Rocket's Tail

Upon first meeting the creator of Meet the Mayfarers, Todd Norwood, I was stuck by this incredibly affable guy with a quirky sense of humor. It was at the LA Tubefilter Meet-up, Tim Street introduced us, and we talked plenty of shop. Then, a month later, deep in conversation with Brian What at Slap House Radio we decided to take a look at the front page of Blip.tv. There was Todd, lying on a bed in a penguin costume next to a very dominant woman. I remember being struck at the juxtapositioning of penguin suit, whips, barbed wire, and mom walking into the room asking, “what is this?” in the episode entitled: Family Revelations. Todd has spent years crafting the many episodes of the series, Meet the Mayfarers, and has promised to keep shooting episodes as long as they keep having fun.

Todd assured Rocket’s Tail that the syndication of his show on Blip.tv has been a real boon to the work they are doing. Shooting along the short coastline of New Hampshire, Todd proves that interesting online video is coming from locations far from those A-list markets of New York and Los Angeles.

Meet Todd in this interview that was conducted in Cambridge, MA:

Matt Mireles tells a great story about how he and his co-founders started SpeakerText. He’s a regular guy who had an interesting idea. What if the text of what was being said in a video ran along side the video in question? But, he didn’t stop there. He envisioned a set up where you could copy and paste the text and it would port over with the text a hyperlink to that exact moment in the video.

Here’s a sample that was copy&pasted from the demo video on the SpeakerText website: Highlight the quote in the SpeakerText, then either right click your mouse button and select “Copy QuoteLink” or hit the “Quote” button.

Rocket’s Tail caught up with Matt and had a chance to talk with him about SpeakerText:

Last night we hosted a panel discussion with Dana Tower (Pond5), Jamison Tilsner (Tubefilter), and Aaron Sonnenberg (Blip.tv). The night included a moderated panel discussion as well as Q&A from the audience. Some eighty or so people from Connecticut’s various industries interested in online video turned out and helped spark a lively discussion.

Many thanks to Dana, Jamison, and Aaron for trekking out from New York City to help foster greater understand and dialog around online video.

Here is a replay of last night’s panel discussion:

Today Broadcast & Cable summarized this year’s CES as the 3D Year at the largest consumer electronic show. What they deem as most interesting is not the technology, which is-of course-very interesting, but the business deals that were put together to launch this new and exciting development.