“Democracy” Is Dead -- Long Live Miro

The Democracy Player has been relaunched today as Miro by the Participatory Culture Foundation.



Miro aims to make online video "as easy as watching TV", while at the same time ensuring that the new medium remains accessible to everyone, through its support for open standards. The open-source application combines a media player and library, content guide, video search engine, as well as podcast and BitTorrent clients. But why the name change?

According to last100, which has published a full review and guide to Miro:

"When Democracy Player launched back in February 2006, the feedback received was that the name evoked different, yet equally negative responses. For many Americans it conjured up an image of yet another left wing media project, and to the rest of the world it was, rather bizarrely, being associated with the policies of the Bush administration. In contrast, the new name is purposely abstract."

Abstract? I guess in a sense the world famous Catalan painter, Miro’s style could be called abstract, since his paintings were surrealist. Little wonder, since Miró repeatedly expressed contempt for conventional painting methods and his desire to "kill", "murder", or "rape" them in favor of more contemporary means of expression.

In a sense they are right: iTV is as contemporary as it gets....

LiveRail for Video Publishers

LiveRail is a unique online video distribution and ad-platform that aims to give power back to aspiring video publishers like us.

As an online video publisher, you face two key challenges. The first is how to monetize your content; the second is how to distribute it without signing away your copyrights or spending a fortune on bandwidth.

LiveRail takes a new approach to solve both these problems. By publishing your content through them, your video is streamed back exclusively to your own website, covering all your bandwidth costs, along with highly targeted, relevant and unobtrusive advertising, that your viewers only need to watch when it interests them.

We've applied as a publisher, to determine how it compares to a similar offering from AdBrite. They are our current video ad provider. This is what "You Know How To Love," a song video produced by me looks like and how it works in their Flash player:





Sloowwwwwwwww!!!

Versus the same ad on LiveRail:





... doesn't show at all in this Blogger page, even after tweaking the embed code three different ways. Works in our WordPad edition, though!

Cybercast credit: iTV 21

The Best vLog Directory Master in Town

Yes, vLog means video log/blog. And yes we have found the BEST directory master in town: "Sull" Michael Sullivan.

After doing a post on vLogDir.com:



for MillionDollarWebTV and thanking him for the opportunity, we received an instant email from him.

Turns out he owns MillionDollarVideopage.com too! And, since he hasn't had the time to develop it, he, truly unselfishly, put a link on it to our site.

More important to you, if you're looking for a catchy name for a video or video blog site, he has some excellent ones:




If you want to deal with someone honest and totally forthcoming, he is it!

Vod:Pod's Video Wall Widget

This widget should work on any blogging platform or social networking site that accepts flash embeds, according to the VodPod folks. Just click the “get a widget for this pod” link on your pod, (the page you set up for yourself), select the videos you want to display, pick this video wall widget, and grab the code. Here is my horizontal Pod Player, set to show the Top Rated flicks:





We set up our "pod," and added our own feed from this blog ... which showed up as "No Videos Found." Absurd - this site is full of them. So I sent an email to Mark, who'd kindly acknowledged our sign-up, asking him to look into this....

Cybercast credit: Vod:Pod

Mesmorized by Mesmo.tv?

Who comes up with these weird names???



Like many other video sharing sites, San Francisco’s Mesmo lets you collect and share videos from other video sites. Its specialty, though, is social video recommendation, to help you find new videos you’ll like. It wants to create a community on the site this way, by matching you up with similar channels and users.

They’re aiming to make a video version of Flixster or iLike, which also use recommendation filters to suggest movie and music, respectively. These engines work as follows: If you’ve tended in the past to enjoy content that your friend, Bob also enjoys, these engines will recommend you other new content that Bob is enjoying. These recommendation filters weren’t present in the first wave of popular video sites like YouTube.

To take advantage of this trend, Mesmo is also offering a Facebook application , although it’s not listed yet as one of 113 Facebook “video” applications at this time. They also claim to have around 50,000 registered users now — though it’s unclear how many are active....

Don't forget to add your own videos - you can just by entering your URLs, after registering. Which, coincidentally, didn't work for me on my Mac Safari browser. And there isn't even a "Beta" sign next to the site's logo!

I hate when people don't test for cross-platform compatibility. Negates the whole experience for me. So wrong, Mesmo!

P.S. Turns out the registration went through, but without any visual cue or message from the site you wouldn't know....

Front Page Web Video of Your Own for 10+ Years

Everyone now has the opportunity to get front page web video exposure on MillionDollarWebTV.com, for a minimum of 10 years. Promote your site, blog, MySpace, Facebook, or other social networking pages, products and services the web way: Easily and inexpensively.

Get Noticed - Stay Noticed

Creating your front-page web TV channel in a few minutes on MillionDollarWebTV.com will give you the opportunity to:

* Have guaranteed front page exposure for 10+ years
* Display an image from 100 pixels up to thousands of pixels
* Show one video or many by adding new ones and rotating them
* Profit share in proportion to your investment
* Promote your image, company, product, and service
* Drive traffic to your site, blog, social networking, and catalog pages
* Make Internet history: Be actively involved in the take-off of Internet video
* Benefit three ways: Increase your traffic and sales; also share in profits

"Crackle" by Sony Pushes Open Studio Concept

The former Grouper video site has been turned into Sony's own recruiting ground for top talent, with a new name: Crackle.

Cruisin' along and occasionally sampling the goods, I came across "The Handshake," a very well done and meaningful short animation:





Crackle has 12 branded channels for different shows, from comedy to music news, animation, etc., which contain more than 1,000 professionally-produced videos and top user-generated content, selected both by the community and the site's editorial staff.

Most important to you, they are running contests all the time. The current ones are:

* High Wire - Win a Showcase Billing at the Improv

* Shorts - Win a Pitch Meeting with Columbia Pictures

* WetPaint - Win a 2-Day Animation Lab & the Possibility of a Theatrical Release

As an amateur video producer, you could be be compensated in a variety of ways, from revenue shares to full seven-figure production deals. As a winner, your masterpiece will be "distributed" across Sony's hardware and film properties.

So, how do you become a winner? By climbing the so-called "Fame Pyramid." The top two user picks are then chosen for production deals. Sony's distribution network and 60-person ad team really pushes this open studio concept beyond anything other video startups currently offer.

Another great feature is a high-quality 16x9 HDTV ratio embeddable video player - the one you see above.

Cybercast credit: Sony Crackle