BE THE MEDIA- A proposal

[liveoaktx]

Read this first

I've been upgrading CanOFun for the past little while to do streaming video and audio. One part that is on the front page now is an embedded media player that, when clicked on, plays a broadcast stream of content, like having an embedded television playing content sequentially, but not on demand (the other links, of course, are on demand, so that it's the best of both worlds).

I want to showcase OUR voices, not the crap that is on television that has to be listened to and have the poisonous verbiage culled out. I've said before that listening, for example, to CNN, is like digging in pig shit for a small pieces of gold-you have to go through a lot of crap just to get a nugget-and I'm also tired of feeling outraged over the partisan morons that insult Democrats, liberals and progressives, just to hear maybe a small portion of something that validates my own values and thinking. It doesn't have to track 100 percent with me but OTOH, most of the propaganda on corporate tv doesn't track at all.

So here's what I believe. Most people do not realize how easy this is, but you can record your own material. If you do a blog or post your thoughts here or somewhere else, you can just as well record it to an MP3. Do it and I'll play it. I won't store your content permanently but for a given month I'll put it in the playlist and you just have to find a permanent home for it-when you do, I'll link to your permanent home.

Why should the shills who control, particularly, television media, be looked upon by anyone as high priests of information? At least for now, we have the internet.

If you are interested, PM me. I'm telling you I will help you figure out how to make a podcast and I will PLAY it, at least for a time.

[Beam Me Up]

1. We must become the media, so I'm with you on that. Not sure about the

MP3 idea, only because I'm less comfortable with that medium. But I am curious to learn more about this. How would an old timer begin to learn about voice and video recording for the web?

[liveoaktx]

3. I have an instruction page here in the Research section

under Videos-but here's the basics again, keep in mind it IS NOT DIFFICULT. Think of it as like your word processor or writing a message here except with a mike and different software.

1. Computer with internet connection (you already have that)
2. Microphone attached to computer (likely you already have that too)
3. Software that lets you record MP3/Podcasts.

I use Propaganda but there are a number of programs that let you record MP3's, at least one free. Here's what I do with Propaganda- I choose the input as Microphone and then click RECORD. When I'm done, I say Okay, it asks me for a name and then puts the recording stream on the screen, where I can listen and then put in editing points to get rid of, for example, white noise at the beginning. Then I can export to an MP3 or upload directly to an ISP of my choice. The MP3's can be of variable size (small) as small as you want, except of course the quality of the video will be less if you save it at a lower bitrate.

[Wilms]

2. kick

[MelissaB]

5. ditto

with a recommend

[MelissaB]

6. and again

:kick:

[liveoaktx]

4. kick with one more comment

I have a field in the lookup database I have for location. I've thought it would be terrific to let people search for a link to local content by location, including, say, Canada or particular states or cities. Not hard to do, again not that I want to host everyone's stuff but provide a LINK to it to make it easier for people to find it.

I will say one more time, do NOT be intimidated by the idea of creating your own podcasts (or even videos, although that requires a different set of equipment).