus has launched support, and I’m hearing nothing from Intense Debate.

Torn.

Seesmic Enables Video Commenting

Bwana — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 05:02:20 +0000

Video blogging has been atop of my interests lately and while I haven’t found my video micro-blogging solution yet, I am experimenting with various video commenting solutions for my WordPress blog. I installed Viddler‘s wordpress plugin which allows video comments. It was easy to install and worked like a charm.

Today, Seesmic has announced a WordPress comment plugin which allows video integration with your WordPress blog. It allows you to:

Post a video blog post on your WordPress blog
Allow users to post video comments on blog posts

I’ve installed this plugin on this blog for the time being and I’ve found one feature that makes it very very useful: Anonymous video commenting. While the plugin does allow you to use your existing Seesmic credentials to post, most users may not want to create a Seesmic account just for a comment. I find this will encourage more users to post a video comment. On the flip side, it’s also a little scary that anonymous users can post a video comment @Critter on Twitter assures me that Seesmic video comments can be moderated just like regular WordPress comments, but I’m still a little scared as to what may fall in my moderation queue

All in all, Seesmic’s WordPress comment is a winner and now Viddler has a direct competitor in the form of video commenting on WordPress blogs. Which is better? I think it’s way too early to say. Both are easy to use, both are well integrated with WordPress, but Seesmic allows anonymous video comments which may be its main advantage. You be the judge. Want a Seesmic account? Check this out:

I don’t know if this is common knowledge, but if I were you, I’d jump on it! Feel free to leave a video comment on this blog post to test it out for yourself and also, to tell me what you think about Seesmic new WordPress plugin.

In Search Of A Video Micro-blogging Solution

Bwana — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 00:46:14 +0000

As we become spread out on the internet, we find that we have less time to concentrate on one thought. Over the years, we’ve created a new disease that I call IIADD which stands for I.nternet I.nduced A.ttention D.eficit D.isorder. I have it and if you’re reading this, you probably have it to. We can’t focus on one blog post, one web page, one application at a time. We tend to jump around from post to post, thought to thought, application to application, forever trying to satisfy our lust for more knowledge.

As a result, we’ve taken internet publishing to the “micro” level. We publish snippets of audio, text, and images on what we dub “micro-blogs”. This gives us an excuse to cherish and nurture our IIADD. “Hey, I just read this great post on TechCrunch… Ooo look, this Flickr image of a bird chasing its tail!… I need to record a podcast…Maybe I’ll eat spaghetti tonight…Ooo food network has a great recipe…Wow FriendFeed is weird, I need to get used to it…. I like turtles“. You know I what I mean.

Micro-blogging is the new black on the internets.

Micro-blogging is a form of blogging that allows users to write brief text updates (usually less than 200 characters) and publish them, either to be viewed by anyone or by a restricted group which can be chosen by the user. These messages can be submitted by a variety of means, including text messaging, instant messaging, email, MP3 or the web.
-Wikipedia

Although that’s a fairly accurate definition, Wikipedia failed to mention one medium: Video. As our dump trucks fill up with more and more information, we are able to push video media fairly easily these days. Youtube, Viddler, and Seesmic (and others not mentioned) allow us to record a video directly from our web browser. The only requirement is a webcam or camera connected to one’s computer.

I’ve decided to embrace video micro-blogging here on Bwana.org. Why? Believe it or not, I once vowed never to do online video, which is why I jokingly made my Bwana.TV motto, “..And you said it couldn’t be done”. Now I have a partnered Youtube channel and have produced hundreds of videos that are well received by the informationsphere. I also do live video streaming via Ustream.TV and stream my audio podcast production daily for the world to enjoy. I’ve decided to do this because video is where it’s at. Also, I’ve decided to go in this direction because my IIADD said so.

On Bwana.org’s main page, you’ll find a video on the top right. This idea was influenced by both Chris Pirillo, and the guys behind theleetgeeks.com (wirelesspacket, bluefox, 4four1ones). Chris embeds his live video stream on every page of his blog, chris.pirillo.com. As a result, his audience grows by leaps and bounds daily. I played with this idea many times, but never streamed consistently enough to make my show grow the same. The site, theleetgeeks.com, has a wonderful layout which I believe was led by a great web developer, bluefox. They have embedded a small video micro-entry on the top right of their page. After I saw that, I was influenced and began to think:

How can I do that on Bwana.org effectively?

My first thought was Seesmic. Seesmic’s sole purpose is video micro-blogging. It is there for you to record short snippets of video, Twitter style. There is one problem. Seesmic is in “beta”, more like “alpha” if you ask me. I do not agree with the interface and it still has work to be done. I’m not trying to knock Seesmic, it’s just I recognize it for what it is: A work in progress. With their acquisition of Twhirl already making waves on the almighty tubes, Seesmic has a bright future. I’ll be watching them closely. [Update: Seesmic was going through a hardware migration today which explained some of my issues. In that light, they still aren't ready for prime time, but I want to use them]

My next thought was Viddler. Viddler has proved to be a very reliable and flexible platform for publishing video. Their use of inline video commenting is nothing short of ground breaking. I uploaded a test video there today and gave it a shot. While it worked for the most part, I would have preferred a much more elegant solution for my WordPress blog. Namely, I want a simple tag to put in my template which shows a static video, or the latest video in a RSS feed (namely a feed based on a particular tag). This solution has potential, but some kinks need to be worked out to fit my workflow.

Finally, I moved to Flickr Video. Flickr does Video? Yeah. First, the limitations: 150MB file size and 90 seconds of video. My test video (after encoding/compression through VisualHub) came to 4.4MB and 32 seconds. Ok, that shouldn’t be a problem. The next task was ease of integration. The situation was almost identical to Viddler’s. I’d have to manually copy and paste (or later script) the embed code into an include file on my server to show the latest/desired video. Flickr video seems perfect for video micro-blogging as it forces you to condense your material like Twitter (140 characters or less). This solution is what I’m currently testing, but I’m not sure it’s my final one.

So what say you? What is the best video micro-blogging solution for you? I’m definitely open to new suggestions.