If you couldn’t attend MagicRuby in Orlando, Florida you can view some short and sweet video interviews with some of the attendees and speakers over on Viddler.

We’ve set up a special page on Viddler just for Magic Ruby to help let people know some of the things we’re already doing with the Ruby community. We hope to learn a little about Ruby, to let attendees know about Viddler, and to enjoy the weather.

Viddler’s offerings to developers aren’t limited to only Ruby. We’ve got a fantastic API that has been recently overhauled and wrappers for just about every language. We power some of the biggest brands online and our platform has been used to power web sites, applications, iPhone and iPad applications and much more. I personally hope to help Viddler grow in this area in 2011.

If you’re a developer and ever have any video needs – consider using Viddler for your next project.

I’m happy to announce that I’ll be speaking at LessConf in Jacksonville, Fla. on October 17th. The title for my talk is still tentative but the main subject will be about how startups should measure success.

I have a lot to say about how startups measure success in a global market like the Internet. Too many times I’ve seen startups that try to compare themselves to companies much larger than themselves because they are building similar products. The Internet has shrunk the world to such a degree that unfair comparisons are drawn every day. I will be ranting about that and how I think that start ups should focus on themselves rather than the rest of the world when they are measuring the success of their products and business. I’m really looking forward to this opportunity and I hope that everyone in attendance is interested in this too.

Although the above is true I was really sucked into taking the opportunity to speak at LessConf because the Web site for the event sports random Star Wars characters and Thor on a chariot with an electric guitar. I mean, dude.

Thanks to the generosity of Allan and Steve I’ll be giving away two tickets to the event on my blog next week so if you’re interested in going to LessConf stay tuned for that giveaway. (It will have to do with video.)

Podcamp Philly opened my eyes to a completely different way to help grow Viddler’s community in new directions, and to help me do my job better. Solve the problems of the community you want.

We’ve got an incredible community on Viddler. Loyal, active, bright, and fun people that are willing to help us through our growing pains, partially because we strive to fulfill their requests as we move forward. Listening to and acting on requests is vital to growing a strong and sustainable community.

But what if we’d like to also attract a completely different Viddler? How do you branch out from your core community into a different community? Some may say education is key. Going out and educating ‘that other community’ about your product. This is true, but only partially true. The main strategy should be to strive to help the new community as much as you’ve helped your core community. Figure out the main problems of the new community and adjust to meet their needs.

The typical active Viddler is someone that enjoys conversation and actively participating in community activities. This is a great community to start off with. This will mean that as new ones join the community, it won’t seem inactive, stale, or unwelcoming. But rather they will be immediately accepted as though they’d been there all along.

The typical podcaster is not one of these people. More often than not they are community leaders themselves. They have an audience that they speak and interact with. In order to help podcasters you really need to either become one yourself, or immerse yourself into an event like Podcamp Philly, to really see the daily challenges these producers face. Don’t just speak to this new community, listen to them when they speak. And that is what I tried to do at Podcamp Philly; listen.

“Who is new to Podcasting?” (credit: CC Chapman)

Here are two main points I took away from Podcamp. Neither of these things where revelations to me but both were definitely solidified in my mind as very important points to remember.

1. Even though our technology for “citizen journalism” (or podcasting and videocasting) has improved 100-fold in only a few years, we are still very far away from making this as easy as it could be. Producers, editors, and everyone else involved with creating a really great podcast has a huge learning curve ahead of them when they are first starting out. Once they get rolling they face many daily challenges. They are constantly changing strategies until they find the perfect mix to get their “show” out and into your hands. Once they find that perfect mix they generally stick with what works. This all takes a lot of time and their time is valueable.
2. Most video podcasters do what they do because they love doing it. If your service inhibits that passion in any way, you lose. Sure, a few podcasters are now making a living with their podcast, this doesn’t mean its all business. Podcasters may put up with crappy service to earn a living for a time, but in the long run they’ll end up finding a better way. Be that better way.

I really enjoyed myself at Podcamp Philly. I’m happy that Viddler had the privilege of being one of the sponsors so that everyone in attendence could get all of this information for free. The more people that know how to do a podcast well, the more podcasts we’ll see, plain and simple. I’m looking forward to other Podcamp events in the future (there is one in Boston I might make it to). And I’m really looking forward to next year, when everyone in Philadelphia has had an entire year to learn, grow, and teach even more people about this wonderful world of self-publishing.

Oh, and the parties were great too.

Cira Center – Philadelphia, PA – Circa April 2006

This Wednesday evening through Friday evening I’ll be in Philadelphia attending Blog Philadelphia. I’m looking forward to this conference for many reasons – the first of which is because it is in my home state!

The schedule looks promising with there being plenty of time for some great sessions to occur. Its like an unconference with some guidelines, definitely something up my alley.

The sessions I’m looking forward to most include my friend Alex Hillman‘s “Being Independent Doesn’t Mean Working Alone” which should focus on his coworking efforts in Philadelphia. Another friend of mine, Scott McNulty, will be leading a few sessions about “How to deal with negative comments” and “Blogging: Is it better in groups” about his experiences at TUAW. Can’t wait to see these guys in action!

If you are going to be in Philadelphia later in the week and would like to meet up, leave me a comment or email me. Hopefully I will find enough time to meet with everyone who has told me they’ll be around so far. See you in Philly!

Thursday, March 8th

12:33pm – In preparation of the trip from the northeast, to south by southwest (fittingly) – I picked up some shorts and got my hair did (photo). I managed to get these two tasks done fairly quickly and get back to my office for a few “last minute” things that I need to get done before we set sail.

Right now I’m waiting on the WineLibrary TV crew to get their latest episode completed. I’m helping them integrate their show with Viddler‘s system so that they get the most benefit out of it. Yesterday’s show was a huge success and today we’re hoping to add even a little more value for the Vayniacs.

People are really coming around with how Viddler works in situations like this. I think WineLibrary TV’s episodes are the perfect candidate for Viddler’s technology. Check out this comment.

“Man, after being a naysayer yesterday, I have to say that these new tags are awesome, and I’m now a total convert!” — Kent I

As this service matures, I think many people will start to enjoy interacting with their video in this manner. Stay tuned – because today’s episode should have a few new features that I think their audience is going to love.

2:35pm – I think it is amazing how many people are going to this thing. I’ve gotten more instant messages and emails today than I have in a very long time, and most of it is about trying to get together in Austin. In one hand; exciting. In the other; overwhelming.

I’m still going over our itinerary with a fine toothed comb. I have a lot of friends that are speaking on panels, and it’d be really nice to see all of them on stage, but I doubt I’ll get to see anyone since they are mostly there for “Web dev stuff” and my primary focus will be on Internet video while I am there. Well, back to the calendar.

4:20pm – I had the privilege of helping to prepare WineLibrary TV Episode #196 using some new Viddler features. Things went really smoothly and so far it seems that their audience really enjoys it.

Now I’m packing my suitcase, going to see if I can get a small nap in this afternoon before I pack up all of my “technology stuff”. I have to leave at 4:00am..

10:51pm – Just packing up my “tech stuff”. Heading to New Jersey in 5 hours or so to catch a jet plane to Austin, TX. My next update will probably be from an airport or something.

Friday, March 9th

11:02am – On Continental Airlines Flight 350 at 34,000 feet: Our ride this morning was, well, interesting. I was supposed to be the navigator for Mike and I to get to Viddler HQ, pick up Rob, and head to Newark, NJ to catch our flight.

Mike and I got to talking and I managed to allow us to pass a few exits, a few times, so we did a lot of U-turning. Then, after we finally met up with Rob – we were on our way to Newark International Airport and Rob forgot his wallet. Another U-turn.

Morgan Spurlock and I
Newark, New Jersey

We finally made it to the airport, all of us having to pee like crazy, and managed to get on Mike’s flight (we were on standby for this flight). Mike is about five rows behind me right now, looking at some girl in a rather inappropriate way probably, and Rob is next to me (photo). Next to Rob is a nice guy named Jeremy who is also heading to South by Southwest with Morgan Spurlock (of SuperSize Me fame), who I had a chance to meet and have a short chat with. (I will upload a photo once I dump my cameras contents).

James Bond: Casino Royale is currently playing on the screen as I am listening to Dan Benjamin interview Cindy Li on the latest Hivelogic Radio. I’m going to finish listening to Hivelogic Radio before I move onto watching the latest episode of Heroes that I downloaded before I left.

4:38pm – @ SXSW – 2nd floor: – Just got registered. Going to see if we can fit in a panel here at the convention center. The first panel we wanted to see is at a different place.

6:14pm – From the back of Austin Cab 451: – Rob and I are in Best Buy parking lot, in the back of a cab. We just bought some things we needed for the HD camera (since we now have a press pass), and we want to be able to tape some of the panels we’re attending.

I was twittering with Chris Messina and I saw him and Tara sitting at a table. If it wasn’t for them I would have never figured out that there was “big bags” to get full of cool trinkets. Most of them are purely marketing material, but that’s cool. There was piles of papers that people threw out of the bags onto the tables.

I just met up with David Seah just before leaving the convention center. I did an interview with him while he was trying to put together some legos. Video coming soon.

9:21pm – At the Double Tree Room 609: – Just got back to the hotel after eating at The Boiling Pot on 6th. Very cool place, nice and spicey. Alex, Rob, and I ate crawfish, potatoes, corn, and other stuff that was spilled out all over the table. Sound familiar Eliza?

Now we’re trying to get our Internet connections working. Here are some photos that I took today.

Rob and I in Taxi

Rob and I in Line

David Seah

The Capital Building

Wanna ride?

Our food

Poor guy

Friday, March 9th Gallery

I have some more photos, but I’m only going to do a few a day until I can get home and have the time to go through them all.

Saturday, March 10th

8:43am – At the Double Tree Room 609: – Woke up fairly refreshed this morning. Definitely need some breakfast and a coffee before heading to SXSW. Anyone having breakfast anywhere?

10:15am – @ SXSW 2nd floor – Room 12AB: – In the Video is worth more than 1,000 words panel. Going over some of the trends, some of the history, and some of the future of social video.

11:13am – @ SXSW 2nd floor – on the floor: – Panel is over. Met Chris from Adobe. Still can just barely get the internet. Port 80 sucks.

11:56am – @ SXSW 2nd floor – Room 19AB with Jeremy Keith and Andy Budd: – Just published my interview with David Seah on the Viddler blog.

7:10pm – @ Logan’s on the Sixth: – Ate some dinner, talked to my brother-in-law on video chat for the first time. Having a Logan’s Lemonade, very good. More video on Viddler coming soon! Stayed tuned.

8:05pm – @ Double Tree, 15th Street, Room 609: – Dumping photos, video to our hard drives. Checking a few things, getting a shower, short nap – then off to see the Ze Frank + BuzzFeed party, then to the Virb party till 4am supposedly? Should be fun, we’ll shoot video.

9:15pm – @ Double Tree, 15th Street, Room 609: – Just posted our Saturday lunch update, and our Saturday night update to our Viddler blog. Here are some photos from today.

Alex

Chris and Rob

Shawn Grimes

Jonathan Snook

Matt Mullenweg

Greg Storey, Paul Nixon

Anton Peck

Lunch update

Nathan Smith

Erik Sagen

Tag, You’re It

Overlooking Austin

Mike Stickel

“Niero” Gonzalez

Free beer w/ Zach

MeToday

Saturday, March 10th, Gallery

4:14am – @ Double Tree, 15th Street, Room 609, after the Ze Frank party: – Ze Frank, BuzzFeed and another company threw a party at the Molotov Lounge. It was pretty good, Ze did a funny bit on airplane safety (which will be on Viddler later). Then there was free drinks for a few hours. Thanks to all the sponsors, it was a cool place to hang for a bit.

Here are some photos of the people I met at Ze’s little bash.

Bill Streeter

John Gruber

Irina Slutsky

Ze Frank

Jeremy Keith

Mike Stickel

Shaun Inman

Adam Michela

Peter Flaschner

Garret Murray

Ze’s Party Gallery

It was really great to finally meet everyone. It kinda makes me wish we all could do this every month if for no other reason than to bounce ideas off one another and chat about the stuff we love. The world is such a small place, thanks to the Internet, yet it remains so large that I feel as if I am going to lose “contact” with everyone the moment I leave South by Southwest. We’ll see…. I guess I can still Twitter spam for Adam.

Sunday, March 11th

10:58am – @ Double Tree, 15th Street, Room 609: – Stayed up until 7am playing around with something “special”. Alex and I will put some polish on it today/tonight and release it. It is the culmination of the brain power of myself, Rob Sandie, Adam Michela, Peter Flaschner, and several other contributors. Should be fun.

Now I have to get over to the conference center so that I can show up fashionably late to the second panel of the day after finding some coffee and a muffin or something.

1:14pm – @ PF Chang’s for lunch: – Spent most of the morning getting things prepared for the rest of the day. Had a great discussion with Molly about some of the stuff she’s able to accomplish with Microsoft, I definitely wish her all the best with everything professional and otherwise.

Now we’re eating and planning the rest of our day.

4:50pm – @ SXSW Ballroom F: – Waiting for the next panel to start, so I might as well fill you in. (I won’t have time for many links or photos so I will update this from the hotel later). I finally was able to meet up with Irina Slutsky to do The Vloggies Show (which is a new show she is doing so be sure to stay tuned as it will air this week). Spoke to a guy from Microsoft about Expression Web… he said there was a lot of things going on in the pipe and that the initial release is only the beginning. Being an ex-Frontpage 98 user, I hope they are able to build something that is relatively solid for their audience.

Allen Stern of CenterNetworks.com asked what the little black guy was in the big bag you get here at South by Southwest. I figured it out. If you go to the exhibit hall, find Vital Stream’s booth, you can throw it at a dart-like board and win a shirt. I got a bulls-eye on the first try and won a shirt.

We only were able to attend one or two panels so far today, and hopefully tonight we’ll be able to see Morgan Spurlocks doc “What would Jesus Buy”.

11:28pm – @ Hilton Lobby: – Just had a nice conversation with Irina and two guys that did not give me their cards because they had run out of them (if you are reading this, email me your contact information). Talking about ad networks and how to display ads based on content within a video on Viddler rather than just the content on the page. Pretty cool stuff.

We’re sending all of our HD video that we’ve captured to a professional video editor, so I am excited to get all of that back and have it up on the Viddler blog soon enough. If anyone would like to do an interview, or has not signed my shirt, please grab me. I’m hoping to have content being published regularly over the next few weeks.

Monday, March 12th

3:00am – @ Double Tree, Room 609: – After hanging in the Hilton’s lobby for a few hours I heard through Twitter that the 9rules crew was hanging out in the bar. I ran over, had a drink with Molly (thanks for the shot Molly), Paul Scrivens, Mike Rundle, and Mike’s fiancé Eleni.

Back to work though as we headed for our hotel and I featured a video that was taken during one of the panels here. Rob and I managed to record many of the panels we went to, and we’re hoping to get that video up slowly over the next few days. We have someone helping us with that too, which is great – because Rob and I are stretched pretty thin.

Even though I am starving, I am going to head to bed and see if I can’t get up on time tomorrow.

10:22am – @ Double Tree, Room 609: – Awake. Slept in a little, somehow our wake-up call never happened. Today will be another busy day. I didn’t have the chance, nor the energy, to go through all of my photos from yesterday and get them posted, but I will try to do that if there is any downtime during the day.

Remember, if I “know” you, but I have not met you yet, please make it a point to run over to me. I’d like to meet everyone at this opportunity. I’ll be the blonde guy in the Viddler tshirt.

2:46pm – @ SXSW Room 12AB: – Just ate lunch at the Spaghetti Warehouse for a discussion about OpenID. Very interesting stuff and I am definitely going to recommend that Viddler make it part of their development roadmap. For anyone that has not looked into OpenID be sure to do so, especially if you’d like to be prepared for the future of online, cross service, authentication.

On my way back from the lunch, I saw Paul Nixon running and we both said I should have been running with him. Damn him and his Nike+ package and the motivation to run while in the Texas heat.

Right now I’m in an interesting panel about whether or not User Generated video is considered film or not. Sounds really niche, and it definitely is, but it is also incredibly interesting as a discussion topic – and I never ever thought it would be.

Tuesday, March 13th

Robert Scoble

10:33am – @ Double Tree, Room 609: – Good morning! Sorry that I haven’t updated since early afternoon yesterday but things went a little hectic there. After watching Luke W‘s panel on the various interface libraries (which was absolutely packed and should have been much longer), I needed to be outside in front of the convention center to go to The Salt Lick, which is a BBQ pit about 45 minutes outside of Austin, with Robert Scoble, Chris Aarons, Sarah Beck, and Patrick Nichols of AMD, an extremely nice gentlemen from AT&T’s Web department, and Jim Posner from IBM who was in Apocolpse Now (more on all of this later).

After that I headed to the Great British Booze up, which was just about ending at the time. I hooked up with the entire Forty Media crew (there is a lot of them), and went to the next party where I ended up spending most of my time talking to Larry Halff about all things Ma.gnolia and Ruby on Rails. It was a great discussion and having never used Ma.gnolia – I can say that it seems like a service I should have been using for years. I’m going to give it a try the moment I can find some free time with wifi (aka: when I get home).

So now I gotta hop in the shower because Rob and I are going to do a Lunch Meet.

2:03pm – @ In the Hilton Ballroom, 6th Floor, for Will Wright’s keynote: – Our lunch meet got postponed by a few hours. Hard to get everyone in one place at the same time. So Rob and I are recording the Will Wright keynote. I am definitely looking forward to seeing a demo of Spore.

Tuesday, March 14th

10:44am – @ Double Tree, Room 609: – The demo of SPORE was really awesome. Will Wright’s keynote alone was very good, but the demo just tops it off that Will actually does what he feels.

I have a ton to more write about. I’ve kept this “live blog” as up-to-date as I could considering the circumstances with time, internet connectivity, etc. So instead of writing a huge wrap up to what is already one of my longest posts ever, I will be writing single entries that highlight very specific panels, discussions, lunches, and parties after I get back home to Pennsylvania.

As a short overview of what happened since yesterday’s keynote – We recorded one or two more panels, went to Logan’s again for dinner, then hit up the VIP at the Media Temple party.

After that it was a bunch of sad goodbyes, as most of us know that we’ll only be in contact virtually for awhile… but overall the experience was good.

Thanks to all that kept up with me over the conference. Those that came over to say hi, those that signed my shirt, those whom I met for the very first time, and those that I will be friends with for a long time to come.

Sorry to any of you that were looking for me, or didn’t have a chance to talk to me for whatever reason… send me an email and maybe we’ll get together sometime.

Stay subscribed, a ton of stuff to come.

[tags]sxsw, austin, texas, pennsylvania, new jersey, travel, conference, festival, live, winelibrary tv, viddler, photos, video, robert sandie, alex hillman, rob sandie, john gruber, shaun inman, ze frank, adam michela, mike stickel, ma.gnolia, larry halff, openid, the salt lick, bbq, robert scoble, amd, chris aarons, Bill Steeter, Irina Slutsky, Jeremy Keith, Peter Flaschner, Garrett Murray[/tags]
[slug]live-sxsw07[/slug]

Rob and I – February 2007
Look us up in Austin!

Having never attended SXSW I’m looking forward to seeing what all the hubbub is about. I’m also looking forward to some of the things we’ll (Rob and I) be putting together in Austin.

We’re going to be doing interviews of all sorts of folks asking them pretty standard questions that will hopefully give us a pretty good feel for the way people are currently creating, distributing, and consuming video on a daily basis. I’ve been scouring the Internet for the past few weeks lining up interviews with as wide a range of people as I could manage. So far I’ve lined up a few interviews for each day that I will be there, and I’m hoping to fill in the gaps by simply pulling people aside for the short two or three-minute interview.

If you are going to SXSW and you either 1) have a blog 2) run a community site or 3) have a video blog – please get in touch with me as soon as you can. Oh, and if you are an Internet video junky (and don’t do any of the above three things) you can contact me too. You can send me an email or just comment on this post. Oh, and if you want a free tshirt, head over to our Viddler blog to see the announcement post. I also heard something about free beer from Rob – but you’ll have to pry pretty deep to find out how.

Rob and I are going to try to attend a few of the events, after parties, and sessions that are going on during the festival. One of the biggest challenges for me during planning our stay is trying to figure out where and when to be. Very difficult, especially having never gone before. Our hope is to get to see as many people as possible that deal with video on the Web. Any hints, tips, or tricks would certainly be appreciated.

All-in-all I’m looking forward to the change in pace and working environment. I’m also looking forward to meeting interesting people that are fighting in the same trenches as we do everyday. However, if my past experiences with “working conferences” tells me anything – I’m going to come home exhausted.

See you in Austin!

[tags]austin, texas, conference, festival, south by southwest, sxsw, robert sandie, interviews, viddler, video[/tags]
[slug]going-to-sxsw-2007[/slug]