Videos and video editing is a pet project of mine, so I like to keep track of what’s going on in the industry.  At several conferences, I’ve seen Jumpcut profiled as a nice resource for people who don’t have a video editor on their PC, or need to do some video editing while they’re away from their ‘puter, etc.  Those days are done, apparently:

http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/12/17/yahoo-putting-jumpcut-in-the-deadpool/

I won’t miss it that much - i tried it a couple times when i was having trouble with my home computer’s ability to make movies.  It always seemed very clunky to me, but maybe that was because I was used to a different editor.  I think it would make more sense if existing video sites offered the ability to fully edit videos as part of their service.

1. Stateline - a news site administered by the Pew Charitable Trust.  Staffed by professional journalists, and drawing state-specific news stories from newspapers around the nation.  Includes videos, text, transcripts, all kinds of things.  Also has the daily speeches of state governors.  Essentially, it’s a resource for journalists and statesmen to draw from, but it’s accessible enough that anyone can find interesting news and stories for their state (or any other state, for that matter).
2. Open Congress - a free social site where you can set up an account and track specific bills, politicians, and/or issues, and recieve updates whenever there is activity on any of the items/people you are watching.  You can see how your congress-people vote on issues that concern you, and you can also ‘vote’ and comment on bills, and see what other people are saying about them, too.  For political junkies, it’s like a giant ball of crack coated with heroin, washed down with sixteen shots of espresso.
3. Project Vote Smart - Check up on politicians, bills and initiatives, and get a better idea of what kinds of issues surround those bills, initiatives and politicians.
4. Change.gov - The Obama/Biden transition team site.  Follow their blog, see where they stand on issues of the day, and send in your ideas on how they can fix the American Health Care problems.  Or any other problem that you see in America.  Or the world.  Or wherever.
5. Open Secrets - Money in Politics - Great political action tool if you’re interested in the relationship between companies, lobbyists, special interest groups and politicians.

In honor of Thanksgiving, and of the next month or so of licensed overeating, I present 12 sites for foody foodness!

1. The Food Geek - Great blog, full of food and drink news, info, and general, er, food-geekiness.
2. Foodsville- a virtual community of food lovers.
3. Drinkhacker  - reviews and information on the hard liquor front.
4. Cookthink - use your cravings to find recipes - you might be like me and discover you are craving Wong Ah Wah Grilled Chicken Wings.  Who knew?
5. Epicurious- an essential site for searching for recipes, with lots of extras!
6. Open Source Food- one of them food lover social networky things.
7. 140 character recipes at Short Meal Service- Just like it sounds - and you can subscribe to it via twitter.
8. Coastr - A Social Guide To Beer
9. Carved Watermelons - Check out the beauty that is watermelon art!
10. Holiday Pie-rets - For you crafty people out there who wish that your head was a pie.
11. Turkey-shaped Jell-O® Mold: 2008 Competition- This has been going on for four years now - this year is by far the best yet.  I can’t wait to see what people do next year!
    
12. Medieval Recipe Translations - because I’m always having trouble making a proper batch of gehalbirte ayre!

I’ve been thinking a lot about podcasting lately.  For a variety of reasons, but mainly because i like thinking about things.  I’ve started a podcast, but I’m not feeling very comfortable about my process yet.  Like, what kind of information or presentation is best for podcasting vs. video or text?  Obviously, a focus on sound versus visuals, so… voices, music, sound effects.  Like radio theater.  Here’s my podcast, if you’d like to see it.  Vancouver Manga and Anime Club.  At the moment there are only three posts - i might add another later today or tomorrow.  What’s there right now is three different types of posts - the first (on the bottom of the list) is just a podcast, and was my first experiment with the recording technology, and I didn’t have any good ideas of things to say, so i chose a reading of a public domain poem.  The next two posts are more in line with the theme of the site - manga and anime.  I discovered that at podbean, which looks very similar to wordpress, I could embed youtube videos, I use “kwout” to show selections of manga from onemanga.com, and I use some text, too.  Problem is, now the podcast - a tiny little thing at the bottom of each post, feels a little lost.

I had some friends suggest tumblr for this sort of thing - I can put photos, sound, video, text, whatever.  It has a different look and feel from a ‘blog’ set up.  I like it alright, except unless I’m missing something or i chose the wrong template,  I can’t find where people could comment on things, which would make the site very unfriendly to people I’m hoping to engage in conversations with online.  You can see what I’ve got going on here:  VanMangAn.

Right now I’m listening to a podcast of This American Life, which is a lot of fun.   I’d really like to do something that’s more ‘radio theatre’ like - dialogs, interviews, things that take a little production.  Of course, the more production you have to do, the fewer episodes you can do given the time you have.  It’s a work in progress, but I thought I’d share the process with you all, in case you have suggestions, or have wanted to do something like this but ran up against a wall and couldn’t move past it.