Similar to the Flixn widget that we discussed last year, Twango launched a webcam widget that uses Flash to record webcam messages.

Like Flixn, Twango’s widget does not require membership for use of the widget. Twango does add the ability to save video to a Twango account if you are a member though - making it a great way to easily create short videoblogs. YouTube offers a similar feature, Quick Capture.

Unlike Flixn, this is not an ad supported service. One of my personal “concerns” with Twango is that there is no evident business model (and if there is one, they aren’t putting it into action). This is the perfect opportunity to put in post-roll ads and get a bit of value off what is surely a bandwidth hogging application. Still though, a quick and easy way to get your message across to family, friends, and co-workers!

AOL has retired DVGuru, everyone’s favorite filmmaking authority.

DVGuru, the Weblogs, Inc. blog that offered links, tutorials, and the occasional podcast episode, was closed reportedly because it could not reach one million pageviews and was not profitable at the level AOL was hoping to get out of the site. Instead, AOL will be focusing on blogs that appeal to wider audiences, such as Engadget, Autoblog, and Joystiq.

Randall Bennett of DVGuru posted this in his farewell message:

We have the most loyal and interesting readers in the whole world! (*tear*) Honestly, our readers are intelligent and always have an interesting comment to leave. Working at other blogs within Weblogs, Inc., I often dread reading the comments because they’re filled with unintelligent drivel, but thanks to readers and comment writers like you, DV Guru has been an awesome place to be.

The post also includes details on where the other bloggers at DVGuru (Ajit Anthony, Sheila Ward, Mike Burgoyne, Russell Heimlich, Ryan Bilsborrow-Koo, Adam Nielson, and Brian Liloia) will be headed. Several will be moving to other blogs within the Weblogs, Inc. network, many have personal blogs and podcasts (I won’t re-link, check the original post), and there are early rumblings of some exciting new media projects.

It’s sad to see DVGuru go, however these bloggers are definitely on to greater things.

In another sign that User-Generated Content is imperative to the success of media in the next few years, Time Magazine, a top-down, bureaucratic organization, awarded the concept of user-generated content, the bottom-up, collaborative creation system, its coveted “Person of the Year” award.

Past recipients of the award include Bill Gates, Queen Elizabeth, George Bush, and Albert Einstein. We are in good company. I expect that Time will send the invitations to the celebration party any day now… They did have to print six billion copies though, so if mine arrives a bit late I’ll forgive them.

I’ll have more thoughts on this tomorrow, however at the moment it is rather late (thirty minutes until tomorrow in fact) so hang tight. Heck, if you’re just passing through, why not subscribe? Or you can go back through our archives (they’re in the sidebar) and see what we have around. And if you really want to get involved, email me or comment (be sure to pester about Part 3 of the podcasting tutorial!).

Just a quickie follow up,

Today I was contacted again by StupidVideos about yesterday’s rant. While a small gesture, it meant a lot knowing I wasn’t dealing with a robot! I’ve since replied and I hope we’re on the way to a better relationship (and a good learning experience on both sides).

Warning, this is a rant. It’s somewhat appropriate to the YMM cause, as it covers a marketing blunder (much like yesterday’s Sony story) but if you aren’t interested, ignore the post.

Today in my YouMakeMedia email inbox (editor at youmakemedia dot com!), I received an email about a site called “StupidVideos” launching some incredible new service. My first thought was interest, I always love to cover companies when they launch new versions or products, and when the project is something exciting, I’ll cover it and let my thoughts be heard. If it’s not exciting (or at the least, interesting), I pass and ignore the email.

This case, however, is different. The “new service” being launched, that StupidVideos claims is so exciting isn’t exactly the most exciting thing in the world.

StupidVideos is launching an e-card service. Yes, e-cards, the bane of many an inbox, are finally coming to StupidVideos.

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Sony, the company that everyone loves to hate, has screwed up a holiday viral marketing campaign for the PlayStation Portable (PSP).

The campaign, “all i want for xmas is a psp”, is a horribly set up imitation of an actual user who would want a PSP. The number of mistakes are numerous, the most obvious reason for them being that the marketing firm, Zipatoni, is obviously out of touch with their target market.

Sony has had a horrendous 2006. Their DRM rootkit crippled millions of computers and alerted the general public to the concept of DRM (a major no-no). The PS3 received a mild reaction from early adopters and strong competition from the Wii and XBOX 360. On the advertising front, their ads are incohesive and often unrelated to the product - a terrible problem if you’re trying to convert consumers to your platform.

As one commenter at Kotaku’s coverage of this debacle pointed out, this is a “complete failure of PR and marketing”. I don’t want to stretch too far from the general YouMakeMedia topic range here - but I’d go further to say that this is a failure at every level of Sony. Sony, more than any company I’m acquainted with, is crippled by a painfully slow moving corporate bureaucracy. It’s lack of transparency (likely due to the cut throat environment that rises out of age-old honor comittments) forces deals to be cumbersome and riddled with complications. Unfortunately for Sony, this marketing deal with Zipatoni leaked into the public conscious rather quickly.

And now, if you wish, click past the jump for a list of the obvious mistakes made in Sony’s marketing scheme:

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I was alerted to Twango by its co-founder, Randy Kerr. Kerr described his site as a “new media sharing service”. Twango though, seperates itself from other media sharing sites like YouTube or Odeo. It doesn’t just handle one type of media — it handles them all.

The site is organized similarly to other “Web 2.0″ video sharing sites, like YouTube or Revver. There are tabs along the top where you can select your type of media (they only show audio, video, and photos, however the site also has other types permitted such as Word documents or Flash video). Click into a tab, and you’re given a page of thumbnails - now you can choose a bit of media and enjoy it.

The similarities stop there though. When Twango says it’s for sharing, they really mean it.

Read how, after the infamous jump…

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A few months back, Apple got into a bit of a hissy-fit and began to throw cease and desist orders at folks who used the term “podcast”. Apparently, they felt that it was their term (that they didn’t invent) so they had the right to defend it.

Fast forward to now, and Apple has done a 180′. Evidently, the bad publicity made them change their view, and they no longer will complain if people use the term to legitimately describe podcasting services.

Unfortunately, the letter that revealed this, written to podcaster Dave Gray at The Global Geek Podcast website, is very vague as to whether Apple will seek further litigation. Apple notes that they don’t license the term, and I’ve taken this to mean that they don’t license the term as in licensing of a song to a filmmaker - they do not charge people for use of it, however its vague as to whether this is only for uses that they consider proper (”accurately refer to podcasting services”).

Regardless of the details, the news is fantastic for podcasters. You can now describe your product correctly without fear of a shut-down order from Apple. As to others… well, why would you use the term in the first place?

In our last installment, we covered how to record audio easily, using a cheap microphone and a copy of the free program Audacity. Now we get to have some fun and hack it up into something that is usable.

Editing

Editing is a relatively laborious process (but don’t let it scare you). You’ll have to go through your audio, bit by bit, and remove each section of audio that is irrelevant or unnecessary. It’s slow, but worth it - I’ve chopped off as many as fifteen minutes doing this.

In PodDev (an Oratos podcast), we often jump off topic or simply pause while we speak. While fine in conversational speech, podcasts are different because we want them to be relatively fast-paced and easy to follow. As such, we edit this audio out. I use Sony’s Vegas Movie Studio for this (it’s an interface I’m more familiar with) but Audacity is free and therefore this tutorial is geared for it.

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