Vlog

A video blog, sometimes shortened to vlog is a blog whose medium is video. Entries are made regularly and often combine embedded video or a video link with supporting text, images, and other metadata.

Vlogs also often take advantage of web syndication to allow for the distribution of video over the Internet using either the RSS or Atom syndication formats, for automatic aggregation and playback on mobile devices and personal computers (See video podcast). Though many vlogs are collaborative efforts, the majority of vlogs and vlog entries are authored by individuals.

History

Vlogging arose as a video form of blogging but video blogging is also, in another sense, a continuation and expansion of video diaries and bulletins, which is a form of community media having a history dating back to the 1980s .

In the 1980s video cameras became more widely available in industrialised countries. The B.B.C. noted the growth of a social phenomenon of video diary making, and in 1993 Chris Mohr and Mandy Rose of the B.B.C. Community Programmes United ... the television series, "Video Nation", in which members of the public, across the U.K., were given Hi-8 video cameras for one year, during which time they filmed their everyday lives.

More than 10,000 video tapes were recorded and sent to the BBC, from which approximately 1300 shorts were edited and shown on T.V. The first to be shown was called "Mirror" and was made by Gordon Hencher. Viewing figures were high (from 1 million to 9 million) and led to some themed series of "Video Nation" shorts, such as African Shorts, Hong Kong Shorts, Coming Clean, Bitesize Britain and others.

The BBC's "Video Nation" is still running and operates in 33 regional centres throughout England and Wales these days experimenting with new film forms and technologies such as iTV, H.D. and online social networking. "Video Nation" has a sub-website within the enormous structure of the BBC's site [1].

During the same few years that "Video Nation" was getting started the internet was evolving into a W.W.W. but, at first, the bandwidth and processing power required to do video online made it a difficult proposition for most people.

Gradually computers and connection speeds improved.

Vlogging saw a strong increase in popularity beginning in the year 2005. The Yahoo! Videoblogging Group saw its membership increase dramatically in 2005 . The most popular video sharing site to date, YouTube, founded in February 2005, was publicly launched between August and November 2005 . The BBC launched their first official video blog in October 2006, with a feature allowing children to name a new Blue Peter puppy. Many open source content management systems, like WordPress or Drupal, enable posting of video content allowing bloggers to host and administer their own video blogging sites. Moreover, convergence of mobile phones with digital cameras allow publishing of video content to the Web almost as it is recorded.

Significant events in the development of video blogs

• 2003, June 15 - Nacho Durán launches the first (known) South American (Sao Paulo, Brazil) videoblog based on soundless loops made out of sequences of pictures daily taken from a portable webcam.
• 2004, January 1 - Steve Garfield launches his videoblog and declares that 2004 would be the year of the video blog.
• 2004, June 1 - Peter Van Dijck and Jay Dedman start the Yahoo! Videoblogging Group, which becomes the center of a community of vloggers
• 2005, January - Vloggercon, the first videoblogger conference, is held in New York City.
• 2005, February - FreeVlog, a guide to creating a video blog, launches.
• 2005, July 20 - The Yahoo! Videoblogging Group grows to over 1,000 members.
• 2006, July - YouTube has become the 5th most popular web destination, with 100 million videos viewed daily, and 65,000 new uploads per day.
• 2006, July 5 - Host Amanda Congdon leaves Rocketboom over differences with her business partner Andrew Baron.
• 2006, November - The Vloggies, the first annual videoblogging awards, is held in San Francisco.
• 2007, January - December - The longest communication through only video blog by Hank Green and "John Green (author)" in the Brotherhood 2.0 project.
• 2007, May and August - The Wall Street Journal places a grandmother on the front page of its Personal Journal section. In August she is featured on an ABC World News Tonight segment showing the elderly now becoming involved in the online video world.
• 2007, June - Operator11 launches the first service that allows for real-time video switching between remote participants, allowing vloggers to conduct remote live interviews.
• 2007, November - College students in Columbia, MO conduct the first live blog of a date between two people while the date is still in progress.

Notable video blogs

Google Video ran its own video blog on blogspot.com from October 2005 to March 2007. Launched with a message from Google Product Marketing Manager Eva Ho, this vlog showcased examples of the videos being uploaded and shared at Google. The final Google videoblog was on March 2 2007 and carried the headline "Not really goodbye, just a change of address" [2]. The final Google vlog also contains an invitation to "check out the YouTube Blog to find out what the YT editors consider must-see".

The YouTube Blog[3] has been going since July 2005. The May 3 2007 entry announces that thousands of YouTube's most popular video makers will, in future, be getting the financial benefits enjoyed by YouTube's professional content partners. Lonelygirl15 is an example of a notable video blog.

See also

http://youtubetoorude.wordpress.com/

• YouTube
• Customer engagement
• video podcasting
• podcasting
• blogging
• photoblogging
• moblogging