happykatie :: katie rocks out the interwebs

Saturday Silliness: Not Second Life, but similarly Sim-y

A little New Pornographers music video gone Sims style.  Dorky, yes.  But that's kind of what makes me happy.  Thanks to Adam for uncovering this YouTube gem.  :)

YouTube gives me agua de beber

I have a ridiculous amount of love for a certain song - Agua De Beber (aka:  Water To Drink) - as sung by Astrud and Joao Gilberto.  There are few languages that have that kind of sex appeal like Portuguese and few rhythms as sultry as the Bossa Nova -- and this song showcases both perfectly.

So on that gushy note, I am beside myself to happen upon this cute little Spanish family (Los Foulkes) covering not only Ague De Beber in a most spectacular fashion, but also covering one of my fave Billie Holiday songs:  You're My Thrill.  Everyone with me now, LOVE YOU YOUTUBE!!

And in further YouTube awesomeness, I also managed to score a German guitar teacher's lesson on how to play Agua De Beber and the lyrics (which are in their entirety after the jump - LOVE!).

Scrapblog wants you to 'Get Crafty!'

Check out Scrapblog's new 'Get Crafty' vidcast!  Their premiere episode looks at online photo cropping tools that Scrapblog has recently updated.  I look forward to when they showcase not only their own *awesome!!* software, but bring in outside designers and external creative influences as well. 

About Scrapblog's 'Get Crafty!':  Get Crafty! is the new show produced by Scrapblog that will showcase designers, new features and crafty ideas for preserving your digital memories. Get Crafty will introduce you to online scrapbooking and new techniques that will rekindle your love of crafting.

It's embarrassing that i haven't Scrapblogged more, but you can always find me here:  www.scrapblog.com/happykatie.  Perhaps now that I've gone public I'll shame myself into working some more Scrapblog magic...

Social Media and You - A Schipul Instructional Film

I present to you the latest and greatest from the Schipul Instructional Films series:

Crazy mad props to Jaymac and all of the Schipul crew.  Hands down some of the coolest people I know.  UPDATE:  This Social Media video was based on a 1950's PSA video here (it's even funnier if you watch this one too...)

me and me.dium - a video response to mapping the interwebs

It's nothing crazy-brilliant, but I created a quickie, simple video for the 'What is Me.dium?' video contest on YouTube.   For the record - before you view it - I DO NOT in fact chit chat about celebrity gossip all the time at Starbucks.  Just some of the time :)

If you will recall, I blogged about Me.dium's RockMe online concert series and think it's a pretty interesting tool to discover new topic-specific content.  Plus it gives you the feeling that you aren't just some geek alone at your computer, as it creates 'neighborhoods' and you get a visual of where other surfers are in relation to your online surfing.

Social surfing is cool :)  Give it a shot!

Threadbangers - DIY with love from YouTube

I'm so in crafty-love with Threadbangers - a killer online DIY network full of how-to crafty videos, forums and brain candy for those that want to re-fashionize their wardrobe and look fah-bulous doing so. 

There are oh-so-many dedicated crafty and DIY fashion sites out there right now, both for selling/purchasing handcrafted goods (or gleaning ideas and inspiration from) and for learning how to make them yourself. 

Here are just a few of my fave Crafty/DIY sites (don't hate me if I left you off - this is seriously off the top of me noggin):

• Etsy (www.etsy.com)
• Get Crafty (www.getcrafty.com)
• Burda style (www.burdastyle.com)
• The Anti Craft (www.theanticraft.com)
• Not Martha (www.notmartha.org)
• Fitz Patterns (www.fitzpatterns.myshopify.com/collections/free)
• Pink of Perfection (www.pinkofperfection.com)
• Craft Sanity (www.craftsanity.com)
• Shana Logic - formerly PixelGirl (www.shanalogic.com)

YouTube makes nice to NPOs

Apparently I'm on a YouTube kick today, but when things are good things are good.

As a Social Media geek I'm always on the lookout for innovative uses of online video, but am just now reading up on the details of the new YouTube Non Profit program.  Essentially the service offers accepted 501(c)(3) groups:

• Premium branding capabilities and increased uploading capacity
• Rotation of your videos in the "Promoted Videos" areas throughout the site
• The option to drive fundraising through a Google Checkout "Donate" button

And the first 300 non profit registrants get a free Casio video camera too, which ain't a bad thing.  You might recognize some non profits already boasting their own NPO channels:  YouthNoise (hey Erin :) ), March Of Dimes, The IRC (recommended last year by LongStation and featured in our recent Tendenci User Conference) among others.  Love it.

Out with the old: The Break Up with traditional advertisers

The Break Up 
This funny-but-true video was created for M's Advertising Solutions campaign, but highlights the general changing dynamics in advertising and marketing relationships really well.  Good stuff.

Citizen Journalists up for $100k video prize cash

Alternative Channel - a Canadian indie TV-over-Internet news channel - is promoting video camera wielding concerned citizens everywhere with an international $100,000 Citizen Journalism video contest.

We want you to produce a short video (report or testimonial) of 1 minute 30 seconds to 5 minutes. Remember that in journalism, long is rarely best. We want to be gripped from the first frame, hooked from the first idea. Your video will be posted on alternativechannel.com and available to a worldwide audience. The key words are: persuasion, values, message, relevance, novelty... if it’s interesting to you, make it interesting to the world.

Winners will be announced on December 1st at the first ever International Citizen Journalism Summit in Geneva. 

This is a really cool idea, but will we get to see the submissions?  Will we get to comment, rate or share them?  I hope the Alternative Channel has some good plans in the works, because their current online state is a pretty poor forum for citizen journalism.  All in good time I suppose.

And now we bring you the Democratic debate... sponsored by YouTube

Like a bajillion other people ('bajillion = a highly technical count of users, incidentally), I use YouTube for brilliant video finds like GalagaGal's 'Waiting for a bus' and Mr. Show videos.  But lately YouTube has been making me look/feel so much smarter by smashing really great political content into my ordinarily chuckle-induced online video world.  This makes me really happy.

Case in point:  YouTube is sponsoring one of 6 Democratic debates this year

It's all still a fascinating experiment at this point, political stuffed shirts relying on their young, hip campaign team members to lead them to virtual campaigning ecstasy.  And why not?  It's a different world, with new technologies and new ideas on how to communicate, share and spam each other.

“It’s really a new day,” Carol Darr, director of the Institute for Politics, Democracy and the Internet at George Washington University said of YouTube’s role. And, she added, it’s smart marketing - especially for organizers of an early debate - to seek out an audience, and online political activism is especially hot this election cycle.

“You go fishing where the fish are,” she said.

To be honest, I don't know that they are really going to get the kind of catch that they are intending.  Previous efforts to move young voters have fallen flat on their faces - apathy is so much cooler than standing in line to make a difference, I guess.  Ironically that same demographic has no problems standing in line for 12 hours to buy Xboxes, audition for American Idol or get the coolest new sneakers.  What gives?????

This YouTube sponsorship is still significant though - in all sorts of crazy ways.  It symbolizes potential partnerships between the old skool MSM suits and the new skool social media crazies.  Perhaps most importantly, it means that my YouTube favorites won't look quite so cracked out (or depending on the candidates, maybe 10 times more so).