Month: January 2009

Metro Calgary Unboxing Article Published

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Another unboxing article was published this week, in a local paper called Metro Calgary. It’s one of those free papers that you’ll see outside grocery stores, transit stops, etc. The article was published in the paper on Thursday the 29th of January, and the same article was featured on their home page (pictured above). The photographer, Robin Kuniski, took a few photos like the above image – pretty standard stuff. But he brought an empty box with him and had a cool idea to put his camera in the bottom of the box and have me open it from the top – I saw a quite preview of the results and the photos looked great! Sadly, Metro Calgary ran with the above image instead, complete with me looking down creating a double chin. Gee, thanks Metro Calgary.

The article itself is kind of strange – it seems that the journalist that interviewed me, Jennifer Hilliker, didn’t really understand how YouTube works. The first line, “As Calgarian Jason Dunn unwrapped his Dell Studio Hybrid computer, about 90,000 Internet viewers watched in fascination”, makes it sound like YouTube is a real-time streaming video site. That Dell video has had nearly 90,000 views, yes, but when I opened the box the only one watching it was me. And check out this last paragraph:

“Ryan Felgate, blogger for techvibes.com said that people have to be careful, as he suspects some corporations launch “unboxing” videos under the guise of a regular person. “I’m not sure if a YouTube video could be an authentic depiction of a product,” Felgate said.”

Felgate makes it sound like none of the unboxing videos on YouTube are legitimate, which is ridiculous. I can’t imagine that’s what he really thinks, because the awkward quote isn’t even proper English – maybe he meant “I’m not sure if all YouTube videos are authentic depictions of a product”. I’ll drop him a line and ask for clarification, because it’s quite a broad condemnation of anyone that does unboxing videos – and I find it hard to believe that’s what he really meant.

I also couldn’t help but notice that Hilliker URL-dropped the Techvibes site, but not one of my sites, and I’m the topic of the article. I’m stunned at the lack of willingness to mention the name or URL of my site – I’ve dealt with more than half a dozen different journalists in the past three weeks, and thus far none of them have told any of their readers/viewers where they can actually find me online. More on that later.

The Weekly Albertan Unboxing Article

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The media coverage of my unboxing videos has continued over this past week, the latest being this article published over at The Weekly Albertan. And the words “Geek Porn” are in the title. Hooray. <sigh>

I Shouldn’t Have Gotten Out of Bed Yesterday

Do you ever have those days when, at the end of the day, you wish you could have just skipped the day? Yesterday was one of those days for me. This is my therapeutic write-up about it. My day starts out with a quick check of my email, and I have a message from a major gadget site chastising me for a story we ran which quoted too much of their content and for not indicating the quoted material was from their story. I check the story, and sure enough, we did quote more than we should have – but the story was so short, it was hard not to. But I know what it’s like when another site takes more of my content than they should, so I write back to him and apologize, adjusting the story. Our headline linked to their story, but it didn’t have the name of the site in it, so I add to to the story. OK, no biggie, but not a great way to start my day.

Partially because of dealing with this, I end up leaving my house later than I wanted to – I had to head down to the local CBC radio office because I was invited to be a guest on a nationally-broadcast show called The Point. I second-guessed the directions I had in my head on how to get there, so I missed the turn and ended up having to make up my own route for getting there. On the way there I stopped at a stop sign and had some wicked sun glare to my right, so I couldn’t see that there was a car coming until I had already started to pull out – and I didn’t have the right of way. Honk honk goes the other driver – yeah, sorry about that, my fault. As I’m getting closer to where I think I need to be, I had to pull a U-turn on a major road, just as the light was turning green to let traffic start coming my way. The turning radius of my car wasn’t quite enough to allow me to to the U-turn, so I had to throw it into reverse when I’d turned as far as I could, back up a few feet, then get going forward again. I didn’t stop traffic, but I still felt like an idiot because when I see people doing that I usually think rather unkind things about them.  Continue reading I Shouldn’t Have Gotten Out of Bed Yesterday

The Atheists Are Coming to Town!

This is a news story that ran tonight, and it features a short interview with a pastor at my church, Kirk Cowman. Kind of strange to see myself on CBC then someone I know, all within a week.

As for the topic itself, my take on it is that it’s no different than an ad from an animal rights group, a political group, or a religious group – it’s an expression of what they believe in, or in this case, what they don’t believe in. 😉 We live in a free country, and as long as this campaign doesn’t step into the realm of being hateful, they can spend their money any way they want. In my experience, it’s only when people don’t think about God that they can easily ignore Him. When they start to honestly ponder the possible existence of a power greater than themselves, that’s usually when that power is more easily seen.

CTV National News Unboxing Interview

Last Friday afternoon the Alberta Bureau Chief for CTV News, Janet Dirks, came with a cameraman to shoot a story about the unboxing videos that I do. Here’s how it turned out…

The interview aired on Sunday night on the CTV National News, but I managed to bungle the recording settings and didn’t snag it. It aired again today at noon, so that’s the one I recorded. So how did I feel about this interview? All in all, quite good – especially since I was able to explain that the term “geek porn” is an inside geek joke. I appreciated the fact that the piece was well-researched; they even found one of the instances when I was genuinely shocked at what I found inside a box (the 1:15 mark). I think this should pretty much wrap up this media storm about unboxing videos – it’s been quite a ride! Ironically, I’ve been so focused on all this media coverage of my unboxing videos that I haven’t done an unboxing video in about three weeks. Time to get back to it!

Twitter, RSS Feeds, Blogs, and Twittersync

I’ve been using Twitter pretty heavily for the past few weeks, and I’m definitely grasping why some people really like it – but I also see some of the typical social networking abuses I see elsewhere. Take RSS feeds for instance: I un-friended some people on Facebook when they started pulling in their gadget blog feeds. If I’m interested in being Facebook friends with someone, I’m interested in them as a person – not necessarily in their gadget blog. I can read their gadget blog via my RSS reader – cluttering up a Facebook feed, which is supposed to be about people, with technology news is counter-productive, at least from my point of view. The exception to this is if they’re importing the RSS feed from their personal blog – again, since I’m interested in them as people, seeing what they’re writing on their personal blog is an extension of that.

I’m seeing the same thing happening on Twitter – people I’m following are importing their tech blogs so I get alerted whenever they post a news item to their blog. I’m sorry if this sounds rude, but if I’m following you on Twitter, it’s probably because I’m interested in what you, the person, are thinking/doing. Getting a steady stream of RSS updates just adds noise into the equation. Odds are good I’m already following your tech site via RSS, so getting alerted twice whenever you publish something is a waste of my time and attention.

I think the solution as far as Twitter goes it to have a Twitter feed for your technology site(s), and one for yourself. That way people who want to get Twits when you post a new story to your site can get that, and people who want to connect with you as a person can follow your personal Twitter feed…until they stop following you because you’re Twitting every 5 seconds about really inane things. But hey, no system is perfect.

CBC News Article With a Cringe-Worthy Headline

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I would have thought that the CBC was above cheap headlines, but it seems they like the were really fixated on the “geek porn” angle when writing this story. I now completely regret uttering the words “vaguely sensual” – I really should have known better. Referring to unboxings as “geek porn” is purely an inside geek joke, and I’m kicking myself for not being more forceful about that point. Oh well. 🙂

CBC Calgary Eyeopener Radio + TV Interviews on Unboxing Videos

Well, the CBC interviews have both gone public by now, and all in all I’m OK with how they turned out (you’ll need Adobe Flash to hear/view both). First off, here’s the CBC Calgary Eyeopener radio interview (4 minutes 59 seconds):

CBC Unboxing

Maybe it’s because I spend much of my time creating content for an audience, but accurate information is extremely important to me – so I feel compelled to point out a few things that aren’t entirely true in this radio interview. First, my videos aren’t really “some of the most popular unboxing” videos on YouTube – it’s a nice ego stroke, but it’s not true. My Dell Studio Hybrid video is the most-viewed video I’ve created, and it ranks #87 out of all the unboxing videos on YouTube. 89,000 odd views isn’t bad at all, but I have a long way to go to break into the top ten. The interviewer mentions that there are 14,000 videos on YouTube during my interview – the number is actually around 64,000, and certainly didn’t go from 14,000 videos to 64,000 videos in five days. When we got to the “geek porn” part <sigh> I meant to spell “pr0n” with a zero, not an “O”.  All in all, the interview was fun, though I wish the focus was more on how consumers are using unboxing videos to learn about gadgets before they purchase them – and not on the entirely fictitious “sexy” element that’s just an inside geek joke.

Next up, here’s the clip from CBC News at Six:

It sure is weird seeing yourself on a news program! I kept telling myself that I should try to smile and be friendly, and I think that came through fairly well. It’s funny to think of all the camera angles the reporter shot, and all the questions she asked me, cut down to only two minutes. It was definitely a fun, if slightly nerve-wracking experience – I’m used to being on the other side of the camera!

The TV spot was a little strange right off the bat – “A Calgary man has discovered a way to make money opening gifts.” Gifts? Did the anchorman watch the piece before writing his introduction? The things I get sent are definitely not gifts, even I do get to keep the odd item here and there. And I didn’t “stumble upon” unboxing videos, I simply started doing what many of my peers in the industry were already doing – I was just late to the game. But hey, it’s hard to cram much detail into two minutes. The reporter also wanted to play up the “geek porn” angle in this story as well, so my closing answer to her question of “Does it get your blood pumping?” was my way of trying to be cooperative with the story.

All in all this was a fun experience – and who knows, it might not be the last time it happens!

Microsoft SongSmith + David Lee Roth = Apocalypse

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First, Microsoft released this highly dubious piece of software. The technology behind it looks impressive, but the combination of incredibly lame samples (at least what they’ve shown) and the incredibly lame marketing video, has made this software the subject of much groaning and eye-rolling. But this…this is so awful words can’t adequetely explain it. I guess the good news is that listening to it made me laugh hysterically, so perhaps Microsoft should release it as comedy software.

President Barack Obama’s Inaugural Address

On a policy by policy basis, I’m sure I’d have some disagreements with President Obama, but I have a deep respect for his use of language, his skilled oration, and his powerful, moving style of  writing and that of his speech writing team (I’m unsure of exactly how much of his own speech writing he does). I haven’t seen speech writing this good in my lifetime, at least not that I’ve been exposed to.

Source: Placing his hand on the Bible once used by Lincoln, Barack Obama took the Oath of Office at 12:05 p.m. on the steps of the U.S. Capitol. Immediately following, he delivered his Inaugural Address to a sea of flag-waving Americans, which stretched down the National Mall to the Lincoln Memorial and beyond. The full text of his address is below.

“My fellow citizens:

I stand here today humbled by the task before us, grateful for the trust you have bestowed, mindful of the sacrifices borne by our ancestors.  I thank President Bush for his service to our nation, as well as the generosity and cooperation he has shown throughout this transition.

Forty-four Americans have now taken the presidential oath.  The words have been spoken during rising tides of prosperity and the still waters of peace.  Yet, every so often the oath is taken amidst gathering clouds and raging storms.  At these moments, America has carried on not simply because of the skill or vision of those in high office, but because We the People have remained faithful to the ideals of our forbearers, and true to our founding documents.

So it has been.  So it must be with this generation of Americans. Continue reading President Barack Obama’s Inaugural Address