iPad 2′s infinitely useful PhotoBooth application.

Robert quipped that he was happy that he stuck to his guns regarding longform videos of this type. He isn’t alone.

Not too long after the Twitter video was recorded, at Web 2 Expo in San Fransisco, I was fortunate enough to record an episode of LunchMeet with Eddie Codel.

Here is that episode (in the Viddler player because PodTech’s embed no longer works):

You may argue that Viddler hasn’t had the cultural impact that Twitter has had on the world – but you’re not sitting in this chair. Viddler has done amazing things since that day with a meager budget, only a small percentage of the man-power, and from locations that many think out-of-touch.

Many of these stories are about to be told on The Viddler Spotlight. Stay tuned.

Today I realized a fatal flaw in my blog’s archive. There wasn’t a single post tagged ‘chewbacca’. Consider that flaw fixed.

Photo credit: Eliza Devroe.

In line for iPhones

Three years ago at the King of Prussia Mall in Pennsylvania Eliza and I were nearly at the front of what became a very, very long line at the Apple Retail Store ready to buy two first generation iPhones. For six years prior to that day Eliza and I hadn’t owned mobile phones. We were rebels during the early mobile phone explosion, partially to save money, partially to save us from being ‘available anytime’. We decided to come out of hiding for the iPhone because the iPhone wasn’t going to be just a phone – as Steve Jobs pointed out in his Keynote that year -  it was going to be a phone, an iPod and an Internet device. And that is exactly what it proved to be.

Eliza and I have used our first-generation iPhones every day since. We use them for audio (music, podcasts, books), Twitter and Facebook, playing games, accessing the Web on the go, making phone calls, taking photos, maps and directions, weather, keeping track of our time and weight. (I tried my best to put those in order.)

Having any electronic device for three years used to be remarkable but remember I had my Macbook for three years before upgrading it too. I think I’ve set a new benchmark for device longevity in the Devroe home. If a device performs well for at least three years I’ll declare it a success. In that vane the iPhone has been a smashing success for us.

We didn’t upgrade to the 3G or the 3GS for a number of reasons but ultimately it came down to need. We didn’t need to upgrade to the 3G or 3GS. Most of the software that is available for those two phones are also available for us first-generation iPhone owners. No, we don’t have GPS or the magnometer or video – but we haven’t actually needed those things. The first-generation iPhone’s location capabilities were good enough for most purposes and we’ve got a Flip Ultra HD for video.

Today iOS 4 for iPhone will be released and it will not run on first generation iPhones. This is the first update to the iPhone OS that will alienate any of their previous versions of iPhone. The next-generation iPhone, iPhone 4, also gave a vast number of reasons to upgrade this time around. HD video, upgraded camera, multi-tasking, an all new slimmer design, and a forward facing camera, (the list goes on).

As you see from the above and following images, my iPhone has taken some wear (it is the one on the left). Recently I dropped my iPhone into a toilet bowl full of fresh pee (yes, you read that right) and because of that it has now been turning on and off randomly. Which kills the battery in about three hours. Until then though it has worked flawlessly for most of three years.

Eliza’s phone, on the other hand, looks absolutely pristine. Neither of us really ever had a case for our iPhones though she does have an invisishield cover on her screen. So, those scratches you see on her iPhone aren’t really scratches in the glass. Ironically Eliza’s iPhone doesn’t work as as well as mine. Her home button works when it wants to and the headphone jack has some issues. These have been minor gripes by Eliza until recently.

So, even if iOS 4 and iPhone 4 weren’t so compelling – we’d probably be upgrading anyway. Since we’re both eligible to renew our AT&T contracts it simply seems like the very best time to upgrade to the next iPhone. We’d be tickled if they both lasted for three years the way the first-generation iPhone has.

This episode was a long time coming. Gary and I had tried to align our schedules for a pretty long time but never were able to make it work. I’m glad that we finally did. The episode has a few hundred comments over on the show’s blog and I’m happy that I’ve been able to respond to nearly every single one.

Kyle Slattery, whom you all should know by now, has also published a post about comparing the physical keyboard input with that of his DROID and the challenges faced by device manufactures that provide both a physical keyboard and a multitouch interface.

I’ve just started following Ze Frank on Twitter. I’ve added him to my “met” list (remember my Twitter lists?) and some have asked why. Well, because he and I met in 2007 in Austin, TX as SXSWi.

We had a pretty good chat. Ze is incredibly talented and creative and has an interesting story. If you ever get the chance – be sure to meet up with him and have a chat.

Duration: ~59minutes

In this presentation I cover how to measure success for a start up in a global market (read: the Internet). I tried my best to give an overview of some of the common pitfalls that startup companies seem to face as well as some possible solutions that have worked for me in my career. I tried to have a little fun too.

Notable links for this presentation would be:

• Viddler’s Business Services Web site
• Viddler’s video analytics announcement
• Wufoo for creating surveys

See also some excellent notes from my presentation by Scott Meade.

LessConf was thoroughly enjoyable and I felt privileged to have been part of it. Thanks to everyone in attendance for putting up with me for an hour.

Photo credit: Eliza Devroe.

After a friend and I were talking about fishing this weekend I noticed that I never posted a photo of my biggest catch this summer – a 5-pound bass.

As you can see from the photo I was soaking wet. Eliza, my friend Johnny, and myself walked to our fishing spot (about a mile off the road) only to have a downpour come at us about half-way there. We figured we’d continue even though we were soaked.

The rain brought out a lot of frogs and toads that were jumping back and forth on our path. Just before we got to our spot I grabbed a toad that I was going to use for a few minutes instead of our night crawlers that we brought with us. The toad was fairly big so I knew that they only fish I’d get to bite would be a whopper.

You see, the thing about bass is that they love to feed after a hard rain. Rain washes insects, worms, and other critters into the river and so bass just sort of swim up stream and gobble up pretty much whatever hits their mouths. Fishing right after a decent rain fall, when the water is all murky from the rush, is the best time to get a fair amount of hits.

It wasn’t too terribly long before my toad disappeared under the water. It was like a vacuum was turned on under the surface and the toad simply sunk straight down. But then the toad popped back up a few feet away, only it was no longer on my line. My line was being dragged away. The bass didn’t put up much of a fight and I brought it in pretty quick.

The bigger the fish the older the fish and some would say that a bass this size is probably not great for eating. But I wasn’t about to throw back my catch of the summer. Nummers!

Random 60: I love leftovers.

One of my favorite foods is leftovers. Pretty much anything that is leftover from the night before will do – but certain foods stand out. Some, in fact, seem to be even better the next day than they are on the first day. Soups, Mac & Cheese, Pizza, Brownies, just to name a few.

What are your favorite leftovers?

Eating a Gombo at The Goose with Kyle, Jeff, and Rob. Incredisandwich.

Related: I’m adding “The Goose” to my favorite places less than 2 hours from home list.

I wish I had taken a lot more photos (I didn’t even get everyone in a photo). I’m looking forward to camping at least one more time this summer (and hopefully for more than just one night). All-in-all a great short trip and everyone seemed to have a good time.

Guess who’s back? Back again! The Diet is back, tell some friends!

You read that right. The Diet is back. And, like a Phoenix, it is back in a whole new way once again. Sort of like last time, what started out as a friendly challenge between a few ended up becoming something much larger, so too has The Diet this time. Last week I got an email from a guy name Pat Dryburgh who wanted to get on The Diet. We setup a challenge to see who could lose 20 pounds in the shortest amount of time. I asked him to write a little something for us here on the blog.

“There’s this guy who hangs around these parts that goes by the name of “Colin.” “Colin” invited me to check out his blog after seeing how über awesome I am over on my own blog. As I was poking around, I came across a cobweb-infested page simply titled “The Diet.” It was refreshing to see someone who spends their life behind a computer screen who had taken an interest in getting active. A year or so ago, I weighed about 270 lb., and today weigh in around 225 lb. However, I’ve been at this weight for the past few months. I was looking for encouragement, for direction, for guidance. With excitement filling my heart I scrolled down to see Colin’s most recent weigh-in…

June. 2008. 207 lb.

I realized then and there that something needed to be done. Colin has clearly neglected the Pudge 2.0 that’s formed between himself and his Mac for too long, and it was time to take action. So I wrote to Colin “hey, Colin. I know we don’t really know each other. In fact, we’ve barely made it through two emails back and forth. But seriously, we have a problem. You and me, we’ve got belly’s. And they ain’t pretty.

This is an intervention.

Think of your wife.

Think of your children.

We need to do this now.”

And so, with that the challenge was made. First one to lose 20 pounds wins. Loser buys the winner an online gift worth $21 USD (which is about $70 Canadian dollars).

Colin’s an American. He basically gets McDonalds delivered to his door every morning. Starbucks is part of his daily medication. I, on the other hand, was born with a hockey stick in my hands.

This will be a cake walk.

(Especially if I can convince Colin cake is part of a balanced breakfast).

Colin, it’s on like donkey kong.”

It is definitely on!  However, since we exchanged emails others had expressed interest in doing some dieting as well. Since most of them are my friends here in the local area – you can say I have my own support group – and I’m looking forward to following their journeys of weight loss.  I’ll let them tell their story in the comments.

My weigh-in for today, March 23, 2009: So we’re going to weigh-in every Monday. If you want to make your weight public, that’s cool, if you don’t that is fine too. My current weight is 207lbs.

Want to join us?

Like last time, this is an open invitation for anyone that would like to lose weight, get healthy, and have some support doing it. It can be hard to lose weight on your own. Hard to get motivated. Hard to stay on track. This is why we do this diet. We’re here to help each other.

So, whether you have 1 pound or 100 pounds to lose – please leave a comment below and let us know you’re in this for the long hall. Pat and I are going to race to 20, but then we’re going to be sticking around to keep each other and everyone else motivated to lose the weight and keep it off.  Third time’s a charm?

Reminder note: All photos, blog posts, AND Twitter messages should be tagged with ‘the-diet’ so that we can keep track of this thing. (For Twitter/Facebook, you can write #the-diet in your post.)

Photo: My friend Sameer on a Photo walk of sorts in Carbondale, PA.

Something I’ve wanted to do for some time was to have a Photo walk in Scranton, PA. I would like to have one in Carbondale some time in the near future, but I think we’ll get more support in the Scranton area – and that is where my friend Sameer and I happen to be heading anyway.

What is a Photo walk?

Here is the actual definition from Photowalk.org:

“A Photo Walk is a an opportunity to develop your “photographic eye” by sharing the same opportunities as others. No special equipment is required and there is no need to share the pictures you take with others (though this is probably a good idea).

… …

To participate in a walk, you just need to arrive at the start point at the date and time given with a camera.

After a walk participants are encouraged to share their pictures and discuss their experiences.”

Pretty simple right? Just show up with your camera in tow (doesn’t matter if you only have your cell phone or you have the best professional digital camera available). And, if you feel like it, you can jump online and share your photos with the group.

When/Where?

We’re going to meet at the intersection of Linden Street and Adams Avenue by the statute at 2:30pm on Sunday March 8th. We’ll have a set route that we’ll be walking but we’re completely up for suggestions if there is anywhere in the city you’d like to shoot. We’re hoping for good weather but if that doesn’t happen our backup plan will be to do it anyway and get wet.

How to share photos/experiences?

If you upload your photos to your own personal Web site, or to a photo-sharing site like Flickr or Facebook, you can tag your photos with “ScrantonPhotoWalk”. You can do the same for your blog posts. If you do not know how to do that, you can just paste the URL to your photos and/or blog posts into the comments of this post below.

Who are Colin and Sameer?

You can read about me on my about page if you’d like further information. However, Sameer and I are just two guys that like to go shoot photos and we thought this time we’d see if anyone would like ot keep us company. If you’d like to tag along, we’d love to have you.

Follow us on Twitter: I’m cdevroe and Sameer is SameerBarkawi.

I’ll spare you from boredom. Here is my day in under two minutes.

I haven’t done a MeToday video, or any video for that matter, in many months so I was happy to use the Board Meeting as an opportunity to just bring along the Flip camera and take miscellaneous shots to stitch together. The music I chose for this particular MeToday was Happening by The Supremes.

I haven’t done a video on Viddler since November! This doesn’t make up for it but at least there is something with me out there now. I’ve gotta hop on it. Maybe I’ll take one of the Skribit suggestions for this site and use video instead of writing to check it off the list.

Thanks to Owen for coming into Viddler HQ last week and for doing this video.

I had the privilege of cooking the dish for episode 7 of Eat Weird. I chose to make mussels over linguini, a very simple meal that anyone could make in their home kitchens and with any budget, because even though Chris tries to focus on things that are much more “weird” – I don’t think many people my age or younger have had mussels or any type of seafood.

It may sound odd that I say that – but more and more I am noticing that people’s explorations into food are more and more constrained to things that come in boxes, are frozen into a brick, can be warmed up in a microwave, or can be purchased while leaning out of your car’s window. We’re really hoping that Eat Weird, in some very small way, changes that.

Have you ever had mussels? Head on over to Eat Weird and let us know.

Me, speaking at Podcamp Hawai’i. Credit: Eliza Devroe

I have an awful lot of writing to do. I figured one of the easiest things to start off with, and hopefully get the ball rolling with everything else that I need to write about, would be the photos, videos, tweets, and much more from both Podcamp and Wordcamp Hawai’i.

Oh, did I mention that I learned how to properly spell Hawai’i while I was there?

If you’ve been following the pch08 tag on Flickr, on Twitter, on Viddler, and pretty much everywhere else, you’ll probably have seen these already.  If not… than I just did you a favor.

The visuals tell only part of the story. You’ll have to be there next year ((There will be a next year, right?)) to experience what type of conference the outstanding people in Hawai’i are able to put together.

Source: Podcamp Hawaii: Session: Using video to build community.

Date taken: September 30, 2008 | Eliza wanted to test out her new waterproof camera. Andrew and I helped her out. All photos credit: Eliza Devroe.

In March 2002 Eliza and I went for a drive to North Carolina to help my parents move into their new home there. Of course at the time, I wrote about it and shared the photos too, but I wanted to share this story about being at the top of the lighthouse.

The Currituck Beach Lighthouse is easy to spot from pretty far off. As we were making our way north on the second day of our trip back from my parents new house, we tried to stop at each lighthouse on the way. Currituck is one of the few lighthouses that you can actually climb to the top of on the Outer Banks.

Making your way to the top is actually fairly interesting. You have to navigate, as expected, through a gift shop selling various North Carolina and Currituck trinkets in order to get to the stairway that leads to the top. You then have to navigate through that same gift shop on the way back down.

Of course, we picked up a few things though I can’t remember what. A few OBX stickers more than likely. Oh, and a hat. Which I have a photo of me wearing, that I will not share here. I’ll spare you.

On top of Currituck you can see both the inlet, called Currituck Sound, and the Atlantic Ocean. The view is stunning at only 158 ft. I say only because, while lighthouses are not all that tall, replica Eiffel Towers are fairly tall (550 ft.). And I’ve been to the top of one of those recently.

What the replica Eiffel Tower in Las Vegas did not have was a strong wind. Currituck did. Such a strong wind, in fact, that there were multiple warnings about the wind being around 60-80mph at the top. I think you can tell from the photo on the right that the wind was strong. Strong enough to put me, at around 220 or so pounds, up on my toes to stay facing it. The warnings were warranted.

Currituck Beach Lighthouse is a beautiful lighthouse with a rich history. Visit it some time.

Just about one year ago I posted a photo of this bird without too much explanation besides that I had taken the photo in the Tampa Bay in Florida in August of 2001. But there is a little more to this story.

What reminded me of this story was our life poster that is hanging in our living room.  Whenever Eliza and I have guests our life poster is a topic of discussion and, for whatever reason, I’m drawn to the story behind the photo of this bird on the poster.  If you follow the link to the life poster, you’ll see I’ve noted the photo using a Flickr note. So, I thought I’d tell that story here.

My brother Derrick lives in St. Petersburg, Florida – a city my family lived in a few times.  I lived there from the ages of 2 through 5.  We have friends that owned a very nice home on Tampa Bay and during a visit to their house in August 2001 we saw an egret perched on a neighbor’s dock.  I decided it’d be fun to feed the egret one of the many lizards that were bouncing through the leaves next to our friend’s pool.

Derrick caught the lizard while I got as close to the bird as possible for a few good shots.  Using the lizard as my primary means of keeping the egret’s attention – and boy did I have it – I was able to get off a few good photos of him.

I sometimes find it regrettable that I only had a 2.1MP digital camera at the time, but like I said in my post regarding creating a simple video podcast – you shouldn’t skip opportunities based on the quality of your equipment.

The egret allowed me to get very, very close to him and ended up eating the lizard right out of my hand before taking off.  You can see from the first photo that he didn’t even swallow the lizard before he took off and landed on a dock about 5 homes away and munched away.

Photography, for me, isn’t always about getting the best shot but about the stories behind the photos.  I’m much more interested in the stories that happened before, during, and after a photo was taken than I am in the photo itself.

I’ll remember this and many other stories about my life because they were captured in photos.  And I’m looking forward to many more future memories caught on film, err, disk.

I figured I might as well look the part.  Have you talked like a pirate today?

This post is made possible by Skitch… one of my most favorite Macintosh applications.

My messed up hair amplified by my elongated head due to iPhone stretching.

Oh, and wearing my now pretty old Loch Ness Imposter Threadless tee.

If you have the time, consider throwing in your hat as well.

Putting the finishing touches on Viddler’s B2B site. Photo by: Rob Sandie.

Today I did a search on my site for Vader and came up empty-handed.  I just couldn’t stand for that and so I’m posting this photo of me, taken by Daniel Nicolas, with a storm trooper, Darth Vader, and Boba Fett.

As a side note: I paid them $5 to take this photograph.  Vader, Fett, nor the unnamed trooper are friends of mine.  I roll with the Rebels. 4eva!

We were able to give away a fair amount of Viddler tshirts, in only a few minutes, at the DiggNation Meetup in Brooklyn, New York to those waiting in line for the live taping of DiggNation.  We did have one stipulation, however, that you must wear the Viddler tshirt right now in order to get one.

It was great to see so many Viddler tshirts within the first few rows of the crowd for the entire night.  Even one girl wearing a Viddler tshirt was up on stage in front of, what we’ve been told was, a capacity crowd at Studio B.  So it was a definite WIN.

Hope everyone enjoys their Viddler shirts!

Revision 3 folks are setting up for DiggNation. 1000 people are going to fit in here?

Editor’s note: It turns out that 2,000 people showed up at the door.  The Revision 3 crew really takes setting up everything very seriously and they did a great job accommodating for both the recording of a live podcast but also for a live crowd.

The iPhone helped the cabby find Brooklyn, Ha!

Some 14yr. old skateboarder dude was sleeping next to me.  His head kept bobbing and hitting me, so Kyle laughed.

Waiting for the bus in Hellertown, PA with Rob and Kyle. We’re headed to New York City for the DiggNation Meetup.

What a gorgeous day in Lehigh Valley!  We had a barbeque in Slatington after a friend’s dance recital.  A great way to round out the weekend.

Date taken: May 25, 2008 | Photo credit: Eliza Devroe.

Why, what did you do this weekend?  I doubt it was as fun as this.  Was it?

We tried our best to injure ourselves and I think Chris was by far the most successful.  Maybe if you ask nicely Eliza will post some of the better shots to her blog.  What an incredible weekend to be outside!

I am laughing at Eliza. Andrew is hitting construction cones.

Eating lunch during a wine tour break.

From the “An oldie but a goodie” department.

In March of 2005 I saved myself $30 by not buying an iPod dock and building my own out of the box that the iPod came in. I remember this getting on tons of sites and spreading pretty quickly.

“I thought it was a fun project, and it didn’t take me that long to complete.”

Looking back, I should do more of these types of things. I have always enjoyed fiddling with art, paper products, tools, and anything else to build my own fun things. Perhaps I should get back into doing something like this once per month and feature it here on my site.

Source: iPod box dock on The uber geeks.

MeToday: June 5, 2007

Do you want an iPhone as much as I do? Am I alone in my thoughts being primarily about the iPhone since the new ads were released? Gah!

Oh, not sure what a MeToday is? Take a look at these great video versions of a MeToday or you can look at all of the great photo versions of a MeToday – both will give you an idea of what a MeToday is.

I can’t wait for my MeToday on June 29, 2007.

Gary Vaynerchuk in London
Photo credit: The hard working Tara Hunt

For those that do not know Gary, Wine Library TV, or Cork’d – let me take a second to catch you up to speed. Gary Vaynerchuk is the Director of Operations for Wine Library and began his career in wine at the ripe age of 17 (someone call the cops). He’s visited every major wine region on the planet, has probably tasted more wine this week than most people do in their adult lives, and is single handedly trying to “change the wine world” (or, trying to bring the community into every aspect of wine instead of it being an elitist club as it has been for so long).

Gary’s main mode of attack has been Wine Library TV, his daily video blog, where he tastes wine and rates it “live”. Even though he has personal relationships with most if not all of the vineyards that have their wine in his store, Gary does not hold back with his criticisms nor his accolades. His honesty, charisma, and passion for wine has made his video blog one of the top video blogs on the Internet and certainly the number one vlog for wine!

Cork’d, the brain-child of Dan Benjamin and Dan Cederholm, is a social network centered on keeping a wine journal and creating a list of wines you’d like to try based on what you’re friends have had. Cork’d is well built, beautifully designed, and bustling with active fans of wine.

For all of the above reasons – the merging of Gary Vaynerchuk’s empire with Cork’d is synergy++.

So now that you’re all caught up to speed, I thought I’d ask Gary a few questions about his acquisition of Cork’d and what it will mean for his current WLTV audience (of which I’ve been a member of since the very beginning).

When did you first discover Cork’d and when did you get interested it in as a property for Wine Library?

Gary: “Last May and last May! LOL. I knew this was it, I have been dreaming of launching a name I own, ratingwines.com, for 6 years (look it up) and when i saw Cork’d my dreams were dashed ”

I thought it was interesting that Gary knew he wanted to do something like Cork’d from the very beginning. This alone shows his dedication to his mantra or “changing the wine world”. Obviously the entire industry has been geared more towards paying attention to only a select few for wine ratings. Now, using Cork’d, one can see the consensus of the entire community rather than just one person using one rating system.

To show a little history here, Dan Benjamin shows that Wine Library was the longest running sponsor for Cork’d, which shows that Gary was always in the prime position to tap into this community and that Gary was always trying to help Cork’d become the best it possibly can be:

“One of our longest running advertisers was Wine Library TV, Gary Vaynerchuk’s excellent wine videocast. Each month, Gary would call us and buy out the top-spot in the Cork’d sidebar. Behind the scenes, he was always talking about partnering with us, coming up with ways we could enhance Cork’d, tie us in to his huge database of wines and wine labels – he really wanted to see Cork’d succeed.” — [source]

It is this dedication to helping something that he didn’t even own at the time that shows that Cork’d is in great hands going forward.

The synergy between Wine Library, Wine Library TV, your wine label service, and Cork’d are obvious! How long before we start to see all of these services mashed together, and what do you think the first thing to be integrated will be?

I’m a Vayniac – at Seneca Lake, NY
Get your shirt!

Gary: “Very soon! Give us 30-45 days to start wowing you!”

I’ve already seen and spoke to the WLTV crew about a few of the things they are working on. Obviously, being Viddler‘s Community Evangelist, I was interested to know how each episode of Wine Library TV (down to tasting each wine) would fit into this deal. Look for some pretty cool tie ins between Wine Library TV, Cork’d, and Viddler’s “linking to any moment” technology. However, as a “Vayniac”, I’m even more excited about having access to Gary’s tastings across this entire network of sites.

What part of this entire deal has you the most excited? I know for me its being able to watch the video of you tasting a wine that I may have had right from the Cork’d site. What about you?

Gary: “The fact that people can share and enjoy each other. Cork’d has given the infrastructure needed to create the wine community I dream of. I can’t wait to see wines have 100 reviews on them each, that will be fun!”

This also supports his mantra. At the end of each show, Gary emphasizes “You, with a little bit of me, we’re changing the wine world. Aren’t we?” Well now more than ever Gary is trying to put that power into the hands of the community rather than himself. Sure he’s the ring leader (and a very good one at that) but now all of us have the ability to say what we think about the wine’s we’re tasting and actually have it matter instead of falling on deaf ears.

You’ve got a ton of loyal Vayniacs that use the WineLibrary TV forums right now. Are all of us Vayniacs going to have to sign up to Cork’d and manage both accounts, or will you try to tie those two systems together somehow?

Gary: “I think the Vayniacs and everyone else will see the use. We will have a function that allows people to post a review on Cork’d and allow that review to go right to the WL Forum’s tasting notes, making it a whole 360 experience. My hope is people will see the huge value in using Cork’d though since it will also cellar your wines, keep a wish list, ect.”

The Cork’d blog (currently going through some DNS issues) has been silent for awhile, and never really took off. Do you see this as having more potential than just a random post every now and then? Do you have any plans for the Cork’d blog? I know you have a wine related blog already – can they be tied together somehow or will they remain separate?

Gary: “Not sure on this front but I think this is Cork’d's voice and it needs to be talkative. We mostly want to share thoughts and interact, I’m sure we will explore all possibilities.”

I’m a big proponent of blogging so I hope to see some of Cork’d's future plans, updates, and community efforts verbalized through their blog and on WLTV.

What will the JETS record be this year now that you’ve gone to the draft?

Gary: “16-0 with an easy win over the EAGLES;) honestly the 1st 2 games are brutal but a 10-6 is possible for sure!”

I’m pretty sure that jab is directed at Chris but I’ll let him respond.

Thanks for taking the time to answer a few questions Gary. Personally I look forward to the developments that are sure to come in the near future to tie all of these great things together and really help us change the wine world one day at a time.

Additional coverage

There has been a pretty good amount of coverage since this acquisition was announced. Dan Cederholm and Dan Benjamin both wrote some really great background on the entire deal. Read Cederholm’s post and Benjamin’s post on their personal blogs. CenterNetworks was the first to get wind of this deal, but without having all the specifics they covered only the redesign of Wine Library TV’s main site. I’m thinking that someone over there is definitely doing their job. Mashable covered the actual deal but failed to get into many specifics and even got a few of their facts wrong. I think it is interesting to see, when you have inside knowledge of a “deal”, just how accurate some of these stories are (or are not). All in all I think the best coverage comes from those that keep their ear to the ground, are willing to ask for information before they post it, and strive to get every fact straight before they are willing to publish.

Update: Here is a photo of Gary wearing a Viddler shirt on Digg Nation.

[slug]interview-gary-vaynerchuk[/slug]

Oh, but if you do share this video – let me know where you did. No wait, don’t share it – bad idea.

[tags]hd-dvd, video, colin devroe, donotshare[/tags]
[slug]dont-share[/slug]

Boy am I glad that we waited until the Web 2.0 Expo to do this, since Viddler launched version 2.0 only a day or so before Eddie and I sat down to record an episode of Lunch Meet. This meant I was able to show off Viddler’s latest features instead of just talking about them.

Eddie is one heckuva nice guy and really shows Viddler off well. We had some horrible wi-fi while in the Moscone Center, and we encountered a few bugs and mishaps due to that bandwidth problem, but Eddie did a fantastic job to show off Viddler in its best light. Since this interview there have been numerous bug fixes going on at Viddler (which I’ll note soon enough).

Thanks Eddie and the entire Podtech team for treating us so well. Comments welcome.

Here is a list of the videos I’ve found so far… but there will be others on Viddler tagged with 5things.

• Esther Lee
• Josue Salazar
• King Zach Inglis
• Lisa Hightower
• Allen Stern
• Chris Fehnel
• James Mathias
• Alex Hillman
• Matthew Oliphant
• Erin
• … and our cat Pookers

I have no doubt that there will be more, so I am not going to “tag” anyone to do one…. but just say that anyone that feels like doing one, and has the ability, please do so. Some of them have been very enlightening so far.

We talked about how I got Scobleized and Viddler. Watch the show below (if you are in a feed reader come to my site).

I spoke a bit too fast, as I have the habit of doing. I really appreciate Irina and her entire team for treating me so well. I got to see a little bit of the behind-the-scenes processes of the Podtech team and how they put together their shows. I have to say that the amount of work that they put into each show is impressive. Each and every team member deserves kudos for the roles they play in getting each show published.

Oh, and some of them are wearing Viddler shirts now.

UPDATE: Irina and friends made the front page of the San Francisco Chronicle today. Congrats everyone. Here is the article about old and new media at South by Southwest.

[tags]irina slutsky, colin devroe, viddler, podtech, the vloggies, video, vblog, sxsw, sxswi, south by southwest, austin, texas[/tags]
[slug]me-vloggies[/slug]

Chris at Ten Stone Bar – April 15, 2006

So far Eliza, Mike, and Chris are coming with me. It looks like Rob, Tom, and Marisa are definitely going. Andrea and Jason might be going. And sadly Tony G. can’t make it. Update: Happily Tony G. is able to make it!

And, it appears we’re going to have a fairly full house.

If you are in the Philadelphia area (heck I’m 2 1/2 hours away and I’m still going) and you’d like to meetup with some great people to discuss WordPress, blogging, Viddler, or just sit back and enjoy a beer – sign up to the meetup and we’ll see you there.

Note: You can add this event to your calendar program of choice since this post is marked up using hCalendar. Enjoy.

Note addendum: It appears that the above link won’t work for Outlook users? Not sure why – probably because Outlook sucks?

[tags]philadelphia, meetup, webloggers, blogging, wordpress, event, pennsylvania, viddler, rob sandie, chris fehnel, mike stickel, colin devroe, eliza devroe, tom kim, marisa mcclellan, andrea, jason santa maria, tony green, microformats, hcalendar[/tags]
[slug]meetup-021706[/slug]

Here is a short video tour of my current office setup. It consists of a Macbook, a Dell 21-inch widescreen monitor, some external hard drives, and a few iPods all on a desk from IKEA. I’ve also got my art desk (which I need to use much more often than I am currently). And don’t forget, my new office used to be filled with blue elephants.

If you can’t do video – perhaps you can take a few snapshots and post those. Whatever works best!

[tags]office, desk, ikea, viddler, 9rules, video, tour, macintosh, apple, macbook, dell, monitor, ipod, external hard drive, watercolor, art, colin devroe[/tags]
[slug]office-tour-video[/slug]

9:30am – Woke up around 6, left at around 7:30, arrived at Viddler HQ – hit up Starbucks for Rob to get his “fix”, and now we’re at the office.

The first order of business? Update the featured videos on the explore page for the week. These videos are hand picked by internal staff so if you see a video highlighted there, you know we all really like the video and the use of Viddler.

10:00am – Donna just got here and now it is time to go through some community strategy.

10:09am – Before we head off to the conference room, maybe any of you could leave some suggestions.

12:37pm – Great strategy meeting. Hopefully some of the ideas we generated during it will be put into play pretty soon. Exciting things not only for Viddler but anyone that wishes to promote their video online.

Rob, Donna, and I at the Viddler HQ

1:09pm – Rob just ordered some lunch (I’m starving). I’m getting a “huge salad”.

Donna is sitting next to me on a brand new HP laptop running Vista. Donna is no slouch when it comes to computers and she’s spent about 30-minutes trying to get a printer running. I think Vista is showing its true colors for sure right now.

Maybe I can get the Viddler team, since Andrew and I are already running Mac OS X, to switch? Oh wait, Rob needs the nipple (more on this later).

Be sure to check out the new featured header I created for this post.

2:26pm – Lunch was good! I’m actually really full. Now back to writing today’s blog post!

4:09pm – Finished today’s featured videos blog entry (look for it on the blog after it is reviewed). I can’t wait to be able to create those types of posts much quicker with some of the tools I envision…. more on this later.

For now, enjoy a photo we got right before lunch. It is the serious version of the one you see in the new header promoting this post.

5:06pm – The featured video post for this week has been published. It is nice to have all of the featured videos in one location to quickly flip between them.

5:36pm – I’m on my way home. Good day.

[tags]viddler, bethlehem, pennsylvania, live, video, photos, windows vista, donna demarco, colin devroe, rob sandie[/tags]
[slug]live-viddlerhq-again[/slug]

Well I was digging through some video and I found the video that Eliza had taken while I took these photos of the lightning. Although the majority of the video is a simple black screen with Eliza and I having a very uninteresting conversation – I find it a nice video to see how we ended up getting those lightning photos.

If you are reading this in some type of feed-reader, be sure to come to the site to read this post so you too can watch the video.

What I thought was really interesting, after having uploaded this video to Viddler and tagging it with lightning each time a bolt shot across the screen, was that we technically gave ourselves a “graph” of sorts to show the frequency of lightning over the 10-minute period of the video. If you look at the timeline of the video each black dot on the timeline represents a bolt of lightning. Pretty cool if you are a geek like me. This was an unexpected result but a welcomed one.

Hope you enjoy this video and the photos. Thanks for recording it Eliza.

[tags]lightning, video, viddler, weather, storm, thunder, bolt, colin devroe, eliza devroe, photos[/tags]
[slug]lightning-video[/slug]

But why did I wait so long? Because almost every user of MySpace seems to be a self-indulged teenager (or a 40-year old pervert pretending to be the same) that sits on MySpace all day and edits their profile to include audio from the top 40, flash animations of butterfly tattoos, and graphics that literally crash your computer when you load the page. It seemed completely and utterly valueless to spend any amount of time on MySpace.

But once you force yourself to get beyond that, there is a “valuable” service underlying in there somewhere. In amongst the error-ridden web site is a service that actually helps you to connect with people you wouldn’t have otherwise. Popularity wins in this case because finding the people I went to High School with is pretty much impossible without MySpace. In fact, 90% of them don’t even put their real names on MySpace so unless they provided a photo I still wouldn’t have found them.

So, I now have a profile. You can add me as a friend but I’m only accepting friends whom I’ve actually met in real life.

This will probably be the first, and last, post I do about MySpace. Similar to the first, and last, post that I wrote on my MySpace blog. Now if I could just find the latest Britney Spears song to add to my profile…

[tags]myspace, profile, colin devroe, britney spears[/tags]
[slug]my-myspace[/slug]

At the scenic overlook Carbondale, Pa

Eliza and I had our first “photo day” today. We’ve been meaning to do this for quite awhile but we’ve not been able to find the time until today. Oh, and the fact that the temperature hit 66-degrees fahrenheit didn’t hurt either.

One of my favorite things is having a great time while not spending a dime. Eliza and I really like taking and having tons of photos, so doing something like this is far overdue I think. After we get a few of these photo days under our belt I’m sure we’ll have some great photos to make some neat projects out of.

We managed to collect a little over 100 really nice photographs and had a blast doing it. Here are a few photos we took – and let me tell you it was extremely hard to narrow it down to just these to show. We traveled through many different towns and stopped in three or four to take photos – I tried to pick a few photos from each of the spots we stopped at.

Tree @ overlook

Thin branches

Windmills

Windmill

Crystal Lake

Burned building

Me shootin'

Melted glass

Cool tree

Mountain

We were going to give each other photo “assignments” where we focus on one type of thing like flowers or animals, but in retrospect I think simply driving to different locations and seeing what we come up with works much better. I look forward to our next photo day.