Mickipedia's blog

How Do We Keep New Media New?
With the transition of online video talents like Brookers and other online stars to television and movies, many now see the “user-generated” internet as a stepping to stone to mainstream media. Big media companies are gobbling up online communities left and right. As old and new media converge, how do we ensure that the ideals of the open web are not lost? How do we keep the internet open and prevent the mainstream-ization of new media? Issues at stake include media ownership, democratization and free speech, and copyright.

I’ve got some really smart people lined up already including the illustrious JD Lasica (OurMedia) and the hilarious Kent Nichols (AskANinja). See that, guys? Now it’s official.

Rob Maigret, Revver’s CTO has proposed a couple ideas as well. Vote for them too.

Creative Commons / Open Media vs. Open Source / GPL
The Open Source movement has been around for a while. Why isn’t Open Media following in it’s footsteps. Why does Creative Commons have so many options. Why aren’t we learning from history and what can be done to convince folks that media is media is art is art. And it’s distribution model can run in parallel.

Video Mashups : “Please Rolling Stones Don’t Sue Us”
Now that video mash-ups are becoming common place for video collaboration it offers a good hard question as to the future of how copyright gets handed. Whereas some folks believe that those who wish to “donate” their videos to others for fair usage, others are having a difficult time swallowing the kool-aid. What happens if video owners decide to break away from the behaviors set by the music industry, where independents have been sued paying the price for mashing up music some 10 years earlier.

The first copies of the book arrived in the Worldchanging office!

Worldchanging, A User’s Guide for the 21st Century goes on sale in a couple weeks. A lot of work has gone into this book and I’m honored to have had any small part in writing it. I mean come on, I'm published in the same book as Bruce Sterling and Al Gore! More information coming soon…

Cross-posted from Revver Blog.

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We’ve been talking about the Revver API for a while now. API stands for Application Programming Interface. An API allows software developers to access a set of functions without having to access the source code for those functions. Our API is a way for web developers to create their own video-sharing communities using our technology. We like to call it a “video portal in a box.” And of course, Revver shares any ad revenue from uploaded and syndicated videos with the creators of the portal and with its community members.

The Revver API is now available to the public and you can go see what all the fuss is about!

Revver.com is the first public implementation of the Revver API. We’re eating our own dog food, as they say. So if you want to build a video-sharing site complete with user accounts, uploading, sharing tools and complete access to the entire Revver library, then you are in luck! We’ve built the API just for you.

Check out the new Revver Developer Center for everything you’ll need to use the API. The supernerds even have their own blog over there:

The Revver API provides web developers and site owners an easy way to access the Revver system and complete Revver library. All Revver users have the ability to distribute and syndicate Revver videos using an advanced set of features that allows you to create a dynamically driven video portal site and earn additional ad revenue for each ad click. The Revver syndication model rewards you for any traffic you generate to videos – this API was designed with you in mind – helping you capitalize on all the syndication opportunities the Revver community has to offer.

The release of the Revver API is central to our business model of wide syndication and free sharing of content. The goal is to build the network across the open web, disseminating Revver videos as widely as possible, always holding strong to our pro-artist ethos.

So all you developers out there, head on over and get building.