I’ve been doing some digital housecleaning and I dug up a video from 2004 of me narrating my MFA thesis exhibition. It was online in the first iteration of nathangibbs.com but managed to get swept under the rug when rolling out WordPress last year. Bringing the video out of the closet got me thinking about how much online video has changed even in the last year and how poorly I’m taking advantage it.
So, I went ahead and uploaded everything to YouTube, Google Video, and added self-hosted Flash versions here on the site. I added copy/paste embed code to give bloggers as many options as I possibly can to make it portable (a huge improvement over the quad-option WindowsMedia / Quicktime / Hi / Low choices that launch a popup window). I also adjusted the wording on the links in the header, re-ordered the sidebar, and added Related Posts to the bottom of each blog entry.
While the updates aren’t revolutionary, it does feel like a milestone. The videos are out there, really out there, with searchable transcripts on Google and everything. I was always hesitant about giving the videos away to places like YouTube, but in the end, the value of visibility is worth more than the $0 status quo while it sits on the shelf. And if the videos start going nuts on YouTube and Google, both have there’s always the option to charge if that made sense further down the line.
Check out Color Studies for a version of me two years ago talking about my work.