Multimedia Scrapbooks, to Create and Share
By NEIL McMANUS
HANDFUL of Web users are programming their own virtual TV newscasts
and eclectic collections of video clips using a free media-sharing
tool called Webjay (www.webjay.org). The site makes it easy to build,
share and watch playlists of audio and video links culled from around
the Internet.
Webjay, developed by Lucas Gonze, a programmer who lives in
Brooklyn, has already built a following among music lovers. They have
used it to assemble sets of legally available music links from all
over the Web, then play the whole list with one click, using Windows
Media Player, RealOne, Winamp or QuickTime. Now some people are
creating video shows using Webjay and streaming Web video.
Nobody is doing this with more panache than Brett Singer, a New
York theater publicist. Mr. Singer's shows include a music video show,
collections of campaign videos and a variety program called Webjay
TV.
A collage of news, music, comedy and found video, Webjay TV
includes video clips like Jon Stewart of "The Daily Show" interviewing
Howard Dean, a lesson on how to play Nirvana's "Smells Like Teen
Spirit" on guitar and George Lucas discussing the "Star Wars"
character Jar Jar Binks.
"For me, Webjay has taken the place of little online games like
minigolf or solitaire," said Mr. Singer, who started making playlists
as a hobby, using home videos of his young son. "Webjay has become
more of an obsession. It's a way for me to be creative with minimal
effort."
Mr. Singer said he took particular pleasure in making mashups,
playlists that mix videos, photos and music in a multimedia scramble.
In a playlist called The Politics of Dancing, a BBC News video about
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and the Iraq prison abuse scandal is
accompanied by the song "We Will Rock You" by Queen.
In another playlist, Mr. Singer somewhat more artfully sets to
music a shot from a live traffic cam at the Cross Bronx Expressway; a
hypnotic tune called "Cars for Christ" from a band of the same name
plays as commuters find their way home.
Mr. Singer also produces a daily news program on Webjay that uses
videos from a variety of sources. Recently, the news program stitched
together a BBC News tribute to Ray Charles, a Gallup Poll report on
how much Americans remember about D-Day, and highlights from the
N.B.A. finals, playing alongside Kobe Bryant's mug shot.
Webjay's creator, Mr. Gonze, is among those who think technologies
like his may someday stir up the conventional television industry. Mr.
Gonze, who spends his summers in Canada without a TV, said that
recently, as an alternative to network news, he had watched Mr.
Singer's Webjay compilation. "It was embryonic and crude, but also
mind-blowing," he said.
Andrew Nachison, director of the Media Center at the American Press
Institute, said that Webjay video playlists were "a fabulous example
of remix society."
"It's an outgrowth of hip-hop and DJ culture," he added. "People
aren't just remixing music, they're remixing the news."
Webjay news mixes can be politically charged. "Brett's a New
Yorker," Mr. Gonze said, referring to Mr. Singer. "He's a liberal.
He's into show business. He's definitely not playing to the
mainstream. NBC has to appeal to the great swath of viewers across
America. Brett doesn't."
Webjay may eventually face a backlash from record labels and TV
networks, but Mr. Gonze maintains that the site is legal because it
assembles the Web addresses of media files, but never stores or
transmits the actual files themselves.
Michael R. Graham, an intellectual property attorney and a partner
with the law firm Marshall, Gerstein & Borun in Chicago, said that
although Webjay itself "appears to be legal," users should be careful.
"There are a gazillion legal questions," he said. "It's a classic
example of how technology has leapt over our ability to trace rights
and what might be infringed, and in what ways."
If anyone who holds the rights to an audio or video clip objects to
Webjay carrying a link to it, the site offers a tool, called
Tattlematic, for removing links. "I believe in peace through
politeness," Mr. Gonze said. "If somebody doesn't want us to link to
their stuff, we won't link to their stuff. They don't have to sue.
They just have to ask."
Mr. Nachison said television news organizations could benefit from
technologies like Webjay, because they are making news video easier to
find on the Web.
"The audience for television news on the major networks has been
declining for years," he said. "These mashups are bringing the news to
a new audience. That's not just a good thing for the media business.
That's a good thing for society."
Steve O'Brien, executive publisher of the Gallup Poll, said he did
not mind that Gallup's videos are being used in Webjay's news reports,
as long as Webjay doesn't charge subscription fees for the videos or
sell advertising on the site.
He said he would prefer that people visit Gallup's own site
(gallup.com) to watch the videos. "But at least Webjay is meeting one
of our goals, which is getting our information in front of people," he
said.
He added that Webjay may soon provide a benefit for Gallup.
"We're thinking about putting ads in our videos," he says. "Our
advertisers will be happy to get the extra viewers."
Posted Apr 9, 2004, 7:46 AM ET by Alberto Escarlate
From Wired
News: Webjay, is a website
in which users build their own playlists of free music — like a
mix tape — and share them with friends. It doesn’t store the
files, but it pulls together the URLs for each track and puts them in
a playlist format.
Webjay regular Brett Singer, a New York theater producer
and computer consultant, builds playlists in his spare time. He’s
created more than 50 collections with titles like Song-a-Day, a list
made up of songs he has chosen each day for the past two months. On
March 28, he had a seaweed treatment, so he chose a song by the group
Seaweed Soup. He picked a song called “Party Party” on the
occasion of his kid’s birthday party.
I'm not much of an audiophile, to be
honest, and there are lots of other people who will get more deeply
into music-blogging and playlist-sharing than I'm likely to. But the
process at work here is deeply fascinating to me, and generalizes to
other realms. Every kind of digital experience can thrive in the
virtuous cycle of the blogosphere: use it, capture part of it, link to
it, write about it, search for it, read about it, aggregate it, rinse,
lather, repeat.
I've been collaborating with Lucas and Alf
(okay, rather coaxing them into working things out) to make the
experience tighter among Winamp (the player I use), Webjay, and feedroll so that bloggers can easily
post their finds, promoting good free music and musiclogging itself at
the same time. Once things get nice and usable enough I think we'll be
close to having a decent model case for the open, collaborative media
filtering and recommendation networks of the future. I'll probably
post more about it tomorrow. [Seb's Open Research]
Looking forward to seeing what happens when Lucas, Seb and Alf get
together.
George Lucas Does Dystopia, Too
George Lucas Does Dystopia, Too09/15/2004 05:32 AM The Star Wars director's first film, THX 1138, is no masterpiece. But
it shows glimpses of the storytelling skill and imagination that
became evident in his later movies. Jason Silverman reviews the
re-released film.
George Lucas To Attend Celebration III04/05/2005 10:04 PM As Threepio stated , "Thank the maker!" literally. George Lucas is
scheduled to make an appearance on the Sagamoore Ballroom stage at
Celebration III. Additional details can be found here! In response to the news, GEN CON LLC
has reopened its advance ticket sales from now through
5:00 PM PST this Friday, April 8!
rachellucas.com/archives/000858.html track this
site | 4 links
Lucas On Charlie Rose Tonight
Lucas On Charlie Rose Tonight09/09/2004 08:33 PM Lucas is on PBS' Charlie Rose tonight. Check local listings on PBS
... this should be a pretty good interview since it isn't really so
canned and mainstream - something very different than he normally has
to do. Send us a summary if you catch it or we will after the MNF
premiere tonight, too! Thanks to Darth Indy for the alert.
Lucas Group Expands With New Office In Las Vegas04/05/2005 02:17 AM Lucas Group, a respected leader in professional recruiting, announced
its expansion with a new office in Las Vegas. The Las Vegas operation
marks Lucas Group’s fifteenth location and brings expertise in human
capital management in the Information Technology (IT), Construction
and Hospitality industries. [PRWEB Apr 5, 2005]
macworld.co.uk/news/main_news.cfm?NewsID=7428 track this
site | 8 links
Lucas put malicious Xbox trojan on Star Wars DVD
Lucas put malicious Xbox trojan on Star Wars DVD09/24/2004 05:36 AM Cory Doctorow:
The new Star Wars bonus DVD erases elements of your Xbox's firmware
without informing you or giving you a chance to decline. This is
apparently deliberate, as part of an "anti-piracy" effort aimed at
punishing people who play the Star Wars DVD bonus disk in a modded
Xbox.
The 'StarWars Trilogy DVD' (video/movie DVD) has an 'Extra Special
Features Disc'. If you try to launch this on your Xbox it will
automaticly update your dashboard ... NO confirmation will be asked.
The bonus disc has extra features including a documentary on the star
wars saga, footage from the making of all three films and a preview
demo of the new 'StarWars Battlefront' Xbox game (that's why there's a
default.xbe, dashupdate.xbe and update.xbe on the disc).
This information can be important for some people with older bioses
(booting xboxdash.xbe), people using exploits or simply those who
don't want their dash upgraded.
The game he created is about fighting cancer, and it reflects Ben's
own battle with leukemia. It takes place inside the body, on a
playfield of mutating cells. The hero, a boy on a hovering skateboard,
uses high-tech weapons to destroy these cells by collecting the seven
shields that protect against common side effects of chemotherapy.
It's not easy to get the shields -- they're in the hands of monsters
that have to be zapped. FireMonster guards the fever shield and hurls
molten lava. VampMonster guards the bleeding shield and sends out
vampire bats. Robarf guards the vomit shield "with big smelly green
globs." And QBall, guardian of the hair-loss shield, shoots out
billiard balls.
George Lucas has always encouraged Star WarsÂ-inspired
fan movies, so long as the wannabe auteurs didn't try to make a
profit. (That's the case with Felux—he isn't selling his movie or
any associated merchandise.) Lucas should do more, though. Once he
stops polluting the world with prequels, he should slap a liberal
"Creative Commons" copyright license on the Star Wars franchise. That
would explicitly allow any fan to remix an existing movie, or create a
new one in homage, so long as there's no profit involved. Everyone
wins: Movies like Revelations keep the fan base alive, and Lucas can
continue selling figurines until the sun explodes.
Sounds like an idea we at Creative Commons could get behind. An attribution-n
oncommercial-sharealike license would allow fan created side
stories, prequels, or follow-ups, and they'd never be sold or charged
for and a credit would always be given to Lucas. It'll be interesting
to see if any aging properties with a large cult-like fan following
adopt something like this. One could speculate that fan art would
drive sales of the original, when outsiders take a liking to these
offshoots, and in the end mean more sales of DVDs and toys for
creators like Lucas.
Depressed Annan close to quitting over UN scandals - Sunday Times - Times Online
nytimes.com/2004/09/06/politics/trail/06TRAIL-MALAPROP.html?ex=1
252296000&en=aeeccbb0b41dc233&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland track this
site | 5 links
Revealed: Israel plans strike on Iranian nuclear plant - Sunday Times - Times Online
Revealed: Israel plans strike on Iranian nuclear plant - Sunday Times - Times Online03/14/2005 04:50 PM Not to worry though because faithful brotherhood members News Corp
provide us with the good news .. PAPER: ISRAEL PLANS STRIKE ON IRANIAN
NUCLEAR PLANT .. U.S. and Israel are the same thing .. The Times of
London reports .. Read article ..
Israel
timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2089-1522978,00.html track this
site | 3 links
Named: the Belle de Jour of the net - Sunday Times - Times Online
Times Online - Sunday Times01/04/2005 11:22 AM A high IQ is a hindrance for women wanting to get married while it is
an asset for men .. Clever devils get the bird .. UK Times
Online
timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2087-1423032_1,00.html track this
site | 4 links
The New York Times > Books > Books of The Times: The Pastiche of a Presidency,Imitating a Life, in 957 Pages
nytimes.com/2004/06/20/books/20CLIN.html?ei=5006&en=b1de08dbc
243a997&ex=1088308800&partner=ALTAVISTA1&pagewanted=print&position= track
this site | 4 links
"a comforting report pointing out that everything that was covered by the Times was in fact covered by the Times"
Times Were Bad, VCs Get Tough; Times Are Good, VCs Get Tough
Times Were Bad, VCs Get Tough; Times Are Good, VCs Get Tough05/20/2004 01:05 PM After the bubble popped, many VCs practically stopped all investing.
In the cases where they did invest, they often put in incre
dibly onerous terms that gave the VCs a lot more power than they
might have deserved (though, some VCs will disagree with this). Of
course, now that times are getting better, people are saying that VCs are
tightening terms again - so as not to get burned. What
this really means is that many VCs are looking for any reason to make
the terms more in their favor. Times are bad? Terms need to be
tighter. Times are good? Terms need to be tighter to make sure they
don't go bad again. The obvious response, of course, is that it
is the VC's job to get good terms - but if those terms cause
more problems, it's a strategic mistake. If entrepreneurs feel that
their VCs are ripping them off, it defeats much of the purpose of
getting that VC money in the first place. Besides, as the startup
market picks up again (as it's doing) this becomes less of an issue.
Already, we hear stories about VCs offering ridiculous valuations to
companies because they're in a "hot" space. When competition for the
hot startups increases, VCs are suddenly willing to make the terms a
bit more reasonable.
Trying Times
Trying Times03/08/2004 11:25 PM My former roommate just moved back to Florida. He asked why I haven't
been blogging lately. In part it has...
PeopleSoft Turns Down Latest Bid By Oracle:
PeopleSoft stock closed at about $22-and-a-quarter yesterday, so $26 a
share is a nice premium. How long can they keep saying no?
PeopleSoft Inc. yesterday rejected Oracle Corp.'s $9.4
billion hostile takeover bid, saying the $26-a-share offer is too low
and expressing serious doubts about whether the proposed combination
would receive antitrust approval from regulators in
Washington.
The end times are upon us02/07/2005 01:19 AM Sadly I must admit that last night in conversation, I used President
Bush's wretched malapropism misunderestimate. And I wasn't kidding
around.
Behind the Times04/12/2004 12:54 PM The New York Times may have the big name and the fame, but it's
dragging its heels despite signs of an improved economy. Grok Description matches for Lucas Gonze and Webjay in the NY Times! GrokA matches for Lucas Gonze and Webjay in the NY Times!
Lucas Gonze and Webjay in the NY Times!
The following phrases have been identified by the grok system as matching this entry:
From Wired
News: