In the last few weeks I’ve discovered two sites that are pretty cool on the one hand and a little scary on the other. Tynt.com is a website that lets you “share the web as you see it” which you can translate into “put funny faces, notes, and other commentary of your own on any website you want.”

Tynt is just waiting to be used for playing a joke on your less than web savvy coworker or boss. You could really freak them out and tell them your site got hacked. Of course the way Tynt works is that it’s allowing you to do anything to the actual site but it’s giving you a mirror site to do with as you wish. It doesn’t take long to see the negative aspect of this either. Though technically someone’s website isn’t being hijacked here it kind of gives you that feeling.

I can really see the benefit of Tynt if you found an article or blog post and wanted to make notes on it to send some people so they could both read the article and see your additional thoughts. Like I said, this is pretty cool…and a little scary.

If adding your commentary to a video is more your speed then you’re going to love BubblePLY.  BubblePLY is kind of the same idea as Tynt, only it’s specific to video. I discovered it this week as the Nashville gas shortage video was making the rounds here locally. Again, I can see an upside and downside to something like this. The video I saw was quite funny (especially if you’re a Nashvillian, you’ll relate to this stuff…if you’re not a Nashvillian…you probably won’t like it) and shows what a little humor and creativity can do for a minor crisis many people are experiencing together. Likewise, you can see how someone could provide some negative commentary on a video you did.

In the end I think Tynt and BubblePLY are kind of like superpowers. In the hands of the right people it can be very good. In the hands of the wrong people it can be very bad.

I love The Office. It’s one of my favorite shows ever. I also love Hulu. Hulu has single-handedly persuaded me not to upgrade my cable because I don’t need to with all the TV shows and movies they have available there (for free I might add.) [UPDATE on 7/28: Ok, so I'm going to upgrade my cable after all with college football season upon us.]

Hulu allows its videos to be embedded in blogs (like the clip below) and has even taken video embedding to the next level. You can edit the clip you want to embed by trimming the clip with the tool they provide. It’s really easy and a great next step in the development of online video and encouraging people to spread your content. Keep an eye on Hulu if they’re not already on your radar screen…they should be. They’re at the forefront of the next wave of online video.

Here’s a good clip from The Office called Inappropriate Questions (which about sums up any episode really…)

Here’s the clip for the feed readers: Inappropriate Questions

For some reason I forgot to post about our last episode of The New Mediology about online video. We talked about everything from the new Netflix set top box and Hulu to infamous YouTube videos like the one that put the band OK Go on the map.

Today our most recent episode of The New Mediology is available about Twitter. Nathan and I covered a lot of ground in this episode. We disagreed a bit about whether Twitter is a social network or social media. I also said Adam Curry a Twitter Spammer. In all the tweets I’ve seen from him he’s only talking about the a new podcast and ads nothing else of value to Twitter…and in my book that’s spam.

A few weeks ago comScore came out with some new online video stats that said:

• U.S. Internet users viewed 11.5 billion online videos during March, 2008, representing a 13% gain from February, 2008 and a 64% gain from March, 2007.
• 139 million U.S. Internet users watched an average of 83 videos per viewer in March, 2008.
• 73.7% of the total U.S. Internet audience viewed online video.
• 84.8 million viewers watched 4.3 billion videos on YouTube.com (50.4 videos per viewer).
• The average online video duration was 2.8 minutes.
• The average online video viewer watched 235 minutes of video.

Now, I watch my fair share of videos every week. I’ve noticed my online video viewing used to only be the short YouTube variety but it’s considerably more now that Hulu has come along and supplemented what used to be “TV time” in the evenings.

What struck me recently is that I’m increasingly forgetting that I’m watching a TV when in fact I am. I’ve become so used to the online video experience that I have to remind myself that I’m not at a computer when I’m just watching a television. I don’t know how or when this transition occurred but it was like it just struck me one day when I realized these five things while watching TV…and I’m a little embarrassed by a few of them but here they are…

1. I was was expecting the screen saver to come on after 15 minutes.
2. I was expecting an instant message to pop up.
3. I wanted to have different channels open on multiple tabs.
4. I wanted to minimize the screen to do something else.
5. I double clicked a button on the remote control.

So what’s my self diagnosis on this? Well, for starters I am forced to admit that I’m a computer geek. There’s no denying it any longer. When I’m thinking about opening tabs on TV I know I’m stepping into geekdom. It appears I’ve transitioned into the multi-tasking, half attentive, mix-work-and-play kind of guy I never thought I’d be. I don’t know when this happened, but it happened. I also realize that I’m just now in a place that a generation behind me has been for a while already. They already spread their attention thinly between simultaneous mediums. I’m not assuming this is all good…but I think it is reality.

I don’t exactly know where this leaves us, but for me it’s been a realization of my own shift in video consumption and application. As online video continues to expand both in adoption and penetration, I expect others in my age range and older will come to some similar realizations if they haven’t already. The online video experience will simply be our video experience in the days to come. I think the need to even refer to “online video” will be antiquated within the next few years and perhaps at that time most of the things I wanted to do above will be commonly available in some fashion from the standard TV experience…except for screen saver and double clicking the remote control.

I came across this video earlier in the week and really like it for a few different reasons. First, the point of the video (the confusion that can occur because Starbucks calls a small coffee a “tall”) is something most any of us who have been to Starbucks have thought about at some point. The other thing is that this video shows what some talent and creativity both in front of the camera and with video editing can do to create really compelling content.

I advise people all the time to create content for whatever they’re doing. Inevitably, when I mention video content they think it’s going to be way too expensive or complicated. This video shows it doesn’t have to be expensive (or complicated) to be done well and get a lot of people to watch. It’s up to almost 300,000 views after only one month online.

Link for the feed readers: Small is Tall