Shared Creation Projects

Ok things have been a bit quiet on Projects recently. I apologize for any inconvenience. To make up for this here are few thoughts on the nature of broadcast.

I cannot help to see the rise of personal broadcast. These thoughts have been brought on by a culmination of experiences. I think these are important and I hope you find these interesting.

I’ve been experimenting with Twitter. I’ve not really experienced anything like Twitter before. It’s part blog, part instant communication and part social network. It enables a stream of consciousness to reach the world, and for immediate crowd sourcing. It is a subtle and powerful tool. One that enables its user to make friends, support friends, and broadcast to like minded strangers. I’ve recently heard it mentioned that the next big thing on the Internet is the conversation. If my experience with Twitter is anything to go by then this is true. Twitter is also cheap to use. The minimal requirement is a mobile phone (you can broadcast by SMS), although it is at it’s best with a basic PC. PCs are now so cheap that some ISP’s are giving them away to encourage custom.

My next thoughts come from how cheap it is to set up a basic to web TV station. I’m not talking about the new cool stations emerging like Channel Flip or Joost or even the familiar fun and games on YouTube. I’m talking about individuals or community groups. You see I’ve recently been working with a community that over a few months has been teaching people to use PCs and video camera’s to create local content. The equipment bought has been cheap and from the consumer end of things. Literally a few thousand pounds - and that’s to equip 3 workstations and 2 cameramen. The people have all joined the project to learn how to use PC’s,Video Camera’s and to make films. Yet their quality of output slowly gains quality and tells me that using facilities such as YouTube and Blip TV it is now possible to for any community to broadcast to itself and the world. You can see the early output of the group I’ve been working with here.

Finally I must mention a very special broadcaster,  one from whom an awful lot can be learnt. His name is Leo Laporte. His main website (one of many) is here. I’ll refer to him as Leo for short. Leo is an established technology journalist and pundit in the USA. I first became aware of Leo about 3 years ago listening to technology podcasts. However this was only a warm-up. His latest enterprise is outstanding. Leo is sitting in a studio, creating content, and talking to the world via a variety of Internet based broadcast means. Leo is now not a just a man - he is a combined on demand TV and Radio station. If you’d like to see this in action then click here.

These three factors - the ease of mass broadcast, the ability of anyone to create video content and the rise of the one man broadcast network all validate this thought - that we are living on the verge of the individual and the community becoming increasingly important. That for me sounds like the rise of the story-tellers and bards of ancient times. It feels to me as if a circle is being completed and something outstanding will rise from it.

I’ll continue - as I have been to talk about this and to do what I can to help people get creative - by sharing experiences and information.

Tags: Leo, Laporte, Broadcast, Web, Community, Internet, Personal, Channel, Flip, YouTube, Joost, Twitter