technology

YouTube recently added the ability to view videos in high res, and I recently learned how to link to and embed to the high res videos directly (thanks mikeb!).

For posting/linking to a YouTube URL, add to the end of the URL:

&fmt=18

For embedding to a high res YouTube video add the following code onto the end of both URLs in the embed code:
&ap=%2526fmt%3D18

The hack links directly to the MP4 version instead of

High Res Embed:

Hey everyone,

So, this is a big update regarding our web development.

A few days ago I put the finishing touches on our site specs, and reached out to Drupal developers to put a bid on our job. The response so far has been great, and we have a lot of interested developers. 

I posted the job on the Drupal forums here: http://drupal.org/node/275024

There are links in the job posting to several of the design mock-ups i've been working on.

Here is a little preview...(click for larger images)

new home page:

Tonight I'm headed to a Drupal meetup for LA developers. I'm exploring options for deploying the next generation of our site. Looking for reliable developers to get bids.

The whole tech scene is changing so fast. Today I read that Facebook might be going Open Source to keep up with Open Social. I'm not sure what all this will mean in the long term. 

As our site moves more toward a social-platform in anticipation of the needs of the Collaboration Foundation, we have been looking to Drupal to give us an open and affordable way to provide many common social features. Drupal has always been one or two steps behind in terms of meeting these needs, although it has been getting better- hence one of the motivations for upgrading our site to a newer version of Drupal. 

Wanted to thank our Swedish Producer William Johansson for making this cool video promo. (William made the music too!)

Political views aside, from a strictly grassroots marketing point of view, I'm really blown away by some of the creative innovation i'm seeing around the Barack Obama campaign. Probably most of you have seen the Yes We Can video remix of this Obama Speech. It was made independent of Barack's campaign by Will.i.am of the Black Eyed Peas who felt inspired, got some people together, and made it happen.

Hey everyone, we put together a little video from iJustine and Brooke's visit, who came by our office a few weeks ago with Evan. Check it out:

big thanks to Marcin who has been volunteering and helped edit this.

before posting this video, i joined a really awesome (free) video publishing service called TubeMogul.com which allowed us to upload this video once and then distribute it to multiple video sharing sites like YouTube, blip.tv, myspae, yahoo, revver, etc. this is a HUGE timesaver, and motivated me to sign up to many different video sites that i haven't tried before. it will be interesting to experiment with web traffic.

Watched this TED Talk video last night. Really enjoyed it: Howard Reinghold discusses down the evolution of collective action, as new forms of working together encroach on competitive survival of the fittest models.

Juli came by the office today and created an account for us on DooGooder.tv, a new platform for non-profits that are using video and technology to reach out to supporters. DoGooder TV is currently featuring our intro video on their homepage, which is really awesome! Check it out on DoGooder.TV

And check out some of the other cool videos, like this one from Witness:

today i talked with jason about the design and functionality of our website upgrade.

it's going to be a major improvement, but also, a lot of work. pretty much the whole website is going to be retooled while we move up from Drupal version 4.7 to Drupal version 5.0.

Once completed, it will be a lot easier to manage this project and allow everyone to participate more. it will also create a solid step toward the Collaboration Foundation, which is exciting.

uploading videos, photos, etc. will be much more powerful, as will the ability to join and organize groups. We will also be displaying project info on your profiles, so that they will be more functional tools for keeping up with the production. There are also a couple of fundamental changes designed to open this project up even more, while also keeping track of participation.

i've been having web based brainstorms.

in planning for the next web upgrade, as well as the development of the collaboration foundation site, i've been sketching out plans that simplify the entire flow for this site, add a lot of community features that will improve the ability for everyone to communicate and partiipate, etc.

the last 3 days i've been in intensive design mode: photoshoping mockups, and making notes on napkins about features and how the site should work. during this process, i've had a few new ideas that feel like breakthroughs for moving this project forward. i'm actually really excited about implementing them, which gets me excited about web development again, even though it's a time drag and a tedious process.