I am currently very excited, because at last, FireANT, the world's first video aggregator, is available for PCs.

What is a video aggregator you may ask? Well, let's say you have this favorite videoblog called The Product. One minor problem with videoblogs is that you have to visit the site every day to see if there is a new video, and then wait while it downloads before you can watch it. A video aggregator simplifies this process. It knows when The Product has been updated, and will download my videos to your computer as they become available. It can do this while you are sleeping or otherwise away from the computer. All you have to do is fire up FireANT and use it to watch my movies, as easily as turning on your TV. There are already scores of aggregators for blogs and podcasts, but this is the only one for vlogs, and until now it was only available for Macs.

So you need to download FireANT, and load in The Product. All the really cool videoblogs are already in the FireANT directory, so subscribing to my feed is easy. Did I mention that all of this is free?

That said, the PC beta version of FireANT is still pretty (ahem) buggy. The worst part is that the aspect ratio gets all screwy for Quicktime movies, which is a little bit nasty, since most vloggers are Macheads who post exclusively in Quicktime format.

As a PC-using vlogger, I've been concerned about this Mac-heavy imbalance in the vlogging community lately. I wonder, when my videos start up on the clunky Windows Media interface, do you Mackies wince a little bit?

I suspect that on a subconcious level, some feel that posting in WMV is akin to wearing an ugly shirt or having slight BO. Sure, it doesn't mean I'm a bad person (or that it's a bad movie), but ... well ... y'know.

Conversely, Quicktime is the power tie at the business meeting. It makes the statement, "Look. I'm in your club. I'm one of you."

These are my concerns. I just want to make fun movies. But metaphorically speaking, they're my children, and when they go to school I want them to be popular.

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5 Comments:

predicate nominative said...

hey, i like slight bo.

6:35 AM  

ZuDfunck said...

Ant needs my Feed for ZuDfunck's Mac Gonzo Vlogger to make it worthwile...

10:40 AM  

Jay Dedman said...

wmv, mov, mpeg4....lets not get too worried about it.
in FireANT, it all plays the same.
get more windows people to make videoblogs..thats the answer.
macs just make it easier right now.
i love you.

9:28 AM  

Barrett said...

I'm not really sure that Macs make it easier. The setup I'm using makes it pretty fricken easy. Of course, I'm not using Windows Movie Maker, which I don't particularly care for. But anyway, thanks for the kind words.

Everyone needs to make videoblogs. So I have more to watch.

8:29 PM  

Tim said...

Damn. I guess that BO smell is me, then.

2:37 PM  

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Barrett Chase is the creator of Barrett Chase Dot Com, a text-based blog that ran from February, 2003 - February, 2005. The Product is a new vision and a new start. You may contact him by emailing bchase at gmail dot com.

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