My take on the "why", in addition to what Rupert already said: 1. We're dispersing as our interests go into different directions, and the community seems loathe to create traditions and constants. With the exception of Vlog Europe, which is small, events like Vloggercon, Pixelodeon, the Vloggies/Winnies have lasted two years at the most.
I see many things going local, with well-developed "crowds" developing in LA, SF, NY, DC, London, Amsterdam and Clermont-Ferrand, France, among others. I think there's a lot of good in all this online conversation fostering real-life activity, but the global aspect of this conversation suffers as a result. 2. YouTube and the lack of integration of YouTube's users into this list (for good or ill). 3. The door is cracked for people to take a stand for certain principles in this medium, but it certainly isn't as open as it was 3-5 years ago. I give tough love, not a scolding, when I say we all could do a better job organizing to stand up for what we believe in this space and providing opportunity for producers and artists that we believe in, and that perhaps some of these convictions are just not important enough to enough people. 4. The surge of this list was concurrent with the Web 2.0 surge, and teh economy has taken it's toll on both. I think there's many, many of us doing our best to make ends meet in this environment. 2009/3/5 Rupert <[email protected]> > I've just looked at the number of messages being produced by the group. > Last month - 246 - was the lowest number of messages since the first > month of the group in June 2004. > Conversation peaked a year later in June 2005 with 2974 messages (100 > per day). > Yet you'd imagine that there are more people posting web video than > ever before - on Facebook and YouTube mostly. > > I'm less interested in what this means for the group - we're still > producing 8 or 9 messages a day, and people are using Twitter too - > and more in what this says about web video and how people perceive it. > > Is it so commonplace now that it's not worth talking about or getting > excited about in a formal setting like a group? Is it so easy to > make and upload videos that people don't need to ask for help? Are > the corporate sharing sites so easy and dominating that people don't > even think about controlling their own content and presentation of > it? Is this a clear enough sign that the future is huge corporate > superchannels with independent content again shut out? > > > -- Jeffrey Taylor 912 Cole St, #349 San Francisco, CA 94117 USA Mobile: +14157281264 Fax: +33177722734 http://twitter.com/jeffreytaylor http://organicconversations.com [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
