February 2005
I'm flying to the US today and tomorrow. I'll be back once I adjust to Eastern Time.
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It's Vlog Anarchy week at Michael Verdi's place. He started off with some sour comments on those who tries to define videoblogging (or vlogging or whatever the buzzword of the day is). After talking at length about how people (like me) who'd like to try and define videoblogging should stop saying “you can't” when it comes to blogging, Michael tells me I can't make a text comment on his blog post…
We'll let that stand for a while.
Anyway. Michael has misunderstood my purpose when I say I want to define videoblogging. I'm not trying to put him or anyone else in some creative prison with the vlogging police cracking down his door, and I'm not trying to create for abstract elite. I'm looking at media and genres, and the differences between them.
It's about finding blogging interesting. It's about looking at blogging because it's inter-connected communication on a level unprecedented due to the fact that the inter-connectedness is inherent in the genre. That's a huge deal. It changes the way you have to think and talk about blogging, because you can't talk about it like radio, or television or print publishing. That's why I want and need to seperate podcasts (on-demand radio), on-demand video and blogging. They're not the same, and you can't treat them the same.
I'm not telling you what you can't do. You can do whatever you want. I'm going to call your works by different names, and I'm going to treat your works differently depending on what they are. If you're doing some form of media studies on-demand video distributed online is not new, it's just video. Videoblogging that taps into the blogosphere? That's new.
That's why it irks me when David Scott Lewis doesn't get it. Videoblogging is not just a video version of a podcast. Podcasts aren't audioblogging — as Eric Rice tells him, it's about the community, the blogosphere. Videoblogging isn't just video on your computer, a videoblog post isn't just the video.
- 8.5 hours in trains: $80
- Dinner and a movie in Copenhagen: $30
- J-1 Non-Immigrant Visa to the United States: Priceless
Actually it's not priceless, the cost is $200 dollars (plus $10 postage for the self-addressed, stamped envelope). The fact is that I took a trip to attend a personal interview at the US Embassy in Copenhagen. It was some very boring 8.5 hours there and back again in trains, and the interview was literally less than one (!) minute long. They pretty much just wanted to say hi and get my fingerprints.
From a security standpoint it makes a lot of sense to require a personal interview, and I have to admit that mailing your fingerprint is not going to work. Andreas the person gets a bit frustrated when he spends over four hours on a train only to have the interview last a single minute. They could at least give me a scrutinizing gaze, armed mean looking guards, and hard questions on the US Constitution — just something other than the nice, good mannered Embassy staff. They provided the great service I've come to expect from American service personnel, the one American I met even spoke great Danish!
I don't actually have my visa yet. It will be 3-4 working days before I get my passport back in the mail. Hopefully with my DS-2019 form and all the appropriate stamps. USA here I come!
- Watch The Aalborg Skyline (Quicktime required; around 1.3 MB)
Yesterday Peter did a walking tour of Hoboken. I think it is pretty cool, so I shot a quick minute while I was running errands this afternoon. It was damn cold. My camera can't change zoom while recording, and since I wasn't going to freeze to death I only did one take. I couldn't get the real factories, and my face using the same zoom. That's why I've put a *gasp* photograph at the top of this entry.
Nb. Comments on this should probably be directed to the audvidsyn Yahoo group mediarss Yahoo group. Track/pingbacks from the blogosphere are of course encouraged.
There has been some discussion on multiple enclosures in RSS. Dave Winer has clarified that RSS 2.0 only supports one enclsoure per item, something that in my opinion makes RSS 2.0 unfit for blog entries. The talk on multiple enclosures has been very focused on audio and video media, and that's being too narrow. The discussion needs to be opened up, enclosures are much much more than putting talkshows on your iPod.
The current enclosure element in RSS 2.0 is good because it makes no assumption on what kind of file it's linking to. This is a limit regarding including media specific metadata, but what you lose in that department you more than make up for in versatility. Below it'll describe my proposal for an enclosure extension to RSS 2.0. Below I'll describe the proposal, and give a handful of examples of possible uses (just to show how cool and easy this is). Comments are of course very welcome — implementations moreso!
RSS 2.0 Extension: Enclosures (draft)
This is an extension to RSS 2.0 in response to the lack of support for multiple enclosures in the original RSS 2.0 specification. The goal is to incorporate the following into RSS:
- Support for multiple enclosures.
- Support for multiple versions of each enclosure.
- Namespace declaration
- xmlns="http://www.solitude.dk/syndication/enclosures/"
The enclosure element and children
The containing element an enclosure is enclosure and it goes inside the item in the feed. Each item may contain any number of enclosure elements. Each enclosure represents an “enclosure” — either a single file attached to the item or several files that should be regarded as multiple versions of the same content attached to the item.
The enclosure element can have one optional attribute (title, as defined below), and can contain any number of link elements. Each link represents an actual file. Thus an item with one enclosure which only exist in one version would be represented by one enclosure element with one link element as a child. The link element has three required attributes, and one optional:
- url
- The location of the file.
- type
- The content type of the file (standard MIME type).
- length
- The size of the file given in bytes.
- title (optional)
- Additional information about the file, or the enclosure as a whole in the case of the
enclosureelement.
An example of an enclosure, available in one version will look like this:
<enclosure title="An image" xmlns="http://www.solitude.dk/syndication/enclosures/">
<link type="image/jpg" length="200" url="http://www.domain.com/image.jpg" />
</enclosure>
Distinguishing versions
It makes no sense to have multiple versions of the recipient has no way of making a choice as to what version is most appropriate. Each of the attributes (apart from the url) gives you an opportunity for choice.
By looking at the type you will be able to find the type of media/content that best suits your situation. This can be as simple as setting up your aggregator to prefer Quicktime over Windows Media videos, but it can also be used to choose between a spreadsheet from Excel and a SVG graph representing the same numbers. The length could be used to determine quality within the same type. Eg. if two files within the same enclosure has identical type attributes, the file with the longer length could designate the file of the highest quality.
As a last resort the title can be used to determine which version is the most appropriate. The drawback of course being that it is not possible for machines to do much automatic sorting based on the title (since the value is arbitrary). Humans will be able to make choices based on the title just fine though.
Examples
I have created some examples to demonstrate the versatility of this simple approach to enclosures. I'll go through the examples below, but if you prefer I have also collected them in an RSS file.
Simple photoblog entry
This is a simple photoblog entry. It contains a single photo as the enclosure. It requires more markup than the standard RSS enclosure, but that's the price to pay for the added possibilities.
<enclosure title="My pretty photo" xmlns="http://www.solitude.dk/syndication/enclosures/">
<link type="image/jpg" length="52200" url="http://www.domain.com/photo.jpg" />
</enclosure>
A call for help!
Some times I mess up, and a part of every good call for help is additional information. In this case the problem is described in the standard description element, and attached are two files: An error log (a text file) and a screenshot of the problem.
<enclosure title="Error log" xmlns="http://www.solitude.dk/syndication/enclosures/">
<link type="text/plain" length="100" url="http://www.domain.com/error.txt" />
</enclosure>
<enclosure title="Screenshot of the error" xmlns="http://www.solitude.dk/syndication/enclosures/">
<link type="image/png" length="100" url="http://www.domain.com/screenshot.png" />
</enclosure>
This is Rocketboom
Rocketboom is a videoblog. They post one video per day, but this video is available in three versions (Quicktime, Windows Media and BitTorrent).
<enclosure title="Rocketboom: Casual Friday" xmlns="http://www.solitude.dk/syndication/enclosures/">
<link type="video/quicktime" length="100" url="http://www.rocketboom.com/rb_05_feb_04.mov" />
<link type="video/x-ms-wmv" length="100" url="http://www.rocketboom.com/video/rb_05_feb_04.wmv" />
<link type="application/x-bittorrent" length="100" url="http://www.rocketboom.com/rb_05_feb_04.mov.torrent" />
</enclosure>
More advanced photoblog
In some cases it might be nice to distribute thumbnails along with the full sized images in a photoblog. This is a representation of a photoblog entry containing three photos (a series). A thumbnail of each photo is included.
<enclosure title="Photo in a series" xmlns="http://www.solitude.dk/syndication/enclosures/">
<link type="image/jpg" length="52200" url="http://www.domain.com/photo1.jpg" />
<link type="image/jpg" length="1100" url="http://www.domain.com/photo1_small.jpg" title="Thumbnail" />
</enclosure>
<enclosure title="Another photo" xmlns="http://www.solitude.dk/syndication/enclosures/">
<link type="image/jpg" length="52200" url="http://www.domain.com/photo2.jpg" />
<link type="image/jpg" length="1100" url="http://www.domain.com/photo2_small.jpg" title="Thumbnail" />
</enclosure>
<enclosure title="Ane one more photo" xmlns="http://www.solitude.dk/syndication/enclosures/">
<link type="image/jpg" length="52200" url="http://www.domain.com/photo2.jpg" />
<link type="image/jpg" length="1100" url="http://www.domain.com/photo2_small.jpg" title="Thumbnail" />
</enclosure>
The Press release
If we look away from blogs, and back to the roots of RSS (newspaper syndication) the connection to using RSS to send out press releases is easy to make. It certainly makes for an easy way for a company to make things easier for the media who would like to reuse parts of the press release. The text of the press release goes in the usual description element, enclosed here are three items. A set of numbers telling how much money the company made, some headshots of a company bigwig, and the company logo. The last numbers (in the shape of a graph), and the logo are supplied both in versions for online use (PNG images) and for print (EPS files).
<enclosure title="Important company numbers" xmlns="http://www.solitude.dk/syndication/enclosures/">
<link type="application/x-excel" length="100" url="http://www.company.com/spreadsheet.xls" />
<link type="image/png" length="100" url="http://www.company.com/spreadsheet-graph.png" />
<link type="image/eps" length="100" url="http://www.company.com/spreadsheet-illustration.eps" />
</enclosure>
<enclosure title="Headshots of company bigwig" xmlns="http://www.solitude.dk/syndication/enclosures/">
<link type="image/jpg" length="100" url="http://www.company.com/headshot1.jpg" />
<link type="image/jpg" length="100" url="http://www.company.com/headshot2.jpg" />
<link type="image/jpg" length="100" url="http://www.company.com/headshot3.jpg" />
</enclosure>
<enclosure title="Company logo" xmlns="http://www.solitude.dk/syndication/enclosures/">
<link type="image/png" length="100" url="http://www.company.com/logo.png" />
<link type="image/eps" length="100" url="http://www.company.com/logo.eps" />
</enclosure>
Software Update
With enclosures it's possible to use RSS to do software updates by having the software pull down the RSS feed. With multiple enclosures, and multiple versions this becomes easier to manage. Here two files are distributed for a fictive anti-virus program. First a patch is available in two versions depending on the user's current version, and then a virus definition update is included (common for all versions of the anti-virus program).
<enclosure title="Software patch" xmlns="http://www.solitude.dk/syndication/enclosures/">
<link type="application/octet-stream" length="100" url="http://www.domain.com/patch.exe"
title="Patch for software versions less than 2.0" />
<link type="application/octet-stream" length="100" url="http://www.domain.com/patch_20.exe"
title="Patch for software versions above 2.0" />
</enclosure>
<enclosure title="Virus definitions" xmlns="http://www.solitude.dk/syndication/enclosures/">
<link type="text/plain" length="100" url="http://www.domain.com/definitions.txt" />
</enclosure>
The daily playlist
Webjay is an online playlist community where users share media. With multiple enclosures it would be possible to aggregate the most shared tracks in multiple playlist formats. Below a single playlist is enclosed in three different versions.
<enclosure title="Webjay.org's daily playlist" xmlns="http://www.solitude.dk/syndication/enclosures/">
<link type="audio/x-mpegurl" length="100" url="http://www.domain.com/playlist.m3u" />
<link type="application/xspf+xml" length="100" url="http://www.domain.com/playlist.xml" />
<link type="application/smil" length="100" url="http://www.domain.com/playlist.smil" />
</enclosure>
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Lately all the rage has been about the hot new thing for videobloggers. Jay has hyped it, and there is more coverage by Adrian and Steve. ANT is a specialised video feed reader for the Mac. It will read feeds and play any video marked as enclosures. Actually it will play anything that Quicktime can play, so it will play a wide range of audio files as well. I've been following a bit on the sideline, and the amount of work that has gone into the program is pretty amazing. In the same line of software there is Mefeedia (formerly Me-Tv) — a web-based specialised video feed reader.
I don't use either of these feed readers, I have an account at Mefeedia to see what Peter is doing with it, but that's it. I don't expect to begin using them in the future for the simple reason that I don't subscribe to video, I subscribe to people.
The underlying assumption with both ANT and Mefeedia is that video is more important than other types of content. That's the whole concept of an aggregator that only reads one type of media after all. It's a little bit pretentious, but I'll let that slide. The point is that when I click ‘Subscribe’ on Lisa's weblog for example I don't do it because there is video, I do it because Lisa has good content. As a reader/viewer/whatever I'm interested in what she has to say, not how she says it. That's why these specialised readers will not work for me.
They still serve a purpose in my world. With a bit of luck applications like ANT and Mefeedia will open the eyes of the people who produce regular feed readers to think about enclosures, and how to support them. I need to have everything in the same feed reader. I don't want to have to check Lisa's blog in three places (one for text, audio and video). I want Lisa to be one accesspoint in my feed reader, because it's Lisa I'm interested in (not in that way, perverts). As a small example Eric Rice did a short demonstration of how to get audio entries to show up in ANT. It was very nice, now ANT just need to start supporting text. Where would Lisa's blog entries fit in anyway? I picked her as my example because she mixes media freely on her blog.
My demands aren't many. It would be easy to get a rudementary support for “rich” media in my favourite feed reader. A simple note that audio or video content (or any other kind of enclosure, really) is available would go a long way. The reader doesn't need to download these enclosures in the background, in fact I would prefer if it didn't. I will screen the audio/video content by the text description anyway — an automatic download would just waste bandwidth. Using Quicktime's Fast Start so the whole file doesn't have to download before starting playback gets rid of the waiting problem, and blog entries are short anyway.
All I'm asking for is a little icon and title or file name. I can then click to view the audio/video. The feed reader wouldn't support playback within the feed reader — it should hand off a pointer to the operating system so my default player will handle playback. That way the feed reader will handle all types of files out of the box.
I've made small adjustments to the RSS feed I offer. The default feed now contains only an excerpt, but it also contains a note explaining which (if any) enclosures the entry contains. These are not added as real enclosures because RSS 2.0 only allows for one enclosure per entry, and I routinely have more than one. I'd rather not offer any than only offer a subset.
The old feed with full text is now located at http://www.solitude.dk/rss/?type=full. It should function exactly as before, with all the trouble that encompass like images not showing up in the feed reader.
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I'm still trying to get decent photos with long shutter speeds, and no tripod. Of course it doesn't help that I don't know a lot about photography, and what I read have a tendency to not stick. This is the lights from the parking lot next to my apartment and the red sunset at half past five in the afternoon. Since I'm not a photoshop superuser I relied on the “High Color” mode on my camera to supply the warm red colour.
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Recent photos
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This is the personal website of Andreas Haugstrup Pedersen: commentary on media, communication, culture and technology. Read more»
