At his RTNDA keynote in Las Vegas today, Brightcove CEO Jeremy Allaire supported my thesis. Lost Remote has an excellent wrap-up of his speech, where he demonstrated the new and exciting Brightcove platform which is about to go live (give it about two weeks or so). It’s a huge story, as Brightcove appears to be the first truly usable, open platform for creating, distributing, and monetizing personally-created video.

A summary of Brightcove, from Lost Remote’s coverage:

Brightcove is behind some of the most innovative video projects on the web, and founder and president Jeremy Allaire’s keynote follows. He demonstrated Brightcove’s tool that allows just about anyone to build their own player experience from a variety of templates and settings. And he talked about upcoming plans to encourage anyone to upload, distribute and sell video through Brightcove’s tools and a new relationship with AOL. More…He begins by mapping out the promises of internet TV: open distribution, consumer choice, multi-screen delivery and content owner control. A broad overview for the broadcast folks in the crowd.

I’ve been testing out a form of the Brightcove player for a few months but what I’ve seen is nothing like what Allaire demonstrated today. This is exciting stuff.

Baio, a popular blogger at waxy.org, has been hosting the files of a popular homegrown series, House of Cosbys, since November 2005. Last week, Baio received a threatening cease-and-desist letter from attorneys for Bill Cosby demanding he take down his copies of the series, which parodies Cosby’s voice, mannerisms, and some of his catchphrases (but not, in my view, in a mean way).

The series of short films originally appeared on Channel101.com, where it became extremely popular. After Cosby’s attorneys got Channel101.com to remove the videos, Baio began hosting them, he says, because they “deserve to be seen” – and he’s right.

In his announcement that he’ll fight the scare tactics of Cosby’s attorneys, Baio gets to the heart of the issue:

But I’m not removing House of Cosbys. House of Cosbys is parody, and clearly falls under fair use guidelines. I’m not taking it down, and their legal bullying isn’t going to work….Sorry, but the First Amendment protects satire and parody of a public figure as free speech. Also, the right of publicity only applies to unauthorized commercial use, and not a work of art or entertainment.

More than anything, this strikes me as a special kind of discrimination against amateur creators on the Internet. Mad Magazine, Saturday Night Live, South Park, The Simpsons, Family Guy, and countless other mainstream media sources have parodied Bill Cosby over the years (see growing list below).

I’m not saying Cosby has to love the fact that his likeness is out there being parodied for anybody with high-speed internet and a unique sense of humor to appreciate. But Baio shares some pretty damning evidence with a list of popular, mainstream avenues where Cosby has been parodied before without resorting to what amounts to legal scare tactics, and I’m betting that many of those shows in the list treated Cosby with much less admiration, no matter how off-kilter House of Cosbys is.

On this issue, Cosby should take a page from Chuck Norris’ book. The legendary actor recently became aware of the popular “Chuck Norris facts” meme travelling throughout the web, and rather than calling his lawyers, he instead reached out to his audience on the web with this message:

I’m aware of the made up declarations about me that have recently begun to appear on the Internet and in emails as “Chuck Norris facts.” I’ve seen some of them. Some are funny. Some are pretty far out. Being more a student of the Wild West than the wild world of the Internet, I’m not quite sure what to make of it. It’s quite surprising. I do know that boys will be boys, and I neither take offense nor take these things too seriously.

After that, Chuck proceeded to spin the message into a sales pitch for his latest book. He obviously realizes that you can’t spend your time trying to stifle the open distribution channel of the web- you can only hope to come off well, and maybe sell a few of your widgets in the process.

Unfortunately, Bill Cosby has done neither. Maybe he’ll reconsider if peole stand behind Andy Baio’s small act of courage and send a message that the web will not be sued into submission.

Like Digg, Newsvine, and other community-driven content sites, woomu also allows users to vote on individual videos, determining which files appear on the homepage of the site. The woomu twist is that besides voting files up to the homepage, users can also vote an individual file down. This two-way-street approach is one that other community-driven sites have stayed away from for the most part, choosing instead to go with a weighted voting system that favors reporting bad links over straight down votes. woomu puts the yea vs. nay on an even keel- but will it work?

Dave McAdam, co-founder of woomu, took some time to answer some questions about the new service via email. In the interview, Dave talks about the difference between woomu and other video sites, how the service fits in with the emerging distributed content model, and what the name means. The entire interview appears after the break.

Jason Clarke: What is woomu? What does the name mean?

Dave McAdam, woomu: The short answer: Woomu is where you will find all the best video on the web.

The long answer: Woomu is a website where users can submit links to videos and then other users can vote for (woo) or against (mu) them. All submissions go into the “woomu queue”, and if they get enough votes they will make it to the main page. The result is a frequently updated collection of the best videos on the web.

The name “woomu” is a mashup of the words “woo” and “mu”
“woo” is what people say when they’re happy, like when Homer Simpson gets a free beer. Woo!

“mu” is a negative word, it means “to be lacking, or to be without.”

Jason: There’s a big list of video sharing sites out there, including YouTube, Google Video, and many more. How is woomu different and/or better?

Dave: Woomu is different than other video sharing sites like YouTube or Google Video, because you can find links to the best videos on the web wherever they might be. On YouTube, you will only find videos that are on YouTube.

Jason: Like Digg and other social content sites, woomo’s homepage videos are determined by voting them up. But woomu also includes the option to vote it down. How does a vote down button change the dynamic of the site’s community?

Dave: I’m a big fan of Digg, but many times I’ve found myself wishing there was a way to actually vote against a story, and I think many other people feel the same way. So I decided to give users the power to both vote for and against the videos that get submitted. I think being able to reward the good stuff by voting it up, and punish the bad stuff by voting it down adds a little extra spice to the community, especially since your votes are out in public for everyone to see.

“woomu is all about displaying the best videos wherever they might be on the web instead of just a single site. One of the biggest advantages is that we can link to copyrighted video.”
-Dave McAdam, founder, woomu

Jason: Video sharing site YouTube first made national news in December 2005 for its part in making the Saturday Night Video “Lazy Sunday” popular. Now, NBC has succeeded in getting YouTube to remove its content from the YouTube site. How will woomu deal with copyright infringement issues like this?

Dave: Woomu deals with copyright issues by simply not hosting anything. Woomu just links you to where the good stuff is, we don’t host it. Sites like YouTube actually host videos on their website, so they’re the ones who are distributing them, which is where the legal issues get a bit nasty…woomu is all about displaying the best videos wherever they might be on the web instead of just a single site. One of the biggest advantages is that we can link to copyrighted video.

An interesting example, this week NBC pursued legal action against YouTube for distributing their copyrighted Saturday Night Live videos on YouTube, specifically the very funny and popular “Lazy Sunday” video. So YouTube had to remove that content from their site, along with hundreds of other copyrighted videos. Now, if you’re looking for the Lazy Sunday video, you won’t be able to find it at YouTube. But since Woomu doesn’t host any of
the videos and just provides links, we’re still able to send you to the video.

Jason: Does woomu have any plans to offer tools for videobloggers or content creators?

Dave: One thing I’d like to do is create a section on the site that teaches people how to make great video for the web. Everything from shooting video, editing, encoding, hosting, etc… I’d also like to add a forum where users can discuss all things video related among themselves.

Jason: Sounds like some cool things coming. A related question- Sites like the new classifieds service Edgeio are breaking ground by allowing content creators to host their own works, while Edgeio uses RSS to pull it all together. What do you think about this approach for woomu?

At the moment, if content producers want to submit a link to their video, they have to login and fill out the submit form. I think that’s pretty easy, and most people are familiar with that process. I’ve read about edgio, and it sounds interesting, but I think it’s too early to tell if it will be a successul model for the future, but if the model that edgio is developing becomes popular, I’d be happy to enable similar functionality on woomu.

Jason: Can you talk about woomu’s plans to grow its community?

Dave: My plan to grow the community is to invite video bloggers (vloggers) to submit links to their video posts. Woomu is a great way to get some visitors to your video blog. Also, video bloggers are a group of people who are obviously passionate about video on the web, which is exactly the type of people I want.

Jason: What’s under woomu’s hood? PHP, Ruby, or something different? Any other technologies of note at work?

Dave: I’m a big promoter of anything open source, and woomu reflects that. We built the site on LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL and PHP), also, the voting and a few other features make use of Ajax so you can vote without having to refresh the page.

Jason: Anything else you’d like to add?

Dave: We just launched the site, so anyone who wants to join and start voting and submitting is welcome!

Edgeio is still in beta, so you’ll need a password to check out the site. But without visiting it, you’ll have to trust me when I say that it’s not only a great new web-based classifieds service, it’s also a promosing hope for the future of distributed content and community on the web.

So that’s what makes edgeio so exciting, but what makes it tick? Simple. Instead of the ebay model, where you create a separate account, a separate identity, and sell your listings on their site, in their market, edgeio makes all of the web a market. Rather than posting an ad for sale on edgeio, you write a blog post listing your item, service, or job opening. Tag it with “listing” and other keywords, and edgeio reads your RSS feed and automatically lists your item. In my first test today, my listing- including the image I posted on it- appeared on edgeio within a few minutes.

After it appears, you can enhance your listing with graphics, keywords, by claiming it. The point is that while edgeio is a convenient place to search for and view items in context, the actual item itself is generated from within your own central place on the web.

Behind the simplicity of this difference lurks another tremendous benefit: identity.

When I create an item from my homepage, it is originating from my virtual “home” online, rather than from a username with no easily identifiable connection to its owner. Edgeio’s innovative approach to this identity system is not by accident, either. Updating your profile on the site allows you to specificy your Flickr, eBay, and LinkedIn ID’s, suggesting they plan to make identity a top priority on their service. Even it if was merely a focus, it would be a powerful step in the right direction.

I think Edgeio’s distributed content model will become increasingly popular over the next year as identity and attention gain traction, even it occurs at the nearly subconscious level as it has been so far. It’s already sort of happened to me, and I think others. If you’ve heard of a site called Squidoo, you might recall that it launched to some fanfare last year. The service describes itself as a “platform for meaning”, which means it’s a site where users go to post expert opinions and guidance on a huge array of topics. When it was released, I thought of it as an “About.com for Web 2.0″ because it allowed anybody to share their knowledge and even earn money for the hits they generated.

In my view though, despite some praise for it, the service ultimately failed to catch on due to a reason I read on a few blogs. Micropersuasion’s Steve Rubel captured the sentiment when he wrote “I really don’t see what the big deal is about this product. I tried it during the private beta and found it very confusing. I recommend having your own blog instead.” What Steve’s saying hints at this underlying apprehension among people who publish online: Why do I need to make a new account and join an entirely new community just to share another bit?

If it sounds like a whine, it’s not, and it’s going to become more articulate in the near term. The idea that as we become more comfortable publishing online, and as online publishing provides a simple means for broadcasting a wider variety of things, that we should continue to fracture and splinter off into increasingly walled communities simply does not fit in with the new direction that online communities are moving towards.

The concept of distributed content pulled together using existing, non-disruptive technologies (RSS, tags) even has the potential to stop other popular movements in their tracks. Here, I’m thinking specifically of user-generated news sites such as Digg and Newsvine.

Last fall, I practically begged Newsvine co-founder Mike Davidson for a beta invite because I was earnestly excited at the concept of a news site that, like Digg, was determined largely by user votes and comments but that covered everything imaginable beyond tech. It’s still a huge step for news to take, and although I’ve registered a complaint I’m more convinced than ever that the site is not only needed, but wanted by smart readers who want to help shape news for the better for themselves and others.

But now, having thought about edgeio’s approach, I am wondering how much more powerful a site like Newsvine or Digg could be if they allowed me to write a blog post, tag it ‘fornewsvine’, and have it automatically appear under my name on their site.

It’s not an impossible dream. It’s a probability, with the next generation of online services, if edgeio’s approach begins to pay off. I’m betting it will.