Hello everyone,<br><br>I've been invited to join this list and here is my short self introduction incl. comments to some of the recent discussions and a couple of related links that might be of interest.<br><br>I'm a writer/director/editor and since June 2006 also experimenting with 3D animation using the free and open-source blender
<a href="http://www.blender.org/" target="_blank" onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)">http://www.blender.org/</a>.<br><br>More about me and my work on my blog <a href="http://indiworks.wordpress.com/" target="_blank" onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)">
http://indiworks.wordpress.com/</a>, I have a video feed (subscribe to it like for a podcast) and all of my recent works can also be downloaded individually via the "works/downloads" page on the blog.
<br><br><br><span style="font-weight: bold;">Audiovisual P2P Wiki</span><br><br>I am very interested in all aspects of D.I.Y. publishing on the net, specially video and multimedia content and maintain the <span style="font-weight: bold;">
Audiovisual pages of the Peer to Peer Foundation Wiki</span>:<br><br><a href="http://www.p2pfoundation.net/Category:Audiovisual" target="_blank" onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)">http://www.p2pfoundation.net/Category:Audiovisual
</a><br><br>This is a very extensive overview and introduction to all things related to online and audio/video publishing. If you find it useful please link to it, recommend it to friends, bookmark it at
<a href="http://del.icio.us" target="_blank" onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)">del.icio.us</a> etc...<br><br><br><span style="font-weight: bold;">Open-source film making</span><br><br>Last December I tried to document the
<span style="font-weight: bold;">open-source film making scene
</span> (incl. some financial aspects) and wrote a four part blog entry about it: <a href="http://indiworks.blogspot.com/2006/11/online-video-getting-paid-open-source.html" title="http://indiworks.blogspot.com/2006/11/online-video-getting-paid-open-source.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank" onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)">
<b>Part 1</b></a>, <a href="http://indiworks.blogspot.com/2006/11/online-video-getting-paid-open-source_23.html" title="http://indiworks.blogspot.com/2006/11/online-video-getting-paid-open-source_23.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank" onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)">
<b>Part 2</b></a>, <a href="http://indiworks.blogspot.com/2006/11/more-about-open-source-storytelling.html" title="http://indiworks.blogspot.com/2006/11/more-about-open-source-storytelling.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank" onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)">
<b>Part 3</b></a>, <a href="http://indiworks.blogspot.com/2006/11/open-source-film-making-contest.html" title="http://indiworks.blogspot.com/2006/11/open-source-film-making-contest.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank" onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)">
<b>Part 4</b></a>. Maybe Part 2 is the most interesting one, basically I argue that a good story is still the key ingredient for a successful project (surprise, surprise...) and that a well meaning democratic scriptwriting process might actually not bring the results one expects - a script for a fiction movie is not Wikipedia where people can agree relatively easily on certain "facts". Stories have their own logic, some of it is personal and has to do with the writer, but most of it I think is inside the original idea and the writer's job is to ask questions and discover the details of the story, the characters etc...
<br><br>Mass collaboration on fiction movie projects can work, but the solution might not be to write a traditional film script via a Wiki. It can work if<br><br>a) someone (or a software) edits/limits/makes choices for plot/characters, or
<br><br>b) everyone makes their own movie and the sum of them will of course be much greater than the individual contributions. In this context see also <b><a href="http://indiworks.blogspot.com/2006/11/online-video-getting-paid-open-source.html" title="http://indiworks.blogspot.com/2006/11/online-video-getting-paid-open-source.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank" onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)">
<b>Part 1</b></a></b> of my look at open-source film making where I ask: <span style="font-weight: bold;">Is YouTube A Dynamic Interactive Movie?</span><br><br><br style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">
<span style="font-weight: bold;">Users vs. Services/(</span>Game)worlds/VR etc</span><br><br>A while ago there was a discussion about <a href="http://del.ico.us" target="_blank" onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)">
del.ico.us</a> on this list. My view: I deleted all of my <a href="http://del.icio.us" target="_blank" onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)">del.icio.us</a> links - one by one - after the announcement on the blog that told us we would now all be part of the "Yahoo! family". I did not want to be part of that family - I had been using
<a href="http://del.icio.us" target="_blank" onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)">del.icio.us</a>
a lot up to then because I felt it was this small independent, yet powerful link-community, kind of like a "secret" link-hype-machine that reflects and influences the way people surf the net - and this while being outside of the mainstream. Of course the "Yahoo! family" was exactly the kind of online empire that I had tried hard to avoid. (One reason at the time was the "Yahoo! family"'s collaboration with the Chinese authorities
<a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/4221538.stm." target="_blank" onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)">http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/4221538.stm.</a>)<br><br>Recently I seriously thought about giving up my
<a href="http://del.ico.us" target="_blank" onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)">del.ico.us</a> boycott and opening a new account since the service itself is great and no one does this kind of thing so well and simple at the same time. But then I thought of the recent M$/Yahoo! acquisition rumours and there is no way that I will ever use a web service that is owned or run by The Monopoly.
<br><br><br>Since I am doing some little <span style="font-weight: bold;">Virtual Worlds research</span> on my own at the moment here a couple of <span style="font-weight: bold;">related links</span>, some probably not new to the readers of this list, some maybe of interest:
<br><br>An overview of services (from a web 2.0 user's P.O.V.): <a href="http://www.masternewmedia.org/virtual_reality/virtual-worlds/virtual-immersive-3D-worlds-guide-20071004.htm" target="_blank" onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)">
http://www.masternewmedia.org/virtual_reality/virtual-worlds/virtual-immersive-3D-worlds-guide-20071004.htm
</a><br><br>Virtual worlds research etc: <a href="http://terranova.blogs.com/terra_nova/" target="_blank" onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)">http://terranova.blogs.com/terra_nova/</a><br><br>Personalize Media, not strictly about virtual worlds:
<a href="http://www.personalizemedia.com/" target="_blank" onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)">
http://www.personalizemedia.com/</a><br><br>pasta and vinegar, "emerging technologies usage/research/ foresight": <a href="http://tecfa.unige.ch/perso/staf/nova/blog/" target="_blank" onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)">
http://tecfa.unige.ch/perso/staf/nova/blog/
</a><br><br>Writer Response Theory: <a href="http://writerresponsetheory.org/wordpress/" target="_blank" onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)">http://writerresponsetheory.org/wordpress/</a><br><br>And one of my all time favourite blogs: information aesthetics, "data visualization & visual design" - very fascinating...
<br><br>A couple of related video tips:<br><br>"A new way to look at networking", very technical but also very interesting: <a href="http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-6972678839686672840" target="_blank" onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)">
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-6972678839686672840
</a><br><br>The South Park "Make Love, Not Warcraft" episode - very funny and quite clever: <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Make_Love%2C_Not_Warcraft" target="_blank" onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)">
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Make_Love%2C_Not_Warcraft</a> ; a YouTube search gives these results: <a href="http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=south%20park%20wow&search=Search" target="_blank" onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)">
http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=south%20park%20wow&search=Search
</a><br>
<br>.hack//Sign, a rather unusual anime set inside a virtual world: <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.hack//Sign" target="_blank" onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.hack//Sign
</a> ; <a href="http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=hack%2F%2Fsign&search=" target="_blank" onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)">
http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=hack%2F%2Fsign&search=</a><br><br>One possibly quite interesting software related link:<br><br>Croquet Consortium <a href="http://www.croquetproject.org/index.php/Main_Page">
http://www.croquetproject.org/index.php/Main_Page</a> - "Croquet is a powerful open source software <span style="font-weight: bold;">development environment for
the creation and large-scale distributed deployment of multi-user
virtual 3D applications</span> and metaverses"<br><br><br>And one last link, more general, my "remixlinks: open media culture"
<a href="http://remixlinks.ning.com/index.php">http://remixlinks.ning.com/index.php</a> linklist, open for contributions.
(This one was actually set up as an alternative for my <a href="http://del.icio.us">del.icio.us</a>
account since the service/host, <a href="http://ning.com">ning.com</a>, supports Creative Commons
licenses and does not expect me to turn over all sorts of rights.)
While I'm not 100% happy with the ning powered solution I have tagged
all of my links in a way that should give you good results when you surf
"remixlinks" via tags.<br><br>I'll try to comment on some of the older and newer discussions on this list once I've had time to read a bit more of what's been written so far - it looks all very interesting...
<br><br>Valentin Spirik<br>