2005 July | Wigley and Associates

Audio/video blogging using Audioblog.com

By Griff Wigley, on July 10th, 2005

I’ve subscribed to Audioblog.com, a new audio/video blogging service that makes it easier to publish audio and video clips to your weblog.

Audio

Here’s a 6-minute MP3 of my interview with a client, NDDC Executive Director Ross Currier, using this service. I originally had posted it to Northfield.org, using a cumbersome process of FTP’ing the MP3 to the server and manually adding an image. This new service makes it much easier.

Video

I also used my digital camera (a still-photo camera with minimal video capabilities) to video the interview.

But I ended up with two video files and they both needed some simple editing before I combined them into one file.

After a long and frustrating trial and error process, my son Collin steered me to a website called VideoHelp where I found out about a very simple-to-use and free editing program called VirtualHub.

Audioblog.com also has a web-based recording tool called BlogRecorder where you hook your camera or microphone up to your PC and record directly to their website. More on that to come.

New Statesman New Media Awards

By Griff Wigley, on July 5th, 2005

The Winners of the New Statesman New Media Awards 2005 (UK) were announced last week.

In the Elected representative category, ReadMyDay bloggers Cllr Andrew Brown, Cllr Mary Reid and this Read My Day project were nominated.

But alas:

For the first time in the history of the New Statesman New Media Awards, the judges have decided not to award a winner in this category. After much discussion and thought, they agreed that none of the shortlisted nominations deserved the accolade. Some of the elected representatives have made massive efforts in creating an interesting online presence. But it was recognised that they have done so with little official help, and mostly by being in a fortunate enough position to draw upon the technical and communication skills required. The result is a postcode lottery for citizens who wish to discover and communicate with their elected representatives online. There have been some efforts to redress this balance: ReadMyDay and Councillor.info are just two examples. But there is still more that needs to be done. The judges believe that elected representatives need more support, training and advice to help them use this media more effectively. In doing so there is a real opportunity for the UK to lead the way in communication between the representative and the represented.

See Mary Reid’s No winner blog post for more. Tim Ireland at Bloggerheads (aka Manic) has a post, too.

Whitewater Trailblazers blogsite

By Griff Wigley, on July 1st, 2005

I’ve teamed up with Michael Blaha, Organic Arts, to launch a blogsite for Whitewater Trailblazers, a snowmobile club in SE Minnesota. Jay Mollert, club president, will be blogging soon.