Post Format: Video (VideoPress)
Clicker is Your Complete Guide for Internet Television
You missed that recent episode of V or the first episode of CSI’s crossover week. You know they aren’t showing re-runs and you can’t believe you forgot to set the DVR. Maybe you can catch them online, but where? Clicker is a service that will help you answer that exact question: Where are the shows I want to see playing online?
As massive amounts of programming move online, consumers are entering a world of infinite choices, all on-demand. Great! Finding the show you want to watch? Painful. Thousands of episodes from thousands of shows are housed on thousands of different sites, mixed among billions of random clips and videos.
Clicker boasts more than 450,000 episodes, from over 6,000 shows, from over 1,200 networks. They also contain 40,000 movies and 50,000 music videos from 20,000 artists. They refer to themselves as “one part directory, one part search engine, one part wiki, one part entertainment guide, and one part DVR.”
Clicker basically indexes video from various sources across the web. Rather than trying to sift through YouTube, Hulu, or other video sites, Clicker serves as your one-stop shop for locating exactly what you need. When possible, you can even watch your shows right from the Clicker website. Otherwise, it links you to the relevant source.
Even if the content you’re looking for is not free, Clicker will show you where you can buy it. The search features auto-complete and thumbnails of the shows you might be searching for. If you’re not even sure what you’re looking for, you can browse through the extensive selection of categories or visit Trends to see what’s hot.
As you browse through the site, you can add items to playlists for later viewing. This works much like Hulu’s queue, including a history of items you’ve already watched. You can also connect Clicker to your Facebook account to let your friends know what you’re watching and to invite 5 lucky people to join the service. Clicker is in private beta, but it only took me a few days to get my invitation, so go sign up and let us know what you think.
I Am an XML Superstar
I like making videos, so I when I came across this XLM Contest, you already know I had to put in my 2 cents. The contest is easy to enter. You can do a song, create a documentary, or make a screencast. Just about anything you can think of is fair game as long as it’s entertaining and related to XML, XQuery or DB2. Ok, it doesn’t really have to be entertaining, but why bother otherwise? The contest runs on a monthly basis and the highest rated video each month gets a cool prize. This month, you have the chance to get an 8GB iPod nano.
This IDUG contest (International DB2® Users Group) allows 1 entry each month, so you can increase your chances of winning a prize. You don’t have to know anything about XML or any of this stuff as long as you can incorporate the required subjects into your video. When you enter the contest, you’ll take a quiz before you can submit your video. This actually helps to teach you a few basics about XML, DB2 and XQuery. You get the answers before each question and the quiz itself is quite short, but the information will give you ammo for the awesome video you’re going to create.
Go join the contest so you can become an XML Superstar, you have until the 17th to win the December prize, but I think I have that one in the bag.
Find more videos like this on ChannelDB2
I Guess Video Embeds DO Work in WordPress
I originally got a video camera so that I could post videos of me singing on YouTube. Yeah, I know, lame.
Anyway, I more recently began using Seesmic for recording a workout journal because I find it extremely boring to write down or type what I have done. This information is imperative in making sure I’m progressing, though.
One day, I decided I was going to record myself reciting a verse to one of my songs spoken-word style. A lot of people seemed to enjoy this across the blogosphere. This got me interested in doing more video, so I started my 12 Seconds To A Better Life series on 12seconds.tv.
Until now, I had not embedded any videos here because I remembered running into issues before, but I can’t for the life of me remember now what had happened then because, as you can see below, Seesmic embeds just fine. It seems YouTube, Google Video and a few others need a plugin like Viper’s Video Quicktags.
The moral of the story is to always track what you do. Finding a solution to a problem is like solving a maze. If you don’t keep track of where you’ve been, you will keep hitting the same dead ends. I guess that applies to life in general, too.
Look forward to seeing more of me. The type of content here probably won’t change much, but video definitely allows for more diversity in how it will be presented.
Just for fun, here is me reciting something else on Seesmic.
Follow me at 12seconds.tv, Seesmic, or YouTube
Need an invite for 12seconds? Be one of the first 8 people to leave a comment and ask me for one.
Also, feel free to comment via Seesmic right on my blog 🙂