A couple of weeks after mentioning The Flip I finally got my grubby little hands on one. I went to the European launch this evening and came out with one for free (and a lot of beer mats). Nice little event. No hard sell, great venue (The Soho Hotel) and free food and drink. I would have been impressed if they hadn’t thrown free cameras at everyone…

I did a short(ish) unboxing video:

And had a conversation about the thing on Seesmic and Twitter. I also threw some FLIP video up on YouTube. You can see it here, but the built in software (and by built in I actually mean built into the device which is handy) seems to have over compressed the video. The sound especially is weird. I just reviewed the raw file in fullscreen and its actually very impressive considering the price of the camera.

I’ll take it along to tomorrow’s Tuttle if anyone wants to have a play with it.

I’ll be writing more about it and have some very particular ideas in mind in how to use it, but for now I need a coffee and am weirded out by using a white Macbook (mine is in for repair at the Apple store).

Once I get all my kit back I’ll really put the thing through its paces, but for now I’m quietly impressed.

Handy little bastard indeed.

I’m back as an active member of the Seesmic community and as with the Indy thing am looking at ways to interact work and play on the platform. I believe the next six months are going to get very interesting in regards to online video and particularly for the more conversational sites. Of late though I’ve been very critical regarding a few things that don’t work or are just missing over on Seesmic. Time for a little more positive feedback.

I’m really enjoying The Great Village. Check out the first episode here:

Why does this work? Because of a nice robust attitude to what doesn’t work*. Vin Vin had a good stab at something called Seesmic Cafe but it never really gelled for me. I actually appeared on an episode and it was pretty obvious on both sides of the camera that something was broken. Partly was the interplay between Vin Vin and the ‘barfly’ – it was often painful to watch. Which was crazy because Vin Vin is a very funny guy. Thankfully that seems to have been mothballed, lessons have been learned and we’re now treated to Vin Vin and Giselle. And the interaction is very genuine.

You can tell these two are friends and enjoy working together and thanks to some smart work behind the camera (quick shout out to Whit) Vin Vin is allowed to do what comes naturally. Being a French guy in a very American setting is something he’s very fucking good at – he doesn’t need a script and what comes across is the passion for what he’s doing and a genuine interest in what’s going on around him.

Meanwhile Giselle is just about the most natural person I’ve seen on any kind of web show. That she’s a film maker in her own right helps a lot and I know that her and Whit have a long history (think Willow and Xander) which makes for an altogether stronger show. You need to trust the people you work with and I think this comes across in spades watching these episodes.

Even when moving from heavier topics such as 9/11 and Tibet to Californian wine you get a sense of something special here. Check out Vin Vin:

Really good stuff guys. I’ll keep watching.

* Trial and error means trying a lot. That’s a blog post in itself.

Slowly working my way through a large to do list that I started on my return from Cannes. Lots more to say about what we did out there, but also a large blogging back log to take a stab at between all the other stuff I have going on right now. Thanks for your patience (and all the impatient emails telling me to pull my finger out).

This seems like so long ago already:

I haven’t had the opportunity to get on Seesmic much since… well, I guess since going out to San Francisco and hanging with the Seesmic team. When I got back from that trip work just exploded and video was just too much a time suck. Over the last week or so I’ve been easing myself back into the video conversation arena, both on Seesmic and Phreadz.

Last night was my first sustained stab at conversation since Christian came over and we got drunk.

One of the longer running threads was about the vogue for comeback movies – older characters being brought back for another go at the franchise – sometimes with mixed results. I was keen to know what (probably unnecessary) sequels people would like to see and kicked things off with my need for a new Mad Max movie.

We soon had a good rambling squabble about Ghostbusters III, Big Trouble in Little China II and Three Men and a Little Crack Whore. Twas a fun night.

A lot of emotion came spilling out I’m glad to say and at one point we got this memorable post from Dana about James Spader:

This is why I missed Seesmic.