STBD / VON Interview on Geek Riot

On Sunday night, Shawn and Justine at Geek Riot invited me to talk about the STBD relaunch and my experiences at VON.

Joining us for the first hour of the show is Jeff Pulver, VON creator, who also talks about his Video on the Net Alliance and its impending battle to preserve web video from the prying eyes of the FCC.

It's a good all-around show, and features a healthy mix of STBD and VON topics. The whole enchilada clocks in around 2 hours (!), but you can stream and skim if you so desire.

VON San Jose 2007: Day One Wrap-Up

I would have updated much more throughout the day yesterday from VON, but a combination of zero laptop battery, too many people to talk to and a somewhat shaky internet connection (or Twitter support) stymied my efforts. So, a highlight reel:

- Jeff Pulver led the keynote with an interesting statement: there's no more "IP Communications" anymore. From here on out, we who create and communicate in this space are merely "Communications." The good news is, we're now legitimate. The bad news is, we're now mainstream, and we're ripe for the disruption.

- Niklas Zennstrom from Skype unveiled their plans for world domination. I'm not kidding. Within a year, Skype will be a lifestyle.

- Many interesting speakers during the pre-lunch inundation of video information. I took 7 pages of notes -- many of them future talking points, inspiration or rebuttals to what's been said thus far. Best takeaway: Todd Herman from MSN asked, "Is anyone here interested in telling NEW KINDS of stories?" It seems some folks are starting to realize that we should be able to do more than old things in new media.

- Missed the Jeff Jarvis speech because I was recharging my battery, which led to meeting Kfir Pravda, who's evidently a huge STBD fan. (I understand Jarvis ruffled traditional media feathers AND new media feathers alike, as always.) We were then joined by the affably discombobulated Scottish comedian Mark Day, who had no idea why the hell he was here. ("What I really need is for someone to build be a website...")

- Jim Kirks, Sarah Atwood and I learned about VideoEgg, which may or may not be incredibly useful as an embeddable advertising app for web video. Uncertain about its impact on our futures, we instead led a group of podcasters to local restaurant Original Joe's, where Pulver proceeded to buy about 20 of us dinner and get us all drunk. Schlomo Rabinowitz also bought 5 of us gigantic shots of Jameson, which fueled the fire.

- After-party at the Fairmont Hotel. By then, I'd switched to water. Dozens of great conversations and interesting people. Plus, more suits than you've ever seen before playing Guitar Hero...

Today: I'm breakfasting instead of catching the opening keynotes because I'm still recovering from yesterday. I speak onstage in about an hour, and I have yet to trim my 15-minute speech to the prescribed 7 minute length. Asking a hungover man not to ramble should be interesting...

More updates as my battery and availability allow.

PlugSearch 2007

What happens when you have several thousand tech people in the same building?

A) The internet moves like molasses.
B) Forget about Twitter.
C) No outlets!

My battery will shortly be dead.

Meanwhile, Mike Ambs just won the N2 $25,000 prize. See his video here.

STBD won an honorable mention -- and $1,000! Thanks, Network2!

STBD New Year's Wishes, Vol. 2

As I mentioned earlier, it wouldn't be a season of joy and giving if we didn't make a few wishes on behalf of our friends in the new media space. So, in honor of their efforts and contributions -- and generally being very cool people -- here's what we're hoping for them in 2007 (in no particular order):

STBD'S Wish List for FoSTBD 2007

10. May Brian Conley at Alive in Baghdad find the help and money he needs to bring his amazing true stories to a an ever-growing worldwide audience.
9. May Jeff Persch at PodSea and Michael Bailey at MobaSoft have a successful joint venture that pushes each of their start-ups into overdrive.
8. May Dave Mansueto and the rest of the gang at Libsyn find creative ways to capitalize upon their newly-funded growth as the web's top podcasting host - and in Pittsburgh, no less!
7. Eric Olson at Feedburner could use another successful Tech Cocktail...
6. Speaking of cocktails, the folks at Tiki Bar TV can always use more alcohol-fueled inspiration for their zany hijinks.
5. May Video on the Net's Jeff Pulver and Rocketboom's Andrew Baron find shared success as well in their new venture, which promises to make a huge ripple in the web video world.
4. May our friends in Bellevue, who run great businesses like Affogato / 517521 / ThinkTank, finally get the attention they deserve and grow Bellevue into Pittsburgh's newest "scene."
3. May Chris Brogan and David Kowarsky continue to build upon the momentum of Network2.
2. May Justine find continued success now that she's the #2 most popular entertainer on Yahoo!.
1. And, may everyone we didn't mentionn who are nonetheless doing amazing things in this space continue to have the freedom, resources and inspiration to keep changing their world (and ours), one pixel at a time.