Ben Reyes

A look into video sites

Video on the web is everywhere. But if you are listing a bunch of videos on your website, just using text doesn’t do it. This is personal research that I’ve turned into a blog post.

If you are building a website with video you might find this useful.

What are we working with?

Videos often contain:

• Title
• Description
• Audio
• Moving Images (video)
• Thumbnail

How do we select what videos we watch?

Personally I look at the following things. In ranking order:

1. Look at the thumbnail, see if its interesting - Able to judge video quality and type of video from the thumbnail.
2. Read title > Usually sold by the title
3. Read description If the title didn’t include enough information or still unsure, then read short description if available.

Let’s look at some examples

TED Talks

Ted is an interesting example:

• Thumbnails with overlaying Title with opacity
• Varying sizes of thumbnails according to recentness or ranking in a category e.g “funny”, “inspiring”.
• Javascript overlay with more information

Next Example: YouTube

It’s probably the worst experience of displaying lists of video. 

• Spotlight video in separate section highlighting a sigular video

• Thumbnails (bordered)(animated scrubbing)
• Video length/time overlaid over thumbnail (TED Talks don’t have to do this because all of their video has a similar length time)
• Amount of views
• User who posted video

Where I go to be inspired..

Startup Information:

• Eric Ries (startuplessonslearned.com)
• Venture Hacks (venturehacks.com)
• Steve Blank (steveblank.com)
• Paul Graham (paulgraham.com)

Magazines:

• Fast Company (fastcompany.com)
• Wired (wired.com)

Video:

• TED (ted.com)
• Fora TV (fora.tv)
• Vator TV (vator.tv)
• This Week In Startups (thisweekinstartups.com)
• This Happened (thishappened.org)

Research Papers

• ACM Digital Library (portal.acm.org)

Tech News:

• Tech Crunch (techcrunch.com)
• Venture Beat (venturebeat.com)
• Read Write Web (readwriteweb.com)
• Hacker News (news.ycombinator.com)

What is your favorite website? It’s so 1999.

I just was recently asked this by DAVE the branding agency which is involved with a company I am working with. They had asked everyone to come prepared with our favorite website.

Doing a bit of thinking about this. And my response to it is f*** the question. I don’t have a favorite website. I may have websites I use and visit, some more than others.
Websites are just another way to consume, communicate and publish. It’s almost like saying what’s your favorite type of public transport underground train. I’m not a train geek, so if it does it’s job and takes me from A to B without any hicks I have no preference in underground trains. It’s just something you have to use when you travel on public transport.

I just think that the question of what is your favorite website like something that you would ask pre-2000. The generation that grows up with the internet don’t see the internet or websites as XHTML pages. They see websites as a tool in accomplishing what they want to do from connecting with friends to buying some kicks.

Hopefully I have created some discussion and things to talk about, like I do during my Barcamp sessions. Let me know what you think.

Below is a quick diagram showing what sites I use regularly which I will use when explaining I have no favorite website. But if they do ask me to pick one, I’ll choose Wakoopa (Wakoopa.com) which tracks what desktop and web applications you use. The reason: becuase it helped me make this diagram.

(Revision3 Online Video Network, I accidentally missed out when scanning in. This would sit under Me > Consume > Media > TV/Film > Rev3)

Currently Working On: Helping people be creative

What I am working on

A platform/website for creative people. At the moment I’m calling it Log20.
My vision is to do what myspace and lastfm has done for bands but for artists/photographers/designers and creative people in general.
I’ve been planning this for a long while and it is an incarnation of a project that stalled in 2005 around Internet video (CreateIPTV) due to commitments at high school and the rapid changing landscape of Internet video at the time.

Solving my own problems before solving ones that don’t exist

With the Internet you don’t need to be mainstream to be a success. There’s some merit in saying that it’s better having a few hundred people that will buy your books and go to your shows than a few million people that will just think your interesting or strange. Niche audiences live online.

Unknown Underground Scene

Outside of the public galleries like how there is an independent scene for music there is one for the creative. Graffiti artist Banksy has brought underground art to the masses. But there are thousands if not millions of people creating and going un-noticed.



June 2008 I hosted an exhibition in the east end of London at a band’s house which I photographed (Fuzzy Logic). Printing 100 single edition prints to give away. Nearly all of the people that attended followed my work online.



Along with the exhibition for the weekend I rented a projector and generator and laser tagged London (Grafitti Research Labs). This allows anyone to write on buildings with whatever message they want.

There are loads of events like this that happens every day in London and other cities.

The future of creativity

Everyone is creative, everyone creates. Even if it’s your meals every day you still make something. Even that is an art, culinary art.

Recently what’s happening is that the barrier is lowering and allowing people to create what once was only accessible to the ones with money or backing. Look at photography and sites like Flickr. Never before have we seen that division line between amateur and professional photography disappear.



It’s already happening to video and film. Technology like the RED camera created by the founder of Oakley’s put cinema cameras in the hand of budget filmmakers. With their new camera Scarlet it would even make it more affordable for an avid soccer mum to record at higher than digital cinema resolution.

Gorge Lucas has commented that Blockbusters and doomed and high-budget movies re headed for extinction.

Next Generation

With technology lowering the bar and the advent of Y and Z generations (kids that have grown up using technology and the internet). Creativity won’t be seen as an artistic thing but as a part of life.

I’ve worked over the past two previous summers at a kids camp teaching kids Photoshop and Digital Filmmaking. Most already create their own videos and post to facebook and youtube. 

I believe that there will be a new generation of filmmakers, photographers, designers and creative people that will change the way we work and the industry in general.

What am I making?

To start off I’m making a website just for my photography and work to live in. At this present time I wasn’t able to find a place suitable for what I want. I’m hoping to make this live within the next couple of months. Once that is done I’ll be opening up the site to friends.

I’m keeping it pretty low key and basic. The reason is I still have 1 year of university left of my Computer Science degree. I’m going to be doing my final year project on an extension of the website. Once that’s over I’m not going to be looking for a job but will be working on my ideas and taking it to the masses.

Growth at the wrong time is the worst thing that can happen.

If you are interested in what I’m doing or if you are working on similar projects feel free to drop a line, I am open to all. The above thoughts are definitely not set in stone and continue to evolve.– ben [at] benmatthew.net

Kevin Rose Broadcasts on USTREAM from Virgin America Plane

Kevin Rose on a Virgin American plane broadcasts live on UStream.TV and Twitter this to all of he’s followers instantly getting 700+ viewers. [Update now 800+]

http://www.ustream.tv/channel/kevin-rose

I guess it shows the power of live life streaming and the current nature of the delay on the internet.

Even Virgin America instantly responded to Kevin Rose via twitter saying

This is pretty sweet, @kevinrose in flight right now streaming with the in-flight WiFi: http://twurl.nl/if0y1n

This really shows the power of the live web. Hey, even I’m writing on Tumblr about it. A few years ago this would have never been possible.