Just curious and interested in getting up to date on the latest tools being used in gadget-land for non-geographical community. Based on the recent updates to citybuilder.org, it looks like wordpress webpages, flickr photos, and blip.tv videos are the latest, eh?
I was thinking about this during a flight yesterday, and wondering how video access that was once paid for in 2006 would now be regulated on CB, and I also took a step back to think about talks that are presented in Men's or Women's Conferences, Pastoral Training Institutes, Teach Review Seminars, Board of Governor Meetings, etc.
In the past-past, cassette tapes have been distributed, we started using video cd's after the Men's Leaders Conf a few years ago with mixed success, and then audio for the most recent PTI audio cd's, in addition to streaming online and sharing videos and photos.
My question is - what sort of technology can we ourselves create or utilize to make this type of information available, but not readily sharable and download-able by anyone. Unfortunately, there folks out there that would readily use such material in efforts against us, and I think its important to keep user security to prevent this.
So, I present the question to the Emmaus Project community, among all the other things that are going on! Can we create some sort of non-burnable disc, password protected video or audio sharable file, etc that can be distributed community-wide? One concept that comes to my mind is iTunes. I can purchase them with an apple account it, and share them over a network so that others can play them, BUT other's can't just free access and download my songs unless they purchase them as well, unlike the napster's of my college days.
I haven't used podcasts a lot, but they seem like a potentially good way to go (mac or windows friendly, any type of email address acceptable, only requires a free download of iTunes, and submits to Steve Jobs increasing control of the Music and Video Distribution Industry, but it's still pretty cool. Let me know what you think, and we'll see how blip.tv works out for CB in '07.
God Bless,
Hugh Jr.
Broadcasting The Life
I'm glad we're using Blip.tv this summer, mostly because there's no reason that I've seen so far why those weekly videos should be private. I suppose there's not going to be many who will stumble upon them and track us down, but it's possible.
There are definitely ways to keep things secure. Podcasts, though, are very public because RSS readers do not have the concept of logging into the site to view a feed yet. However, much like last year, we could have a Drupal site where you have to have a privileged account to view the files. With a correctly set up site, you can serve any kind of file to only members. If you want added security, you could make sure that the server is running it all through an SSL connection. However, with a lot of audio and especially video, hosting these files can get really expensive, which is why Google Video and Blip.tv are so helpful - they pay the bandwidth for basically no cost (and are still figuring out how to make money).
I definitely think the new CityBuilder.org is better because it's using systems that are much more public. Anyone can search those pictures on Flickr and the videos on Blip.tv. Also, there's many programs that index the blog posts. It's nice.