sony U-50/70/71/750 – Old GigaOm

What’s Your Favorite Web App, Nisha Chittal?

Aliza Sherman on March 18, 2009

I met Nisha Chittal, Associate Editor at CitizenJanePolitics.com, at the SXSW panel “Are Women Taken More Seriously On the Web?” Chittal is also an online producer, editorial board member and political columnist at UniversityChic.com and an intern at ReadWriteWeb.
Nisha gives a little insight as to why Google Docs is her favorite Web app.

What’s Your Favorite Web App, Nisha Chittal? from WebWorkerDaily on Vimeo.
Stay tuned for links to upcoming video sound bites from SXSW by following us at @webworkerdaily. This is part of a series of short interviews with a variety of web working types.

Two Sites to Ease Your Travel Headaches

Samuel Dean on March 9, 2009

AltSearchEngines has a couple of posts up that should be of interest to web workers who frequently travel. SeatGuru, a great site for planning out which airplane seat to sit in and which amenities your seat will provide, has been steadily adding site visitor reviews and more since being acquired by TripAdvisor in 2007. Meanwhile, FlightWait cuts through the complicated muck at many of the flight tracking sites and shows you just the flights in your area that are delayed.

Here’s what you’ll find at these useful travel sites.

7 Tips for Efficient Meetings

Simon Mackie on March 6, 2009

hands

As web workers, we probably have to endure meetings less often than our cube-dwelling counterparts. When you do hold a meeting with a client or with your teammates, either face-to-face or as a teleconference, you want to make it as effective as possible so you get the outcomes that you want, without wasting anyone’s time.

Here are some tips for making sure that your meetings are less of a chore, go smoothly and have outcomes that are favorable for everyone. Read More about 7 Tips for Efficient Meetings

The Language of the Web Worker

Dawn Foster on February 2, 2009

In a recent Daily Beast post, Tina Brown talks about how everyone she knows is “hustling for gigs.” As I was reading the article, I noticed a few interesting things about the language in the post – mainly all of the words with “gig” in them: gig economy, gigonomics, and gigocracy. We seem to have our own language to describe what we do as web workers.

Over the holidays, I talked about how hard it is to explain what I do to family members, friends, and other people living in the regular world who find our web worker ways very foreign. This is complicated by my many side projects and diverse work that make it difficult to explain what I do in a concise way, which is another point that Tina Brown makes about how long it takes us to describe what we do in this new gig economy.

I usually respond with some variant of the rambling found below when someone asks me what I do. Read More about The Language of the Web Worker

Shuffling the Deck at WWD

Judi Sohn on January 30, 2009

WebWorkerDaily began in September 2006 as GigaOM founder Om Malik was building his new company from a table at Starbucks.

Now, just about everyone who earns income is a “web worker” at least for some part of their day.

To keep up with this ever-changing working world, and so we may continue to be a go-to resource for those who work in the cloud, we’ve got some staff changes to announce. We’ll be saying goodbye to Mike Gunderloy as Senior Writer, and hello to Simon Mackie as the new Editor of WWD. I’ll be stepping down as Editor to concentrate on writing for the site.

FireWire-to-USB: MacBook Redeemer?

Darrell Etherington on October 30, 2008

Apple’s decision to axe FireWire from the MacBook line is not sitting well with many users, to say the least. For high-quality audio and video transfers, FireWire is the standard for professionals and hobbyists alike. Though USB is technically capable of faster transfer speeds than FireWire 400 (480 Mb/s vs. 400), FireWire has greater effective speed and power distribution because it doesn’t depend on a computer host port.
So what can be done about, short of severe DIY case-cracking, mother-board soldering changes that could result in death and/or dismemberment? One option shows potential. According to ZDNet.com, Pixela offers a FireWire to USB DV transfer cable, designed specifically with digital video transfer in mind.
Don’t go ordering one just yet, though. Currently, the cable only officially supports Windows XP (no Vista, either). So unless you’re running Boot Camp, or virtualization software, you’re out of luck. That said, given the sheer volume of dismayed MacBook owners (and those unwilling to upgrade until they find a solution), it’s likely that OS X support is on the way. Whether that comes in the form of a third-party driver, or (don’t hold your breath) official support and/or hardware from Apple, remains to be seen. When we contacted Pixela, a representative told us that OS X support has been discussed by their planning committee, but no firm decisions to go forward have yet been made.
Read More about FireWire-to-USB: MacBook Redeemer?

Stuff iTunes With Videos Using VideoDrive

Clayton Lai on October 29, 2008

Are you a video junkie who loves nothing more than stuffing iTunes with videos to watch in Front Row, Apple TV, or on your iPod? If you find yourself spending more time than you should fussing with conversion and the such, VideoDrive can get those videos into your iTunes and iPod quickly and with minimal fuss.

As someone who works in the broadcast industry, I like to load my iPod with videos to refer to as references. Oftentimes, I find myself spending hours importing and sorting videos, which come in a myriad formats, just so I can get them onto my iPod.
Read More about Stuff iTunes With Videos Using VideoDrive

How Did You Watch Palin-Biden Debate?

on October 3, 2008

I consumed last night’s debate in a truly multimedia fashion, starting with the radio on my drive home, watching it on TV when I arrived, and then following different Twitter and blog feeds as the debate was still going. Earlier this week we pointed to all the places to watch and interact with the debate online, and now we want to know — did you?

The debate was live-streamed through mainstream TV media sites like CNN, MSNBC, CBS; print sites like The New York Times, and alternative locations like MySpace. Did you watch the debate online or on TV? If you watched it online, which site did you watch it through, and which one was the best?

The beauty of new media isn’t just that you can watch something online, it’s that you can interact with it. C-SPAN and Current let users Twitter their thoughts during the debate. Did any of you participate in those?

There were also numerous sites live-blogging the debate, so we’re curious as to how many of you had a two-screen experience. The TV was on, but did you also have your laptop open, refreshing to follow live updates from your favorite bloggers, or maybe participating in a discussion on a forum?

These questions aren’t just about the debate, but about the way the television experience is changing and whether or not your viewing habits are changing along with it. Tell us how you watched the debate by taking our poll and leaving your opinion in the comments.

Vid-Biz: NBC, Vudu, CDN Prices

on October 2, 2008

NBC.com Serves 29 Million Full-Episode Streams in Sept.; network says it got 25 million uniques, and 28.8 million short-form content streams were served. (TV By The Numbers) Powering a bunch of those views was Saturday Night Live, as a new study shows more than half of the viewers of the recent Tina Fey/Palin sketches did so on the web. (TVWeek)

Vudu Releases HDX Format; new format offers super-sharp pictures, streams at 9 MBps, but isn’t instant. (The New York Times)

Q3 CDN Pricing Drops at Some Levels; 250TB service falls from previous quarter, CDNs getting more aggressive with pricing but not going overboard. (Streaming Media)

YouTube Your Money Channel Disappears; announced yesterday, the new channel is gone, as is the blog post announcing it. (Valleywag)

SAG Negotiating Committee Recommends Strike Authorization Vote; AMPTP questions the move, citing the current state of the economy. (Deadline Hollywood)

CBS Labs Tests Social Vid Viewing; feature lets you watch and comment on shows with your friends. (TechCrunch)

Neil Gaiman Does Video Book Tour; famed author will post videos of himself reading every chapter from his new book, The Graveyard Book, at stops along the tour. (Mouse Circus)

Vid-Biz: HealthiNation, Adconion, Kyte

on September 30, 2008

HealthiNation Raises $7.5 Million; online video network gets second round led by Intel Capital and existing investor MK Capital. (paidContent)

Joost Picks Up Wizzard Media Content; catalog of video content from the podcasting network including Tiki Bar TV headed to the P2P online TV service. (release)

Adconion Launches Video Content Syndication Network; global ad network’s AMG-TV lets video creators access publisher sites, advertiser and agencies to distribute content. (release)

Kyte Mobile Producer Available for Nokia S60; live stream and record video; beta program was used by the likes of 50 Cent and National Public Radio. (release)

MSNBC Unveils New Political Video Player; fully-embeddable player allows people to skip to specific topics, reveals when a candidate brought up a particular keyword. (MSNBC) Elsewhere, startup Ved.io lets users watch the first Obama/McCain debate with accompanying facts. (Ved.io)

Watch the Volvo Ocean Race; watch live footage direct from cameras mounted on each of the boats in the regatta. (The News Market)