Re: [videoblogging] Creating "groups" in the iTunes directory (and beyond)

Wed, 24 May 2006 04:42:03 -0700

Sorry, Jan?  Were you asking if this would work for node 101?  I guess I could see this working if you guys wanted to create a node 101 group in iTunes. However, it's exclusive in itunes. So you can only mark your vlog as belonging to one group.

As for the rest of the email, the proposal of a non-platform specific group standard... sorry, that was a bit long, maybe a little obtuse. I'll probably bring it up again later. I think the idea is important, even if my proposed solution isn't sound.

-Mike

On 5/19/06, Jan <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Friday, May 19, 2006 2:14 AM
Subject: [videoblogging] Creating "groups" in the iTunes directory (and beyond)

I thought some of you might find this interesting.  Podcasters with multiple feeds perhaps like Rocketboom, or megavlogs like ThePan.org... or just some of you discrete bands of roaming vloggers, or self identifying groups of podcasters.

iTunes has a way to create a group or network of associated podcasts in the iTunes directory. You have to request it via a form (read forwarded email at bottom), and each podcast can be only part of one group, but I think it's very cool.

Here's an example.


Jump down to the forwarded email for details on how to request it. It's courtesy of a discussion on the Yahoo "Podcasters" group. Great group that.


On a much cooler side note. :)

This groups idea is sort of a cool idea for all directories and meta search services. I'd love to see something about it in the mRSS (meta RSS) spec.  A standard for specifying discretely a "group" affiliation, self identifying groups. 

In RSS (or via a feed service like Feedburner or platform like Wordpress) a podcaster or vlogger would specify an affiliation by name, that name acting like a tag.  Then all directories and services could identify that network of like blogs/podcasts/vlogs and it could help make them more browse-able and findable. (among other things)

You might think of it as a specific "facet" of tagging, like geo-tagging is a facet of tagging based on geography that helps us find things by where they're located.  This however creates a geography based on communities and like geo-tagging it to will create a space who's value can be mined and used in so many ways i cannot begin to guess at them all.

Unlike iTunes a blogger/podcaster/vlogger could specify multiple affiliations.  These could be generalized affiliations or very discrete affiliations.

Because it's based on a (fairly) trusted mechanism (the blog and it's associated RSS feed) the information could be changed at any time by the podcaster, and it would be self policeable. For example some groups like "official PAN editor" or "official Rocketboom contributor" will be discrete, others like "ThePan.org fans" or "rocketboom fans" or simply "midwest video bloggers" would be simply general identifications decided on by the consensus of participants.

Because it's just like declaring your affiliations on your website and because it's like using plain legal english it's transparent and policeable by proxy of its members. If you declare yourself an "Official Rockatboom(TM) editor" or part of "The Podshow Network(TM)" and you're not then whoa is you. It'd actually be just as enforceable as if you lied on your blog or resume. Because it's plain as english it would be actually in many cases legally enforceable under standard law, not that it would ever come to that. I'm just saying, it's fairly nuke proof. I think. ;)

This basically allows for an endless creation of "space" (think of it as architecting more space in cyberspace if you like) a sort of consensus and freeform way of identifying endless communities... a new geography for the web rather than just being a chaos of blogs, podcasts and vlogs. Think of it if you will as a nice warm ocean current in cyberspace for when you decide to stop "surfing" the web, and graduate to sailing the meiaverse. Or think of it as a new form of road.  The point is it creates a new space to be explored that in conjunction with other architected things like geo-tagging can be very powerful.

As just one example you could cross geo-tags with group-tags and you might be able to automatically view and browse all podcasters who claim to be "midewest video bloggers" or "rocketboom editors" on a google map. 

That's just one simple example though. With standardized facets of meta information embeded in RSS like groups affiliations, geo-location information, and others we can start to dream up and create services that exploit and explore this information in standardized ways to do amazingly useful things we haven't even though of yet.

Best of all though, this kicks the crap out of obtuse "categories" like Apple's iTunes directory categories. :)

LOL.

I find traditional predefined "editorial categorizations" increasingly obtuse, useless, and worse of all wasting of vast amounts of time and reources because they leverage their tyranny on vast amounts of people.  A good specification can either distribute empowerment which ultimately creates value and saves time... or it can distribute wasted time, frustration, futility. The net affext is either a multiplication of good, or a multiplication of evil but never in between.

Anyway, where this mRSS specification for group affiliations would lead us is an endlessly mine-able, browse-able and searchable metaverse of communities.  

Meta search tools like Mefeedia.com, or Odeo.com, Technoratti, or Bloglines, any meta aggregator or directory could then identify these communities and automatically allow targeted searching and browsing of media from communities. 

You might even be able to simply subscribe in your agregator to a discrete group of vlogs or podcasts.  

For example, you might wonder what the editors of WeAreTheMedia.com are up to (what they're blogging about) and you'd be able to browse all the editors posts through a service like mefeedia or bloglines and see absolutely the latest posts from the entire community. 

You'd be able to add an entire community to your news or media aggregator with a single click and that community would evolve of it's own accord without you having to persoally maintain it by adding and removing members.  Great for small and medium sized groups like Rocketboom editors, or ThePan.org or evilvlog.org members.  (Although you probably wouldn't want to go and subscribe to a large general group like that of "video bloggers" of which there might be 8000.

This type of meta aggregation of communities might even obsolete experiments like Evilvlog.com, community vlogs, or so called Planet Planet blogs, like Planet Debian which are becoming quite common in the open source community.  Think of them as instantly and organically grown threads of conversation and media. Instant communities.

In many ways this is inspired by Flickr Groups. I've been asking myself since forever how we can create similar groups in the vlogosphere in a much more organic and decentralized way. Without all having to become a member of the same community service like Flickr, or Youtube, or Myspace, Blip.tv or even Mefeedia or some such.  This would allow us to have our Flickr type groups without having to all join Flickr or some other common service. We could use any blogging/podcasting/photocasting/vlogging platform we wanted, and what's more we could use any meta service we wanted, wether that be technoratti, bloglines, mefeedia, odeo, or whomever we preferred.  This interoperability does communities without lockin.

In the end its standards like these that focus on replicating and decentralizing mechanisms in discrete services like Flickr and Youtube. That's going to allow the vlogging and podcasting community to grow beyond these services... because there cannot be one Flickr or one Youtube, and we certainly cannot as participants make choices over which communities we can participate in by where we decide to host our media.

I would like to see Myspace and Youtube and other such services go back to being the training wheels for newbies. I dream of the center of the new media world being an open, organic and free media scape, not one centrally dominated by private entities that weild inoperablility like a weapon to lock-in users. 

In order for this to happen we need to contemplate on the best features of these private services and figure out how to turn them inside out. This is very similar to how Open Source and linux have turned the computer world inside out.  This is no mistake. If Microsoft's model is embrace, extend and extinguish... then our moto should be replicate, extend, and set innovation and people free.

Also, I believe that there's a new power-law in business due to the openess of the internet, one that fundamentally states that interoperability and openness wins. AOL proved early on that the web cannot be co-opted by any one enterprise... that innovation thrives in open environments. If your walled garden does not respond to that openess then innovation and the market will simply go right around you.

Open Source has proven this in software and the operating system, and I hope that we're doing the same in media with blogging, podcasting, vlogging and photo-casting.


Jumping back a bit, down to earth, another important point of such a standard is a) it's easy, powerful, and simple and b) even if no one supports it at first... it starts building value exponentially as each new person and group uses this standard to identify themselves.  It's a similar power-law to the creation of the web itself. Every new web page and every link makes the web that much more powerful.


I've seen other specifications like FOAF (Friend of a friend) and XFN (Extensible Friend Network?) for specifying relationships with friends via XML markup in web pages, but I've seen that these are way to complex and technical to maintain. I propose we start simple, very simple, and see where it takes us. This idea is simple.

This simple specification, a proposed extension to mRSS, is completely decentralized and self updating.  You don't have to add new friends one by one to your network as you do with XFN and FOAF. Your friend networks are self defining and changing on the fly in an organic manner by the proxy of the group and the independant actions of its members. Your relationship with the people in these groups is maybe not precisely know at first, but the value of relationships can be endlessly explored and overlapping interests found. Like tagging, the very relationship may even be evident; "Rocketboom editor", "evilvlog friends",  "midwestern vlogging buddies", or "the weagel family". :)

This is to say, editor, friend, buddy, family. These are your relationships. Like tags the symantics and keywords can be explored and even automatically related using clustering technology.

Wether you identify yourself as a vlogger with 8,000 others, or a member of the "yahoo video blogging group" with 2000 people, or "evilvlog.com" with 40 other editors, or a member of "the verdi family" which consists of three vloggers, the value is all relative. Like vlogging it's meaning ful wether the group has 2 members or 8000.... wether a vlog has an audience of two or 20,000 it's value is relative to it's meaning to those people who participate in it. 

Oh, and heh, most people would argue the most meaningful groups of all are simply groups of two. Between two life partners, between a parent and a child.  So you know, this is the new media scape. Our value fucking scales. And I say small groups is where the revolution is at. :P

The road to success with this is in the following....

1) simply beating the idea with a stick until it's black and blue and making sure it's sound and tough enough to stand up to the scrutiny

2) writing it up and accepting it in the Media RSS spec

3) lobbying for Feedburner, blip.tv, Ourmedia and Wordpress and other creation platforms to support it

4) Then lobbying directories and meta search tools like FireANT.tv, Mefeedia.com, Technoratti, Bloglines and others to start supporting it. It should given it's simplicity gain rapid popularity if I'm right. I site new powerlaws. :)

Like I said it only requires one platform like Feedburner or Blip to support it, and one meta service like Mefeedia.com or FireANT for it to start gaining tremendous value to the community. This is where the strong relationships of these services and this community can light a fire under progress if for no other reason than it's fun and experimental and easy.

BTW, I'd call it "groups". Or in long form it's somethign I call "meta communities" or "meta groups". Meta-communities that exist outside of some proprietary service like Yahoo groups, or Flickr are something I've been thinking about for a while.  I have an experimental idea a goal to ween myself from communities that are defined by proprietary platforms. It's probably an impossibility, but it leads to interesting ways of thinking, like what would or could the gepgraphy of the communities we participate would look like if they weren't defined by stupid boundries like technology, or businesses need to entrap us by making artificial boundries and attempting to lock us in to their platforms and tools. Is there another way to do business that doesn't require wielding lockin as a weapon?  Open Source would seem to suggest so, maybe, but the best theory I've come up with is simply making another aspect of business rule, passion... I jokingly call it "love-in". I think lovemarks.com illustrates the point. Companies who's customers love for them keeps them "locked in"... however, I think that Linux, open source, wordpress, podcasting and vlogging belong on their own list. Not companies, but institutions. This illustrates how I feel about the center of the media scape being open and free, not proprietary services like Youtube or Myspace. 

The center of the marketplace for ideas, knowlege and intellectual property must remain open. The center of our new mediaverse is not an ebay or an amazon or even a craigslist. It's should be at it's center a wikipedia, a wordpress, a whole series of open and interoperable entities. 

Our social structures, in their simplest forms the "groups" in which we participate, reflect one important facet of this new space.

So what do you think? 

(And I mean about the idea, ignore that I write to much, that's not going to change :)


Disclaimer: I put in those misspellings and gramatical errors to bait you. Get over it. :)

Begin forwarded message:

From: Dan Kuykendall 
Date: May 18, 2006 6:49:39 PM GMT-04:00
Subject: Re: [podcasters] Apple supporting podcast networks?

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

Todd Cochrane wrote:
That's very interesting... Who is the guy at Apple to talk to?

Sorry, not giving up my contact! But I will pass on some info I got.

My version of the response from Apple:

- ---------------------------------
We don't have an obvious way to request one, but people can always use
the form at the bottom of this page:

To create nice and personalized Artist Groups requires several people
across a couple internal groups at Apple. However they can more
easily/quickly create unbranded groups like this


- ------------------------------------

So I guess the best solution is to hit that support page and request an
unbranded group be created, if you need one. Then pursue a branded one
if you feel strongly about it.

There is a limitation in the design which means that a given podcast can
only be part of one Artist Group, so I guess this means pick wisely.

- --
Dan Kuykendall (aka Seek3r)

In God we trust, all others we virus scan.
Programmer - an organism that turns coffee into software.
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