Tall Skinny Kiwi

Life Cycle of a Blog Post

Wired points to the life-cycle of a blog post. Very cool! HT: Matthew Labels

Technorati Tags: blog

Quechup Social Networking Site: Warning

There is a red flag waving in the blogosphere about Quechup, a new social networking site, and I just eliminated my account. The accusation is that Quechua is using an "underhanded" approach to request new members through mining the email accounts of subscribers, resulting in an email frenzy that is causing embarrassment and fear. That was enough to scare me out of the Quechup system, at least until things settle down and the ripples stop flowing everywhere.

I only joined yesterday at the request of friend. [Did he know he was asking me???] I noticed when i signed up that they wanted my email details and password which was a little unsettling but normal for some systems. I pretty much join all the social networking sites when i get an invite. I like to road test them and people ask me for my opinion so I need to be in the know. But this one freaked me out so I cancelled my subscription. Luckily, no invitations have issued from my account except for a friend request to the guy who invited me. WHEEEOOOWWWW!!!!

My advise is to JUMP SHIP if you are a member, until Quechua get their act together - assuming they turn this thing around. Two things you can do:
First is to make yourself "unsearchable" in your account profile.
Second is to go to "Account" and cancel your subscription.
I did both.

For the record, I have watched the progress of social networking sites, going back to The Well in 1996 when i lived in San Francisco,
which I found quite intriguing,
to Orkut in 2004
which I found too artificial,
to various Christian based sites like Xianz
which i found too insular
to sites for the very young like Bebo
which I found too juvenile,
And of course Facebook
which I find too invasive

BUT

I have to admit, Facebook has turned out to be the best and the only one worthy of my attention., I joined Facebook last year when it was a student based site because I was giving a talk to University students and wanted to be found by them. I have recently bumped up my commitment to FaceBook, am trying on a few games for size, and have gotten over my previous prejudices. It really is a great site and I might give thought to developing some apps. for it.

As for virtual relationships in general, I am a big fan of connecting on line but you still cant beat face to face. Nobody wants a virtual Christmas dinner.

Technorati Tags: facebook, quechup, social networking

The Ugly Blogger - Wikiklesia

Despite my chapter called "The Ugly Blogger", positive endorsements for the first Wikiklesia e-book, released a few days ago, are coming in.
"The hive-mind of Christianity speaks! It brings news of the future. Uttered like a prayer retrieved from the year 2030, spoken in a new tongue, a new form. Listen!" Kevin Kelly, co-founder, Wired Magazine / Long Now Foundation.

If you have read my chapter and want to discuss it, then leave some comments below. If not, buy the book and lets talk.

Related: Wikiklesia: World's first self-perpetuating nomadic business model?

Technorati Tags: blog, blogging, business, new media, web 2.0, wikiklesia

Global Christian Internet Alliance: Day Three

Tony Whittaker is talking now on Internet Evangelism Day which started in 2005. I remember it, actually. I think I was involved. Tony is talking about misunderstandings about the web and confusion with old media methods. GOOD! No one has really said this well at the conference until now and its necessary to talk about it. A website is not a tract. He also mentioned the Gray Matrix and tackled the 99% problem - that 99% of Christian media is written for Christians. Hhhhhhhmmmmmmm . . ..

I arrived a little late this morning at the GCIA because I had to talk to my wife. My family leave today for Freakstock Festival in Gotha, Germany. I will stay behind for my meetings here in Berlin.

Back at the conference: Eric has an amazing web portal in France called TopChretien. He has been talking this morning about how the site was developed, how partners were added, business models etc. Many people click on the site to register their interest in following Jesus and I think he is using Google earth to locate them near a church. Something like that. Its also good to see healthy approaches to business and income generation which will help these portals become self-sustaining and help other countries get going.

Thanks to Zondervan for their email newsletter yesterday that not only promoted an e-book that is not theirs (Wikiklesia) but also pointed their readers to this blog to read about the Global Christian Internet Alliance. For those just tuning in, you may want to start at Day One. Blogging From the GCIA: Day One, Day Two, Day Three

Dave Hackett talking about some really cool stuff.

Oh yeah. Last night we went out to Lukas Gemeinde and my friend Axiel gave us the skinny on Berlin. We prayed for the city and had a good time of worship. Heres a picture of us last night. Keith Stonehocker, in the foreground, is one of the main culprits behind pulling this conference together. He My wife had a great chat with Keith's wife Carolyn last night and really likes her.

This and other photos by Rolf are here.

Technorati Tags: gcia, web 2.0

Global Christian Internet Alliance: Day One

I just arrived at the Global Christian Internet Alliance meeting in Berlin. About 50-60 people here and we are listening to Dr Wolfgang Stock talking about the possibilities of the internet and the limitations of written text. Christians are well positioned in this new era, he is arguing. Good number of countries represented here - quite a few Asians. I see Lee Behar from Maclellan. I dont recognize any faces but some of the names on the list I know from emails and blogs.
Related: Casting a Global Net by Dave Hackett

Technorati Tags: gcia, global christian internet alliance

Wikiklesia: The world's first self-perpetuating nomadic business model?

"Wikiklesia may be the world’s first self-perpetuating nomadic business model - raising money for charities - giving voice to emerging writers and artists - generating a continuous stream of new books covering all manner of relevant topics. Nobody remains in control. There is no board of directors. The franchise changes hands as quickly as new projects are created." Wikiklesia Press Release

As a missionary and church planter, I like anything that can self-perpetuate, multiply, reproduce spontaneously and keep on giving itself away until it reaches it goal. That means churches, conferences, training systems, and also this little publishing experiment called WIKIKLESIA that LAUNCHES TOMORROW [now available] on Lulu.

Volume One of the Wikiklesia project gets released July 23rd and its called Voices of the Virtual World: Participative Technology and the Ecclesial Revolution. BUY THE BOOK! My chapter on blogging is buried in there somewhere but the other chapters will be much more interesting than mine.

I have invited one of the project leaders John La Grou to my Happy Hour video cafe on Wednesday, along with some other geeky guests, and hopefully, if everything works out, John will chat about the uniqueness of this collaborative project.

Technorati Tags: book, collaborative, ecclesial, new media, nomadic, participatory, publishing, wikiklesia

Towards a Mixed Economy of Old and New Media

Interesting discussion at DAVOS 2007 regarding how MSN and new media [bloggers, etc] can get along or if it is possible to do so. Classic quote:

"A blogging entrepreneur drew a useful distinction between old mainstream media (MSM) which had attention deficit disorder and the best bloggers, who were obsessive compulsive. Newspapers started out on stories or campaigns and then got bored. Bloggers never got bored of their own subjects." Guardian

The discussion reminds me of the old vs. new media conversations at London's WeMedia Fringe that i participated in last year. It also reminds me of the tension between institutional church and emerging church - and the desire to work together to be a 'mixed economy'.

Technorati Tags: davos07, world economic forum

Nintendo Wii: Remote Control for Ableton

DJVicar brings up the possibility of using Nintento's Wii remote and Ableton Live for a worship setting and links to a post that discusses it. There is also a video demonstration. Very cool. I saw a VJ use Arkaos and Ableton Live at the same time, but he still had to use his MIDI to run it all. Remote control would rock!.

DJ Cloudburst [Hi Tim!!] used a Gameboy at one of our worship events in Prague (2002). Once I bought Salling Clicker so I could trigger Powerpoint or Keynote slides from my bluetooth phone. But I never really used Powerpoint [yes, i know, the devil uses powerpoint] prefering to use Arkaos for teaching and presentation instead. I wonder: Is there a way to use Nintendo Wii to trigger videos in Arkaos or a similar VJ program? Anyone know?

Related: The Phones for You, The Skinny on Powerpoint

Left Behind: Eternal Forces

"The game is set in New York City after millions of Christians have been transported to heaven. Players are charged with recruiting, and converting, an army that will engage in physical and spiritual warfare with the antichrist and his evil followers." Now Public
Some say the Left Behind video game encourages prayer. Others say it promotes violence and intolerance. [Check out Wikipedia - [link fixed - thanks) What do you think?

UPDATE: OpenSourceTh. says theres a petition.

Technorati Tags: games, video games

FuseLab : media : art : stuff

- FuseLab media team (Switzerland) do the Mini event. They are good friends of ours and have helped us with a number of worship installations. They are also involved big time in the corporate scene.
- 24/7 Prayer Vision Mix
- Yusuf Islam's (Cat Stevens) new CD reviewed on Bloggedyblog
- Arts as New Creation on Open Source Theology.

Technorati Tags: video, vj

Kult: Heretic Kingdoms action RPG

KULT: Heretic Kingdoms is a new RPG released for Mac. You get to be an Inquisitor with an attitude, killing off religious sects, fanatics and other freaks who think God is alive.

Heres the skinny:
“Set in the world of the Heretic Kingdoms, a world where God is dead and religion heresy, you are cast as a young female inquisitor, working to stamp out the last remnants of religion. On instructions to destroy a relic which the Inquisition considers to be a significant threat, you are drawn into a war between two warring secret societies – a conspiracy of mages whose goal is true power, and a shadowy cult who seeks to resurrect the Dead God.”
Kult: Heretic Kingdoms might be a little too extreme for church people, but maybe the makers (3D People from Slovakia) could do a tamer version where modern day Inquisitors can stamp out emerging church influences in their denominations.

Absolutely not related: Christian gamemaker Digital Praise has announced some new titles. Link
Not in the same league as KULT but BBC admited its bias against Christianity on Sunday's Daily Mail

Technorati Tags: christianity, church, games

40

I have to preach this morning at Stromness Baptist Church - they have been doing a series on Elijah and left off with his 40 day walk. I thought the 40 day fast of Jesus would add another dimension to the story. Yesterday I put together the images of "40" by Simon Smith. I know you can buy a CD with it already made but i didnt have time. I dropped them into iMovie, gave them 5 seconds each. Jonny has also made a version of this.

What about the Music?
Scott Bader-Saye at Peacemeal used Snow Patrol's "Run" for the music (read comments) and Mark Fletcher used "Sulpher Man" by the Doves. But as for me and my house, we . . . i mean I . .. added the last 4 minutes of the freely downloadable track from Jap Jap called Blue Shimmery Fall.

Technorati Tags: jesus

The Growth of New Media

Darren at Problogger gives some reasons why he thinks new media is growing including:
participation, suspicion of institution, playfulness, relationality, holism, juxtoposition, DIY and immediacy.

Technorati Tags: new media

The Skinny on the WeMedia Fringe

Thats me at the WeMedia Fringe in my red Creative Commonist t-shirt. The MC asked if anybody was communist but I didnt let on. Nice photo - thanks Mike.

WeMedia Fringe was an enjoyable series of talks and chat in Soho, London. It was everything it was supposed to be and, apparently, everything that the WeMedia Global Forum wasn't. I wouldn't know. I didnt make it to the Forum nor could I afford the entry fee, although i could have applied for a scholarship or gatecrashed it if i was really serious about going.

Which i wasnt - i was just in London for the day and am already at Lake Constance, Switzerland, where I am now finally [sorry for my tardiness] getting this blog post up. Video will take longer.

Lots of official media suits and BBC people. I think BBC is that old TV station i used to watch as a child with the picture of a river and city coming after each show. Good to see TV folk who know the new media scene and also bloggers who stay connected with the broadcast world.

Highlight for me was meeting other bloggers, some more egotistical than I, others who had been blogging as long as me - and even one who had started 6 months before me - Regular Jen who started like i did in the late nineties on a geocities site.

Great to have a beer and a chat with interesting people - Tim of bloggerheads is an Aussie blog vandal and politcal stirrer who sees the English political scene as his playground and Google his spray can. He has an initmate knowldge of the ways of Google and shared those secrets with us.
Hint: Fresh content is a good way to keep your links and therefore google favour.

The creator of NowPublic.com was showing off his site - really nice guy and a great web site. Another place to store my video for free.

Oh yeah . . . Chris Yapp from Microsoft gave a spectacular speech which is gradually being uploaded by someone to NowPublic for your viewing pleasure.

Stayed out late with Alan (MC from BBC) and Kevin and Robin Hamman who turned out to be a thoughtful American from Preoria. More thoughts and images when i get back to my computer at home.

Technorati Tags: wemedia fringewemedia

Windows on Mac

It happened yesterday. Hackers got Windows working on an intel based Mac. The rest will be history. If you are lucky enough to have an intel Mac, you can download something here.

Church and Internet Study

"Presbyterian churches, at 92 percent, are the major denominational group most likely to be using the Internet."
(LifeWay Study, BP News)

Technorati Tags: church, new media

Rushkoff's Testament

" . . . the Bible isn’t so important because it happened at some moment in history. The Bible is a big deal because it’s happening now. In every moment.’ Every day, I am Cain, discouraged by the way someone else—some Abel—gets credit and attention for doing the same thing I did." Douglas Rushkoff, who will be releasing a monthly comic series called Testament, depicting Biblical themes in contemporary situations. I am sure his views will differ than mine but I am always interested when others are reading and thinking about the Scriptures. HT: Blogs4God who have a better write up than this.

Rushkoff has written some excellent books on cyberculture and new media. "Playing The Future", which i bought back in 1998 when it was called "Children of Chaos", was his best book by far, even better than Cyberia and Media Virus. Open Source Democracy is also worth a read if you are following the impact of new media on communication and social transfromation. His new book "Get Back in the Box" is now released.

If you want to jump into current media trends but graduate from Rushkoff's anti-fundamentalist crusade, there are media analysts who are producing good material without the angst or anti-Christian sentiment. Steven Johnson (Emergence, Everything Bad is Good for You) is the Rushkoff for the new millenium, and are my picks for the best media analysts out there right now are Lev Manovich (The Language of New Media .pdf) and Albert-Laszlo Barabasi (Linked).

Technorati Tags: new media, religion

2005

Tagging, DVR's, Google, Ajax and more. Sarah at Hyperculture has a good breakdown of tech stuff that mattered in 2005.

Technorati Tags: ajax, web 2.0

'Podcast' - Word of The Year

"Podcast" has been awarded the word of the year by the New Oxford English Dictionary. I personally think the revolution in podcasting is overhyped. Its just audio - there is no way to search through it like you can do with text. I believe the revolution in video blogging over the past 6 months, especially in available storage and free bandwidth, will be seen to be far more significant in the long run than podcasting. But thats just me.

Jordon Cooper has a new podcast page that is podcasting some recent hits from Frosty the Aussie. He also has a book he is co-writing called Fearless Honesty: Throwing Stones in a Glass Church . . . but it sure looks like a blog to me. His big blog - JordonCooper.com has been nominated for Canadian Blog Award . Voting is this week so I just went there and clicked one thru for the Coop.

The Brits sure love podcasting - maybe more than blogging. I have been expecting a resurgence of English comedy to hit the iPods - the Brits have ruled that territory since The Goon Show and the great Spike Milligan. I heard some of Ricky Gervais's first podcast this morning. Episode 1 (mp3) Its a load of drivel and nothing like The Goons. But hey, its a good start.

Technorati Tags: podcast

Pyromaniac On Image Editing

"I've been using Paint Shop Pro for Web graphics for 10 years, so I've gotten pretty competent with it, in an amateurish sort of way. It has a lot of features that make this sort of thing easy. It takes anywhere from 10 minutes to an hour to go from a raw .jpg of a scanned comic-book cover to the finished parody version." Pyromaniac Phillip Johnson

The blog that Phil built in June 2005 has already taken its place among the Anti-Emergent Favs such as EmergentNo and Slice of Laodicia.

Phil, in case you were wondering, is not happy about the direction of the emerging church as he sees it. Whether or not you appreciate Phil's slant on the emerging church, his blog is an excellent example of color, fonts, readability, custom images, good links and focused content.
And it proves that:

Even with 50 million blogs, you can still make a big splash with a brand new, fit and virile blog.

It is worth taking one software program, even an old lame one like Paint Shop Pro, and sticking with it long enough to master it.

Humor and satire can grease the way for some good conversation.

More advice: Phillip says "Copyright and trademark law do not necessarily apply to the use of images for caricature, farce, or parody" and he is probably correct, coming from a background with Moody Press.

Technorati Tags: blog, emerging church, new media

Hope for My Commodore 64

I bought a Commodore 64 for a few pounds this summer, in hopes of resurrecting it. Quantum-link seems to have info on connecting to the internet through PC but I am not sure how to do this with Mac. Still . . . there is hope. HT: BoingBoing

Roadtesting Google's Blog Search

Someone smack me if i start using it! Google Blog Search was released an hour ago. Official site is blogsearch.google.com and there's a good post at SixApart. As for me and my house, I just don't like the idea of the Almighty Google knowing so much, remembering so much, and having so much power. Being a old stick-in-the-mud as i am, I will stick to Technorati.com

ROADTEST:
I typepd in "tallskinnykiwi" and the first result was an Alan Hartung post. The rest were all mine, but still . . I would like to control my own tag. Now a search for the same thing on technorati.com . . . woooohhh . . even worse . . all these strange sites who have mentioned me and mine is not even there. Maybe blogsearch.google.com is worth a look at after all.

GEEK NEEDED:
Could some geek out there create a search engine box for our blogs that offers blogsearch.google AND technorati AND oldskool Google?

(UPDATE_ ROADTEST 2:
| just searched for this post using "tallskinnykiwi, google blog search". Results:
Technorati: YES
BlogSearchGoogle: NO, not yet.

Technorati Tags: blog

The Spirituality of Torrent

Torrentocracy announced a Web API that will allow bloggers to manage their own dang torrents. BoingBoing says Ecto will support it soon. This will really help with distributing large video files. I have heard of Blog Torrent who may have already offered this, but have not had time to try it out.

If you have ever downloaded a large file through bit torrent protocol, you know that you are not downloading from a central data bank or a single user but rather from other users who are downloading it the same time as you are. In other words, you are getting it from lots of people who do not yet have it all. And while you are downloading the file, others are already downloading from your computer what you have already taken. To be a receiver is to be a giver. You don't wait until you have the whole file before you start uploading - it happens at the same time. It all sounds very spiritual to me. Like the flow of the gospel - but then maybe I am kinda wacky?

And how does it all start? It starts when someone "seeds" a torrent file and makes it available. Jesus often talked of the gospel as seed.

Downloading and uploading torrents also makes me think of the teachings of Jesus on giving and receiving. The one who is giving (allowing uploads of stored data) is the one who can download data the fastest. Try to stop others from uploading (taking from what you already have) and you will slow down your own download. The givers receive more. To the one who has, more will be given. | said this before on an earlier post.

Technorati Tags: blog, spirituality, torrent

Will We Have Mega-Cyberchurches?

Hi, Andrew.
hope you are fine. right now we are working on the German edition of Roland Allen’s Missionary Methods. He writes a lot about strategic centres...and defines them geographically. Could you write a (longer) comment on what strategic centres are / can be in the present world (cultural centres, virtual centres?) and what this means for missionary methods? Thanks , Kerstin
[Email from Kerstin Hack, Down-to-Earth Publishing]

Hi Kerstin,
Hope the translation is coming along well. It’s a fantastic book and, as you know, one that has greatly influenced missions practise for nearly a century and was very influential for Bishop Leslie Newbiggin.

I can see why the strategic centre issue might be questioned in today’s world of decentralized power, personal blogs, micro-businesses and the growing influence of small house church networks that don’t seem to need a strategic geographic centre.

Right. . Roland's book. . .here are some rough thoughts:

Roland Allen noted in his classic book “Missionary Methods: St Paul’s or Ours?” (1912) that the apostle Paul focused his missionary work on strategic centres “of Roman administration, of Greek civilization, of Jewish influence, or of some commercial importance.” (Page 13). He also noted that these natural centres became strategic “because he made them such. There were not centres at which he must stop, but centres from which he might begin.” (Page 16)

This brings up some questions relating to our current emerging culture, which is undergoing a radical reformation through internet publishing, gift economy, open source, new media communications, new alliances and social networks, and the shift of power that accompanies those new allegiances and practises.

Technorati Tags: church, mission, new media, cyberchurch

Themepunks: Cory's Novel Starts Today

"You're going to help Americans who lost their jobs in your factories buy goats and cellphones?"

"We're going to give them loans and coordination to start businesses that use information, materials science, commodified software and hardware designs, and creativity to wring a profit from the air around us."
Themepunks, Cory Doctorow

Starting today, Salon will be publishing a serialized version of Cory [BoingBoing] Doctorow's novel "Themepunks" which is actually unfinished . . . but should be completed by the time the series ends. Look for it every Monday at Salon.com over the next 10 weeks. The book reads like a remake of Gibson's 'Neuromancer', but is more relevant to today's world.
I like Cory - met him last year at "Tech Active" and i follow what he is up to - especially his publishing ventures.
Warning: bad language and bombardment of advertising ahead - not sure which is worse. Makes me long for the good ol' days of eBooks when you could pay some money, download your book and read it without a dozen corporate sponsors sitting down with you. Ahhhhhhh . . . . . . memories . ..
Themepunks discussed on Technorati

Technorati Tags: books, new media

Where is the Katrina Video?

Thanks for all your emails regarding the video Please Don't Make Us Sing that many of us downloaded and played on Sunday in our churches. As you know, it was taken down but is going online again. Travis, the creator of the video, just emailed me:

"Hey Andrew, glad you could use the piece. The video will be back up temporarily on old site in a few minutes, and then up on www.theworkofthepeople.com in a day or so with other Katrina pieces. Blessings, no doubt.
-travis"

Thanks Travis - you rock. Its an incredible video and it was played in many countries last Sunday. The old site iswww.highwayvideo.com/pub/DontMakeUsSingThis.zip

Technorati Tags: church, Hurricane, Katrina, New Orleans

Greenbelt 2005: The Skinny

UPDATE: I am leaving tonight to get down to London and then Greenbelt Festival in Cheltenham. I will be on a BLOG FAST for the next 4 days while I am camping in my tent with thousands of other happy campers. Looking for me? I should be pitching my tent with the large group of Germans from Kubik (where i preached earlier this year) and the Doxology team.

- Greenbelt attenders are encouraged to place a tag on their blogs and share photos using Flikr for a Greenbelt montage. Details here.

- Best teaching at Greenbelt this year (apart from my seminar "The Spirituality of Blogging" at the Greenbelt TANK - ha ha) will be to hear Karen Armstrong speak on whatever she will speak about. I have two of her books at home - she is really something! She is my only "MUST HEAR" for Greenbelt this year.

- Will there be another roundtable for emerging church like last year's Epicentre Roundtable?
NO - nothing formal planned this year but there are lots of opportunities to do this inside the program. If you know of a time and place where something is happening, please leave a comment below.

ORIGINAL POST:

Greenbelt Festival (Cheltenham, UK) have me speaking on Monday 29th August in The Tank, the official hangout space of the Geeks. The title of my talk is "The Spirituality of Blogging". Some of you heard me speak last year on "Forward Slash" which was more of an intro to the values of new media. This one will go further in exploring spirituality in and through hypertext, internet, and of course, blogging. I assume it will be recorded, since they did it last year and made it available through their web-shop.

Pre-reading? I recommend downloading Tim Bednar's "We Know More Than Our Pastors".

But I also hope to meet up with more than geeks. It will be good to see old friends (all my friends are now old) and I have a desire to meet up with people who have just recently started up an alternative model of church. Let me know if that is you.
Tag - greenbelt2005

Technorati Tags: greenbelt, new media, UK

Kevin Kelly on Blogging

We Are The Web: Kevin Kelly talks on Wired about 10 years of hypertext.

"No Web phenomenon is more confounding than blogging. Everything media experts knew about audiences - and they knew a lot - confirmed the focus group belief that audiences would never get off their butts and start making their own entertainment. . . . Blogs and other participant media would never happen, or if they happened they would not draw an audience, or if they drew an audience they would not matter. What a shock, then, to witness the near-instantaneous rise of 50 million blogs, with a new one appearing every two seconds. There - another new blog!"

" . . . in the near future, everyone alive will (on average) write a song, author a book, make a video, craft a weblog, and code a program. This idea is less outrageous than the notion 150 years ago that someday everyone would write a letter or take a photograph."

Interesting thought - Kelly says the average internet user is 41 years old. Just like me (Am I AVERAGE?) As for his question, "What happens when everyone is uploading far more than they download?", I took a shot answering it in Generation Text.

Creative Archive

VJ's listen up. BBC is opening up its archives of video. Its called the SuperStar VJ area of the Creative Archive and I heard it was UK only. Thanks Jonny.

All Things Mobile

One billion people are signed up to a GSM network. Thats a lot. I am trying out WINKsite and have set up an account for those of you who want to get my text only RSS feed to your phone. My Wink ID is 10434. http://winksite.com/tallskinnyki/mobile. Let me know what you think.

[UPDATE] Sasa Flek (from the video post below) began a daily SMS devotional feed to his congregation in 2002 and then others around Prague and Czech Republic requested a feed. Soon it was a community of 300 people getting their daily bread on the phone.
Also, I see Emergent Kiwi (Steve) is blogging this morning on Mobile stuff, and has a good link to Mobile Theology.

VOGMA: A Video Blog Manifesto

Adrian Miles gives a good video blog manifesto:

"vogma: a manifesto [ in no particular order ]

1. a vog respects bandwidth
2. a vog is not streaming video (this is not the reinvention of television)
3. a vog uses performative video and/or audio
4. a vog is personal
5. a vog uses available technology
6. a vog experiments with writerly video and audio
7. a vog lies between writing and the televisual
8. a vog explores the proximate distance of words and moving media
9. a vog is dziga vertov with a mac and a modem
10. a vog is a video blog where video in a blog must be more than video in a blog"

Technorati Tags: video

Top 500

I made the Top 500 blogs this month (Number 381) so I am adding this symbol to my sidebar. Thanks Darren Rowse for letting me know. I haven't checked Feedster before so i don't know if its my first time there or not.
Congrats also to Tim Challies who also made the list (490) and is just getting home from his vacation to find the good news.
Am I bigheaded?

DTV - Internet TV

I downloaded DTV last week and have been fiddling with it. Its now possible to broadcast online without any cost for bandwidth with the "broadcast machine" and the open source software from ParticipatoryCulture.org And people can view it through RSS readers. I opened up an account and will probably do a few broadcasts to test it out soon. Yes, it uses torrent technology, and it will be out for PC in a few weeks.
Can I ask a favor? Dont fill these internet channels with talking-head movies of your speeches (use podcasting for that) but be creative. Dabble. Experiment. Find some new genres that fit.

Technorati Tags: new media

My Random Son Wins a T-Shirt

Sam just won a signed T-Shirt from HabboHotel for sending in the most random of random objects - a homemade loaf of blue liquid bread that dissolves metal. Sam, who is now 14, has been a regular on habbo hotel, and is responsible for setting up Suddenly Seminary each time we meet. His own rooms include a Random room, and garage-stores where he sells collectible virtual furniture. Sam is a trader - he buys and sells online, and manages to make enough virtual money to buy virtual furniture for his virtual rooms. Which is fine by me - I always seem to have an abundance of virtual objects for my seminary. Now if only he could do that in the real world!!!


Sam ('sjmj' with red hood) at the Suddenly Seminary Graduation Party where he invented the game of jumping out of the phonebooth and into the hot-tub. I was the first to jump WITHOUT spilling my coffee. Samuel, despite winning the T-Shirt, was banned from the game by accident and has not been able to play again.

Technorati Tags: new media

Studio 8

Studio 8 “the biggest software release in the history of Macromedia.” which BTW has a killer new website - looks like Hillman Curtis is up to his old tricks again on that flash header. [let me just check . . . doesn't say on his site . . . anyone know who designed it?]

I bought Studio 3 back in 2000 - it only came with Dreamweaver and Fireworks, but it was a great start. I still use Fireworks as my primary graphics program. I don't think this new set will compete with Adobe Creative Suite with the graphic artist crowd, but I think many web designers and geeks will upgrade. And yes, I know its the same company now that Adobe bought Macromedia. What say you about the Studio?
HT: MacWorld.

Bartha on Technology

"This is the crux: When a 14-year old hacks Netscape and at 19 releases Firefox which gets downloaded a million times the first day; when a bored teen sings "Dragostea Din Tea" by the Romanian pop band "O-Zone" into his web cam and gets downloaded over a million times ... emerging church leaders need to be nurturing their transformed imaginations and the imaginations of those young emerging leaders within their scope of influence." Karl [Kirk] Bartha, Technology and the Velocity of Glory Next Wave].

UPDATE: I meant Kirk, not Karl. Sorry. Thats what happens when i am blogging at 2am.

Blogosphere Doubling every 5.5 months

State of the Blogosphere:
- The blogosphere continues to double about every 5.5 months
- A new blog is created about every second.
If you will be at Greenbelt Festival this month, I will be speaking on "The Spirituality of Blogging."

Downloadable NerdTV

Robert Cringley, who less than a year ago said "most of the video bloggers will be blogging to themselves" (link) is now getting ready to produce his own downloadable TV show called NerdTV that will be distributed through PBS web site using Bit Torrent, a network of distributed servers (Robert's "poor man's Akamai") . . . and under a Creative Commons License. He will also send out an audio-only podcast. Coming Sep 6.
Link: PBS HT: Betachurch

Question: Where would a church go to find really really cheap bandwith if it wanted to create compelling media for the internet?

If the Bible was Blogged

I know the Bible was not blogged. The publishing technologies were different back then. But what if it was? What technologies would be used? What kind of blogs would the authors create for their unique messages?

Jesus wrote in the sand with his finger. No doubt a Wiki-man who would have preferred his own Wiki Sandbox.

Solomon would have sent out his proverbs with an daily RSS feed, perhaps using a blog as a home base for his feeds.

Matthew. A hyperlink geek who would blog with a constant stream of links back to the original prophecies in the Hebrew Scriptures. Most blogging programs make that easy. But a blogging editor lets you do it all offline. I use Ecto.

Luke was writing the book of Acts on the move. He would have been a Moblogger for sure, He could have sent all his posts through telephone - both written and audio. Unless he was a WiFi Warrior, tapping into rogue signals to post their blogs like other missionaries on the move around the world (yes, thats me . .  many times)

Moses? MoBlogging would have worked for Moses also, but posting from the middle of the desert would have been a nightmare. Not only no WiFi but also not phone signal. Perhaps satellite technology would have been necessary. I tend to think of Moses as more of a .PDF man - creating long, scrolling documents that could be safely stored and retrieved when necessary. Especially the Commandments - they were too permanent to blog. And if he did blog the commandments, he would have turned off the comments underneath. I know I would have.

Nehemiah was the firewall freak, always worrying about security, hacks, and building up those walls to keep out the bad guys (spammers, hackers, crackers, flamers). If he blogged, he would have gone for one of those really secure blogging systems that make you type out unique codes before you can comment.

John could have run a Vlog (video blog) with all those visions that make up his Revelation. Pity he couldn't record the visions with a mental screen capture program.

David was a musician so a podcasting blog would have enabled the recordings of his psalms to be narrowcast to anyone, broadband or dial-up. As for live performance, Media Shout rather than the complicated VJ software  like Arkaos or Isadora that Ezekiel would have used for his mixed media presentations.

Saul was paranoid about rumors and threats. He would have subscribed to Bloglines, or Del.icio.us or created a watchlist on technorati with the key words “David has killed his ten of thousands” and then he would have tracked exactly which blogger was saying it, and when, and where they lived. Or even better, snatching the blogger's own RSS feeds to read what they are reading. Like dragging Jordon's del.icio.us/inbox/jordoncooper into one's news reader, for example.  But if he did blog, he would have used a similar site to measure his blog rankings, so that he could be sure of being head and shoulders above the rest.

The Apostle Paul, I have always thought, would be a straight xhtml guy - a designer who creates and controls his own site. “See with what large letters I write to you” - the man was was a Coder, no doubt. He created business tent-shops, so web design would be the contemporary equivalent in today's e-business world. Paul would have used a notebook PC.

Peter, on the other hand, employed Silvanus to write his first letter. He would have used an easy blogging system like Typepad, Blogger, SquareSpace, InkNoise. And Silvanus would have set him up with a blogging editor like Ecto for his Mac. Yes, Peter's Mac. . .  iBook, to be exact.

And What Would Jesus Do with all the blogging choices? I dont know . . . but if it was you thinking of blogging and not Jesus, you might check out the first stop for any budding theoblogian which is Jordon's Blog Round-up. And if you had more time, you would read some more thoughts on blogging from me and from Jordon.

Lomo VJ'ing at the Pyramids

Whoever said that i am addicted to the fashionably hip and cool was . . . ABSOLUTELY CORRECT!
Take a look at this. Lomography VJ'ing at the Pyramids, May 27 and 31. DJ Electronische and avantegarde arabic tunes. How cool is that? And since I have been posting Lomographs on their site since 2001, some of the 2 million images taken from their site and used in the presentation could be mine. (Very unlikely though) I wonder if they need any more VJ's.

The nEthics of Hacking Google

“Google [the almighty search engine] relies mostly on two criteria: The number of sites that link to yours and, to a lesser degree, the content of your page as it relates to the keywords selected. (For example, the number of times the words appear on that page).” Greg Boser, Google hacker
A simple formula can be manipulated and a post by Wired this morning talks about a guy that hacks Google for a living and his company called WebGuerilla. As for me, I am not smart enough to spell “WebGuerilla” without looking it up and I have never even registered on a search engine, nor taken any steps to rise above the lowly rank assigned to me by the blogsophere. I refuse requests from people who offer to “increase my rating”. I guess you could call me a Cyber-Calvinist.