“Youtube and beyond: What you want to know but never knew who to ask”

The idea first started from a conversation at this meet-up. And now we have this talk coming up:

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“Youtube and beyond: What you want to know but never knew who to ask”
A public talk on the present and future of online video sharing by Kevin Lim

When
Tuesday, 19 Jun 2007
6:00PM - 8.30PM
(latecomers welcomed!)

Where
Multi-purpose Room, Central Lending Library
(Basement of National Library, Victoria Street)
Click for Map

What
Youtubers, Videobloggers, Video podcasters, or anyone who wants to get started with sharing videos online, this interactive session is perfect for you! Here are 5 reasons why you have to join in:

• Explore the world of free video sharing services -> going beyond Youtube
• Learn tips to producing great video for web -> high quality, small file size
• How to protect yourself by staying legal -> copyright, Creative Commons
• See the future of online videos -> Lifecasting and searching within videos
• Make friends and show your clips with fellow video bloggers!

Plus: If there’s time, learn how to videocast without spending a bomb on web hosting, by integrating Internet Archive with your blog.

Who
Kevin Lim [of theory.isthereason.com] is currently pursuing his PhD in Communication and is teaching in the Educational Technology Center at the University at Buffalo (SUNY). He studies the wide-ranging cultural affordances of technology, focusing particularly on the pedagogical aspects of social media. Being passionate about making and sharing videos, Kevin is currently challenging notions of virtuality through his modular “sousveillance” backpack. In an attempt at enhancing the usefulness of video, this unique backpack allows him to experiment with lifecasting, ambient intimacy, and video as a form of memory prosthetic (also see eyetap and wearcam).

Click to add to your calendar

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It's fascinating to me how fast things can happen with technology as the enabler, and when fueled by passion.

Kevin and I let the idea fester for a while since the last meetup. Then we met last week, to discussed over lunch on what the talk should or shouldn't cover. We also confirmed the date, time and venue on the same day.

After that, things flew.

This part here is more for my reference. I'm interested in how this talk would be received since we're relying more on online mediums to publicise the event:

• 2.30pm - Kevin emailed me his final draft of the outline. He might have emailed Siva as well, 'cos Siva emailed a suggestion for Kevin to put up a blurb for the talk.
• 9:35pm - Siva was first to blog about it (even before Kevin, 'cos Kevin only finalised the first draft over email)
• 10.30pm - Kevin blogs this post. We discussed over IM and he did some amendments to the post on the fly.
• 11.00pm - I logged in from home and emailed to my NLB colleagues, requesting them to help create a poster for the event.
• 11.30pm - Jullian was on IM. I asked him to take a look at Kevin's post. He replied, "Interesting... But I don't any videos to share". I realised his impression was that the session was about sharing videos. Not quite true. I IMed Kevin with the observation. More amendments on the fly on Kevin's post.
• 11.34pm - I posted to the youth.sg discussion forum and dropped email to the portal administrator, whom I've corresponded before. Around this same time, Siva alerts the folks at the Yesterday.Sg mailing list about the talk.
• 11.45pm - Noticed an IM contact whom I know writes for a mainstream paper. Asked if she would be interested in the event (I was hoping she would be, so that she might cover the event). She replied that she's not covering that area. OK, I tried, heh. Thanked her and requested her to pass the word around, about the talk.
• 11.55pm - Received an email notification. Someone responded to the Youth.sg post and I replied.
• 12.52am - Wondered who else might be interested in the talk. So I posted to these mailing lists: Librarians-in-SG, SG Ruby Brigade, Songcraft, and Gahmen Bloggers.

BTW, from the library's viewpoint, we first have to determine a speaker's credibility. That's easily established. Kevin's lectured for the Singapore Institute of Management. I've seen a few of his lectures in videos (like this one for the last day of class).

Then the topic has to be of relevance. That's the easy part too. A talk like this would be timely and of interest to young people and older. Youtube.com seems to be on everyone's awareness nowadays. Many people in Singapore carry a handphone with picture/ video recording capabilities.

Besides, the talk isn't just about Youtube. One of the aim was to show that there are more video sharing sites out there. Then Kevin will also share tips on producing and formatting videos for the web, plus areas like copyright and the concept of Creative Commons.

OK, hope to see you at the talk. Updates to the talk (if any) would be at Kevin's post.

If you're helping to blog or publicise the talk, please drop Kevin an email and he'll link to your post. BTW, anyone wants to submit it to Tomorrow.SG?