Freyburg

I’ve been checking out Seesmic and (to a lesser extent) Disqus, and I have to say I’m not quite getting the appeal of “video conversations.” Partly that’s my own fault, since I’ve worked in broadcasting and print in one form or another for the last decade, and while I’m comfortable with feedback….I don’t really understand what the advantage is to video over regular old text comments, other than avoiding spam and actually getting to put a face to the person who you virulently disagree with. Maybe that’s the advantage…if you can see someone’s reaction, you’ll be less apt to descend into trolldom and fire off angry jeremiads to hapless commenters.

At the same time, the Internet seems to be driving people to a new level of comfort with being “on air.” I’ve never really been in that headspace, though again that could have something to do with my background in broadcasting. I’ve traditionally been a behind-the-scenes guy, whether it’s in TV or from behind a byline in a newspaper, so to put myself forward on camera has always been a difficult proposition (even though I did briefly do so on “The Lab with Leo“). Still, maybe video comments are a way to get more comfortable with the camera in a low-risk environment. It’s also early days…Twitter didn’t really prove its usefulness until a lot of people, and more to the point, a lot of people who have interesting opinions decided to jump on board. Or it could prove to be a fad and wander over into the Web 2.0 deadpile along with a bunch of other half-baked ideas. Here’s some other opinions on video commenting.

The Vancouver Sun is running a story about how local videobloggers are using the medium to drive up sales and otherwise reap profit. While I have no doubt that some new voices are being heard and in fact reaping the rewards of putting themselves out there. All very well, and Reachd is providing a valuable service by teaching people how to use video on the web, no matter how they end up using it. But the Sun seems to think that videoblogging consists of real estate agents putting their videos onto sites designed to sell house. Again, there’s nothing wrong with that as a form of expression or commerce, but blogging it ‘aint. At the very least, they could have gone to Miss 604, who has a couple of popular audio podcasts and covers Vancouver obsessively. So do Uncle Weed, Megan Cole, and myself, to name but a few. But once again the mainstream media has gleaned what it can from the surface without really delving into the excellent work being done by Vancouver bloggers and podcasters, which is a real shame.

(Full disclosure: Reachd is running a contest in conjunction with Techvibes for their next seminar, and I occasionally blog for Techvibes.)

I’ve been working as an editor on a video podcast featuring Vancouver Adobe evangalist Duane Nickull called Duane’s World. The show is all about coding, tech, music and Duane’s unique take on the world, and is hosted on Adobe TV, a central hub for shows about all things Adobe. Check it out!

It’s about damned time. Though Rogers hasn’t said much else, so we don’t know if this is the rumoured 3G model, or whether they’ll reduce their ridiculous data rates to something civilized. Since I already have an iPhone, I’m waiting to see just how much better the new phone will be…and then we’ll see.

I wrote an article for Mac|Life about the lengths we have to go to north of the border to get and use iPhones. I think Mac|Life deserves extra points for using a flappy headed South Park Canadian as the symbol of our displeasure.

In a dramatic break from politics and nerdery, here’s another video I did for Opus Hotel. Enjoy!

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The pickings are a little sparse right now (and by a little, I mean there ain’t a hell of a lot besides Corner Gas, Robson Arms and South Park to choose from) but the Canadian iTunes store finally has some television content. On the one hand most of the TV I watch is from the UK, so this doesn’t do me a hell of a lot of good, but on the other hand spending $15 for a virtual box set doesn’t look like that bad of an option compared to torrenting a show for a week. Beats cable, at any rate.

My non-Canadian readers may not be aware of it, but Canada’s media industries have long worked under the yoke of CanCon, a government policy that states TV and radio stations must play “X” amount of Canadian content if they want to play other, predominantly American, shows and music that people actually want to watch and listen to. There are several flaws in the system, not the least of which is that is if a Canadian artist becomes a huge success, like Celine Dion or Bryan Adams, their work is no longer considered “Canadian.” Actually, given the suckitude of both those artists, maybe that isn’t such a bad policy.

At any rate, Cancon regulations created a myriad number of terrible bands who would have otherwise never been heard of, and recent successes like the Montreal indie music scene have more to do with file sharing and Myspace than they do with cultural policy.

So it’s amusing to me that a bunch of Canadian artists want to regulate the internet in order to make sure online content created by Canadians doesn’t get buried under a deluge of American content. It seems like they’re fighting the last war, when scarce space on the airwaves meant there was only so much room for content to be seen. With the internet, those conditions no longer apply. Speaking as a content creator myself, I know most of my (small) fan base isn’t even in Canada, but rather in the US, England, and Australia.

Amusing, but shocking. Try to keep up, whiny Canadian artists. While you were begging for grants and throwing derisive glares at those of us who don’t make experimental tone poems on Super8 film, the world passed you by.

Canada is behind the rest of the world when it comes to both the level of cell phone technology we get to play with (no iPhone? Bah!) and our outrageously expensive data plans. So it’s nice to see that the CBC, amongst other media, is tackling the issue head-on. There’s been a bit of a groundswell of coverage of the lack of competition between different wireless carriers in Canada, and one can only hope this signals changes on the horizon.

This article in the Globe and Mail isn’t news to me, since I know a few people in the Vancouver tech community who quickly snagged iPhones from south of the border once it was released this summer. But it’s nice to see the mainstream media has caught onto Canadian dissatisfaction with both Apple’s sluggishness at bringing the iPhone up north and the atrocious data rates of Canadian wireless carriers.