Archive for September, 2006

I’d never heard of jumpcut.com before, but Yahoo! just acquired them and after playing with it for a few minutes I agree that it’s pretty slick. (Update: In fact, after remixing the video below in less than 30 seconds, I think it’s actually really slick.)

Jumpcut is a video site, but the coolness is their web-based online video editor. With an easy to understand Flash interface you can rearrange and trim clips and add snazzy transitions. Also cool: you can email video from the video camera on your mobile phone to the site. Every video has a “remix” button, that when clicked makes the video you’re watching editable and mixable with your own content or other content on the site.

You can slice and splice the clips. You can import Flickr photos to use in your videos. You can pull in mp3s and audio clips. Title screens are cake.

As with most video players, this one is in Flash and seems to Just Work.

All and all, a pretty cool piece of web-based software.

Update: Jumpcut announced the acquisition with a “Great Combos” video. I remixed it in 30 seconds:

I wouldn’t have guessed it, and most wouldn’t by looking at the trends, but Bambi Francisco at MarketWatch reported a few minutes ago on comScore numbers showing that of the 7.1BB vidoes streamed by 106MM unique people

“Yahoo! [is] the No. 2 most popular video site as measured by video streams. Yahoo ranks No. 1 as measured by unique streamers (similar to unique visitors), but barely beats out MySpace.
YouTube ranks No. 3, having generated 649 million video streams in July. … MySpace’s figures do not include YouTube videos viewed on MySpace. The views are only of the site’s own videos viewed either on their property or embedded across the Web on blogs or on distribution partners. So, YouTube’s 649 million video streams count the videos viewed on YouTube as well as blogs that might have embedded a YouTube video.”

Yahoo also has the second-highest streams per streamer at 39.

YouTube streamed 79.9% of Yahoo!’s count, while Google came in 8th with just 7.4% of Yahoo!’s streams (and only 7.9 steams/streamer).

I have no problem admitting that I’ve watched tons of YouTube videos, and, while a much smaller number, I’ve watched many more on Google than Yahoo. I’ve never watched a MySpace video. YouTube’s player Just Works, and that makes all the difference. No matter what happens in the industry shakeout, I am personally grateful to them for making video a reality online.

I know, I know, you LOVE to go to work/school on a Friday. It’s your favorite day of the week and there’s nowhere you’d rather be than in your office/cube/classroom. That’s cool — I don’t judge — but, but, but next Friday (Sept 29th) you realllly should play hooky and sneak down to Yahoo for our first every public Hack Day and Developer Day. It’s gonna be quite the event, and I wouldn’t want you to miss it. Really, you should come.

Sold? Cool: learn more and request an invitation.

Developer Day, Friday from 9-5, is packed with 20 sessions across four tracks. They are not to be missed: Rasmus Lerdorf, the creator of PHP will be giving a talk. So is Iain Lamb, (an Ajax/DHTML pioneer who co-founded Oddpost which evolved into the new Yahoo! Mail product). JavaScript guru Douglas Crockford will be dropping knowledge, as will many others. Web-celeb and Flickr’s chief software architect Cal Henderson will be speaking. The plenary is by none other than Yahoo!’s VP of Product Strategy, Bradley Horowitz, (a very rare opportunity to hear him speak [for free]). Most of the authors of the open-source YUI Library will be guilding hands-on sessions dedicated to many YUI components (I’ll be teaching a hands-on session about YUI’s three CSS components.

But that’s not even the cool stuff!

We’ve got top-tier entertainment lined up for Friday night, and while they won’t tell me who it is, Michale Arrington (who’s in the know, and MCing this event) writes:

The entertainment lined up for Friday night is going to be incredible, although a non disclosure agreement prohibits us from saying who it is. I can say with confidence, though, that everyone attending the event will be very, very happy they were there for Friday night’s party.

Then the REAL fun starts: 24 hour hackathon.

Be there! (Tons of press will be, so if you miss it you can read or hear about it the next day.) We’ve got people coming in from Australia and everywhere between here and there, so beg borrow and steal and get yourself here too (You MUST register in advance - security will be tight… for real.)

Drop me a line if you want more info or whatever. Tons of people have blogged about this, so instead of linking to ‘em all I’ll just point you to Technorati: http://technorati.com/search/hackday.org?sort=authority

Are you curious about Creative Commons? Why their licenses are? How they work? Why you should care?

If so, I recommend you head to the Yahoo! Publisher Network blog to read their new post that’s guest-written by Creative Common’s Creative Director Eric Steuer. He answers those questions and points to some resources in a clear and concise article well worth your time.

I’ll be at the Future of Web Apps conference in San Francisco Wednesday (tomorrow) and Thursday this week. In addition to general roaming, chatting, and geeking, I’ll be helping Yahoo! host breakfast on Wednesday morning. (It’s just been extended until 10am, but I’ll be there for 8am on.)

If you’re around, please come say hi.

It’s because I’m busy and lazy that I’m announcing this new “one-to-many” channel. Though I truly want to help all my friends, colleagues, and contacts hook up [employment], I unfortunately don’t have time for personalized matchmaking.

My new list, perfect if you’re looking for employees or employers, is a newsletter not a message board. This means you can all subscribe but I’ll be the only one posting. I’ll post to it every time I get questions like these, which lately has been frequently:

• Can you introduce me to good web developers looking for work?
• Know a good visual designer?
• Know anybody that matches this job description?
• I’m looking to switch employers, who’s hiring?
• I’m looking for freelance work, know any cool projects?

So, if you’re looking for work or workers, sign up for the list either online or by sending an email to nates-job-list-subscribe@yahoogroups.com.

Unless explicitly instructed otherwise, I’ll strip contact info from offers before posting them to the list. This will protect the innocent and allow for quality control while cutting down spam.

If you are interested in a job or person that I’ve posted to the list, send me an email (at my-firstname at my-lastname dot com) and I’ll put you in contact with the potential employee or employer. Please take a moment to ensure you’re sending me something useful and user-friendly (remember: I’m lazy!). Best case scenario: I can just forward your email without modification. Therefore, include a cover letter, url to your resume or job listing, any tracking info (such as the unique identifier for the job), etc.

I hope this is a good system, and better than spamming my blog with all the postings. Feedback very welcome.

Thanks,
Nate