It’s Sunday, so I’m freewheeling. Checking out stuff on the internet with no plan, no agenda, no Getting Things Done task lists. So wasting a half hour watching a Discovery show on the phenomenal rise of the iPod is perfectly acceptable. And what a great story. My favorite part is how the choice of white for the ear buds was a stroke of dumb luck that created the fashion statement of the iPod and helped the craze go white-hot. Click on the image to the right, the head of Steve Jobs silhouetted against the Apple log, to watch the show.
Other fun video I’ve been watching lately, mainly on my video iPod, comes from the New York Times and the Washington Post, strange as that may seem. Here’s an example from the Post, of Barack Obama feeling the love in Virginia, whose governor is the first in the nation to endorse him for president. The camera work and editing are terrific, and there’s a good line from Obama when he says of America, “It’s our time to lead. Our identity crisis is over.”
And speaking of love, the New York Times now runs video portraits of newlyweds, titled Vows. Here’s an example, of Amy and Brett, talking about how they met and fell in love. Slate’s Troy Patterson last year gagged on these videos, calling them “the gentrification of exhibitionism,” but he admitted he can’t stop watching them, either.
It’s odd to realize that I’m not watching actual television more than a total of an hour a week, occasionally checking in with the morning news programs while scarfing down some granola and orange juice. But at the same time, my consumption of video on my MacBook Pro and iPod is increasing, to perhaps two or three hours a week.
Here is a list of the video feeds on my iTunes directory–the links are aimed at the shows’ RSS feeds which you can paste into iTunes or other podcatcher. If you have no idea what feeds or podcatchers are, you can still click on these links and mouse around a bit to try watching some of the individual episodes on your computer.
60 Minutes – I see Mike Wallace will interview Bill O’Reilly tonight. That should make professional wrestling look genteel.
Alive in Baghdad – award-winning citizen journalism in Iraq
Amanda Congdon’s video blog on ABC – not as edgy and real as the original RocketBoom, but sometimes interesting.
GeekBrief.TV – endearingly goofy (and cute) girl who sometimes has good techno news.
Izzy Video – tips on taking videos, not updated very often, unfortunately.
MacBreak – well-produced, informative Macintosh show by podcast guru Leo Laporte.
National Geographic Atmosphere – gorgeous short videos from around the world.
NBC’s Meet the Press – I’m getting sick of Tim Russert’s gotcha journalism, but still watch once in a while.
CBS’s Face the Nation – Bob Schieffer does it right, asking intelligent questions without resorting to forced reactions to quotes the interviewee wrote for his or her high school newspaper.
Loic Le Meur – the French national blogger whose feed contains more than half video and the rest audio.
Steve Garfield’s video blog – the VlogFather, Boston’s own video blogger extraordinaire.
Josh Leo’s video blog – a talented young vlogger from the Grand Rapids, Michigan.
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