This is a news story that ran tonight, and it features a short interview with a pastor at my church, Kirk Cowman. Kind of strange to see myself on CBC then someone I know, all within a week.
As for the topic itself, my take on it is that it’s no different than an ad from an animal rights group, a political group, or a religious group – it’s an expression of what they believe in, or in this case, what they don’t believe in. 😉 We live in a free country, and as long as this campaign doesn’t step into the realm of being hateful, they can spend their money any way they want. In my experience, it’s only when people don’t think about God that they can easily ignore Him. When they start to honestly ponder the possible existence of a power greater than themselves, that’s usually when that power is more easily seen.
Last Friday afternoon the Alberta Bureau Chief for CTV News, Janet Dirks, came with a cameraman to shoot a story about the unboxing videos that I do. Here’s how it turned out…
The interview aired on Sunday night on the CTV National News, but I managed to bungle the recording settings and didn’t snag it. It aired again today at noon, so that’s the one I recorded. So how did I feel about this interview? All in all, quite good – especially since I was able to explain that the term “geek porn” is an inside geek joke. I appreciated the fact that the piece was well-researched; they even found one of the instances when I was genuinely shocked at what I found inside a box (the 1:15 mark). I think this should pretty much wrap up this media storm about unboxing videos – it’s been quite a ride! Ironically, I’ve been so focused on all this media coverage of my unboxing videos that I haven’t done an unboxing video in about three weeks. Time to get back to it!
I’ve been using Twitter pretty heavily for the past few weeks, and I’m definitely grasping why some people really like it – but I also see some of the typical social networking abuses I see elsewhere. Take RSS feeds for instance: I un-friended some people on Facebook when they started pulling in their gadget blog feeds. If I’m interested in being Facebook friends with someone, I’m interested in them as a person – not necessarily in their gadget blog. I can read their gadget blog via my RSS reader – cluttering up a Facebook feed, which is supposed to be about people, with technology news is counter-productive, at least from my point of view. The exception to this is if they’re importing the RSS feed from their personal blog – again, since I’m interested in them as people, seeing what they’re writing on their personal blog is an extension of that.
I’m seeing the same thing happening on Twitter – people I’m following are importing their tech blogs so I get alerted whenever they post a news item to their blog. I’m sorry if this sounds rude, but if I’m following you on Twitter, it’s probably because I’m interested in what you, the person, are thinking/doing. Getting a steady stream of RSS updates just adds noise into the equation. Odds are good I’m already following your tech site via RSS, so getting alerted twice whenever you publish something is a waste of my time and attention.
I think the solution as far as Twitter goes it to have a Twitter feed for your technology site(s), and one for yourself. That way people who want to get Twits when you post a new story to your site can get that, and people who want to connect with you as a person can follow your personal Twitter feed…until they stop following you because you’re Twitting every 5 seconds about really inane things. But hey, no system is perfect.
I would have thought that the CBC was above cheap headlines, but it seems they like the were really fixated on the “geek porn” angle when writing this story. I now completely regret uttering the words “vaguely sensual” – I really should have known better. Referring to unboxings as “geek porn” is purely an inside geek joke, and I’m kicking myself for not being more forceful about that point. Oh well. 🙂
Well, the CBC interviews have both gone public by now, and all in all I’m OK with how they turned out (you’ll need Adobe Flash to hear/view both). First off, here’s the CBC Calgary Eyeopener radio interview (4 minutes 59 seconds):
Maybe it’s because I spend much of my time creating content for an audience, but accurate information is extremely important to me – so I feel compelled to point out a few things that aren’t entirely true in this radio interview. First, my videos aren’t really “some of the most popular unboxing” videos on YouTube – it’s a nice ego stroke, but it’s not true. My Dell Studio Hybrid video is the most-viewed video I’ve created, and it ranks #87 out of all the unboxing videos on YouTube. 89,000 odd views isn’t bad at all, but I have a long way to go to break into the top ten. The interviewer mentions that there are 14,000 videos on YouTube during my interview – the number is actually around 64,000, and certainly didn’t go from 14,000 videos to 64,000 videos in five days. When we got to the “geek porn” part <sigh> I meant to spell “pr0n” with a zero, not an “O”. All in all, the interview was fun, though I wish the focus was more on how consumers are using unboxing videos to learn about gadgets before they purchase them – and not on the entirely fictitious “sexy” element that’s just an inside geek joke.
It sure is weird seeing yourself on a news program! I kept telling myself that I should try to smile and be friendly, and I think that came through fairly well. It’s funny to think of all the camera angles the reporter shot, and all the questions she asked me, cut down to only two minutes. It was definitely a fun, if slightly nerve-wracking experience – I’m used to being on the other side of the camera!
The TV spot was a little strange right off the bat – “A Calgary man has discovered a way to make money opening gifts.” Gifts? Did the anchorman watch the piece before writing his introduction? The things I get sent are definitely not gifts, even I do get to keep the odd item here and there. And I didn’t “stumble upon” unboxing videos, I simply started doing what many of my peers in the industry were already doing – I was just late to the game. But hey, it’s hard to cram much detail into two minutes. The reporter also wanted to play up the “geek porn” angle in this story as well, so my closing answer to her question of “Does it get your blood pumping?” was my way of trying to be cooperative with the story.
All in all this was a fun experience – and who knows, it might not be the last time it happens!
First, Microsoft released this highly dubious piece of software. The technology behind it looks impressive, but the combination of incredibly lame samples (at least what they’ve shown) and the incredibly lame marketing video, has made this software the subject of much groaning and eye-rolling. But this…this is so awful words can’t adequetely explain it. I guess the good news is that listening to it made me laugh hysterically, so perhaps Microsoft should release it as comedy software.
On a policy by policy basis, I’m sure I’d have some disagreements with President Obama, but I have a deep respect for his use of language, his skilled oration, and his powerful, moving style of writing and that of his speech writing team (I’m unsure of exactly how much of his own speech writing he does). I haven’t seen speech writing this good in my lifetime, at least not that I’ve been exposed to.
Source: Placing his hand on the Bible once used by Lincoln, Barack Obama took the Oath of Office at 12:05 p.m. on the steps of the U.S. Capitol. Immediately following, he delivered his Inaugural Address to a sea of flag-waving Americans, which stretched down the National Mall to the Lincoln Memorial and beyond. The full text of his address is below.
“My fellow citizens:
I stand here today humbled by the task before us, grateful for the trust you have bestowed, mindful of the sacrifices borne by our ancestors. I thank President Bush for his service to our nation, as well as the generosity and cooperation he has shown throughout this transition.
Forty-four Americans have now taken the presidential oath. The words have been spoken during rising tides of prosperity and the still waters of peace. Yet, every so often the oath is taken amidst gathering clouds and raging storms. At these moments, America has carried on not simply because of the skill or vision of those in high office, but because We the People have remained faithful to the ideals of our forbearers, and true to our founding documents.
“Because God is never cruel, there is a reason for all things. We must know the pain of loss; because if we never knew it, we would have no compassion for others, and we would become monsters of self-regard, creatures of unalloyed self-interest. The terrible pain of loss teaches humility to our prideful kind, has the power to soften uncaring hearts, to make a better person of a good one.”
My CBC TV interview happened today, and it was an interesting experience. The whole thing lasted nearly two hours, all for a segment that will run 2 minutes. Not all of that was on-camera mind you – one of the things I helped the reporter with was to shoot two short promo pieces, shown below.
[Not sure what happened with my camera’s white balance above – the video below is much warmer in tone.]
[Note the incredulous tone in her voice – the angle of the story is that these unboxing videos are kind of strange and quirky, and who watches them anyway? I think I explain their purpose quite well…but we’ll see how it comes out post-edit.]
I filmed her doing the promos on my Canon HD camera, then edited them and uploaded them to YouTube (in private mode). Then she took her big expensive pro camera and filmed the video clips playing on my computer screen on the YouTube page. It should make for an interesting visual! I thought I’d share the two promo pieces here because I think it’s cool how she has that “news voice” – it makes me sound way cooler than I really am. Hah! The “one million views” she’s referring to is my total number of video views, as reported by TubeMogul. It’s a total number of all the video views across all the video sites that I upload to (about 12 of them). 99% of the views come from YouTube though.
The story will be shown on CBC Calgary, Monday the 19th, at 6pm – that’s channel six in Calgary. I haven’t seen how it turned out yet, so I’ll be watching it hoping that I didn’t come across as a complete idiot or shifty-eyed-home-office-dweller. I was nervous about it at first, but I eventually started to enjoy myself – the reporter was quite friendly and was very low-pressure. HP and Buzzcorps will be happy because the flashy geek gadget I used for most of the shots was the Vivienne Tam Edition HP Mini 1000 they sent a couple of weeks ago for Ashley to check out. Nothing like some free press for a product that’s going to be coming out in Canada soon, right?
OK, so that CBC radio interview I mentioned earlier? It seems that the radio interview was interesting enough to catch the attention of a CBC reporter, and she’s coming over tomorrow to interview me on camera and talk about my unboxing videos and what I do. It will be on TV on Monday, the same day as the radio interview – they want to do a “one-two punch”. Oh my. I’m already getting nervous about it – secretly I long to be a technology pundit, because most of the guys the mainstream media tap don’t know as much as they think they do, and I really enjoy sharing what I know with others – but I didn’t want to pursue that until I lost 30 pounds and looked like a healthy, ripped technology pundit. HAH! Damn, I knew I should have spent the first two weeks of January eating 100 calories a day. 😀
