I’m going to start with the assumption that you know what Twitter is. I’ve written here about it enough and it’s got all famous since then – any minute now, it’ll be passé.

Having established that, I can safely lazily define 12seconds as “like Twitter but with video”. Where Twitter requires the poster to encapsulate their thoughts within 140 characters, 12seconds is built from videos that are – wait for it – no more than 12 seconds long.

This makes it very hard for them to be boring (though it happens) and encourages the same cutdown, efficient, pithy communication with which regular twitterers will be familiar (and which is notable by its absence from this sentence). As well as recording live via a webcam, 12-second videos can be produced on a mobile phone and emailed to the site – and the short time limit keeps file sizes low enough that that’s actually a practical approach, and the one I use most often.

My channel is, of course, the place to be, although 12seconds automatically sends a message to my Twitter account when I’ve posted, so you can keep abreast of my video clips without registering on 12seconds – although you should register, because then you can post 12-second video clips too!

So what can you do in 12 seconds? Here are some of my favourite clips from my channel (if any of the embedded videos don’t appear, refresh the page or click the link to watch it on the 12seconds site).

Positive reinforcement on 12seconds.tv

Read more…

<blows dust and cobwebs away>

Is this thing on?

So, at the weekend I went to BarCamp London 6. If you’re not familiar with the concept if a barcamp, it’s a type of unconference.

Perhaps more helpfully, Wikipedia sayeth:

BarCamp is an international network of user generated conferences — open, participatory workshop-events, whose content is provided by participants. The first BarCamps focused on early-stage web applications, and related open source technologies, social protocols, and open data formats. The format has also been used for a variety of other topics, including public transit, health care, and political organizing.

The key element of an unconference is that the agenda is not set beforehand, unlike, well, a conference. Participants bagsy slots on the timetable at the beginning and most run a session as well as attending others.

One of the highlights – amongst many good sessions – was the first session I went to on Sunday morning. Organised by lastminute.com’s Richard Lewis Jones, it comprised two rounds of Radio 4 panel game Just a Minute. This being a weekend packed with clever geeks, we not only had the theme tune to introduce the games, but hi-tech buzzers in the form of Wii remotes, magicked up by Tom Scott. Thanks to Proactive Paul, videos of the two games are on YouTube. I was on the second panel and you can watch the whole thing right here.

Part 1:

Part 2:

Anyhoo, it was a great weekend. Huge props* to Emma Persky and her team for organising and to everyone who ran sessions.

* Don’t worry, I don’t say this in real life

…here is a pointless nerd meme.

(Hat-tip.)

On Friday, I didn’t clean the flat. Then I made a short video about it.

Marvellously, that wasn’t the end of it. A second verse in Exhibit A:

A third verse in Exhibit B:

Dino Ron in Exhibit C:

A special guitar in Exhibit D:

And a synth pop remix with new fourth verse in Exhibit E:

To join in with the most exciting musical meme of 2009 (so far), make a video, upload it to YouTube, and post it as a video response to the original video.