This is where thoughts become things.

Hi, I'm Daniela. Welcome to my personal lair on the Internet. This is where I write about storytelling, activism, technology and pop culture. Sometimes I post videos. I update my lair when the mood strikes me. Follow me on Twitter for daily updates (@dcap).

Archive for : June, 2008

Inside Joost: I was watching “Count Dracula and His Vampire Bride”, when I realized …

I haven’t used Joost in ages. I didn’t like the quality of the streaming video, that I had to constantly download upgrades and that it always seemed to crash regardless of what version I was using.

But here I am, inside Joost, watching the Elvira channel. Why?

Two reasons: I heard from a friend that the streaming quality was better and that Joost will be lauching a browser version soon: http://blog.joost.com/2008/06/joost_forums_going_down.html

Their library of older content is pretty much on par with that on Hulu.com, and if they manage to work out deals with more networks, Hulu may have some real competition.

The blogging tool within Joost is still a little clunky (my text keeps disappearing so I can’t really tell what I have written) but this is a useful feature that (from what I can tell) no other video sharing sites offer.

I will keep an eye on this and compare Joost with Hulu as soon as the browser version is live.

Count Dracula and His Vampire Bride

From Joost : Count Dracula and His Vampire Bride

Count Dracula (Christopher Lee) has developed a deadly strain of bubonic plague. He plans to use his Satan-worshipping disciples to release the plague in London in an effort to destroy the human race.Joostâ„¢ the best of tv and the internet

Other recent Joost browser updates:

http://www.thestandard.com/news/2008/06/17/joost-announces-browser-version-too-late

http://mashable.com/2008/03/21/joost-web-version/

An Open Letter To Glogster

Dear Glogster,

You have forced me to use Scrapblog purely out of necessity and these are my three reasons why:

1# – In order to share photos and videos with my DP on a Glog page, I have to upload them all first.

Every time. I can’t reference links or embed code from other sites.


Scrapblog
doesn’t feel as intuitive to use and certainly isn’t as pretty as you are (users just seem cooler on Glogster), but at least Scrapblog offers easy access to existing photo sites like Flickr and to YouTube videos. According to your G-Lab section, YouTube video sharing is 60% on it’s way but…

 

Why not be a step ahead? Until you, Glogster, offer the ability to use links and video from ANY SITE I WANT, I am not going to bother with you. I will have to accumulate G Points in my life in some other way.

I should point out that I am not completely dismissing you as a creative resource, Glogster. Teachers are excited about your educational possibilities. Meanwhile, young people on Glogster are making their own versions of ads/splash pages for products that they love. They are generating free advertising for companies in a way that speaks directly to their friends and peers. This is amazing. They are literally doing a buttload of free advertising for companies in a way that is potentially profitable on so many levels.

(more…)