Where's Wil?

We put together this Zelda DS review this week and I think it looks sweet. Katharine is doing a great job of keeping folks entertained whilst also delivering a decent videogame review.

So why not give us a Digg!!

The video is below. This is one of my favourites.

Here's a novel idea. My buddy Jason has put together an awesome new site called TakeMyTech where, you guessed it, he gives away technology. For free.

This is a really neet social idea, and plenty of people have commented and won some free stuff. It's compelling - who doesn't have tech kit lying around that they don't need, and who knows who could be using it?

Aside from the hundreds of commentors already, Jason managed to nab ThinkGeek as a sponsor, so you'll see a free product from them every week, too.

Competitions have long been part of the magazine culture, but I've never seen anyone just set up a website to give stuff away in quite this manner. It's an insane example of how the web is changing media. Check it out and win yourself some gubbins, eh?

Thanks big time to Alex Albrecht for squeezing in a plug for ChannelFlip.com on the latest episode of Diggnation. We got a nice bump of 900+ subscriptions across the three shows by this morning, and hopefully there are stil plenty of people to watch Diggnation later on in the week!

I'm discovering that getting traffic to the videos is harder than I thought. Having had so much relative traction with bit-tech, it's hard building something from nothing again - and part of me has forgotten the traffic-building tricks I used to have at the tips of my fingers. Part of the problem is working out exactly what sort of videos to make - I seem to get conflicting advice from everyone that has an opinion on online video. I think we're on the right track so far, though - an interesting mixture of useful, serious and slightly wacky. Wait until you see tomorrow's Play:Digital - if that doesn't go big, I don't know what will! Hint: cosplay.

So far, Discus has proved the least popular show, and I'm guessing its because most of the people we've talked to about ChannelFlip so far are techies. However, it is a great show for anyone that likes film so I'd encourage you all to go check it out.

Enjoy the latest Unwired, embedded below for your viewing pleasure.

So it's been a heck of a long time since I did a fatblogging post. My weight has remained stable in the past couple of months at 196, sometimes dipping a couple of pounds below, sometimes a couple of pounds above. All in all, I've managed to get my diet up to a more 'normal' level than the 1500 cals I was previously existing on, and I'm also managing to squeeze exercise into the crazy post-ChannelFlip world by walking to the studio most mornings. Not ideal, but I'll take what I can get right now.

I am trying to avoid falling back into the trap of working in a desk-based environment and sucking down donuts, biscuits etc - especially when there are a tonne of great places to get just these things right around the corner from us. I'm packing a lunchbag full of fruit each morning and trying to stick to it. Hard work when things are geting stressful, but better than piling the weight back on.

I have a black tie dinner in a couple of weeks, and I'm going to have to go buy a new tux, having shrunk out of all my previous ones I've owned. That's quite fun, actually.

So the last week or so has been bonkers. I've been glued to my machine editing, filming and uploading all the shows for ChannelFlip and working out our weekly schedule. It's funny how you think you know your timescales for things, but when you actually sit down and and do it then things tend to completely go in different directions.

We've had a lot of fun - reviewing games and gadgets and films, filming, writing cool stuff - and generally beavering away. one thing I was worried about, that turned out to be less of an issue, was the encoding / video stuff. I know a lot of people go crazy over content delivery mechanisms, encoding standards, multi-device compatibility etc. We made a conscious decision to go as turnkey as possible - not to try to build out a CDN or any kind of proprietary player - and it has really paid off.

The hosting with Blip has been flawless (so far), and the video encoding end - handled by a standard Mac laptop - has been minimal hassle. We're providing versions of the content in WMV, AVI and Quicktime, which means there's something for everyone - and we are putting out at a standard size, 640x352, which makes for a good filesize at good quality. We have to strike a line between spending tens of hours encoding a week for every last device on the planet, or actually getting on and making content. I think we've got a good balance at the moment, although it was interesting speaking to the Rev3 guys about the hassles they have encoding for the thousands of different formats they put out.

So apologies to regular readers of the blog who have had normal service disrupted. I'm going to try and get back into the swing of regular blogging, but I make no promises for the next few weeks. At the moment, the only people that really know ChannelFlip exists are the readers of this blog - we're going to start changing that over the next 14 days so the general populus of the interweb has more of a clue what we're doing. Here's hoping people like it.

I'm going to be on TWiT tonight so watch out for that, too. Also check out my appearance on the Totally Rad Show, which is, well, rad.

I leave you with this image of Yoda, our office mascot here at ChannelFlip HQ. When we leave the building each night, Yoda keeps a watchful eye on the many tapes of DV footage lying around, making sure they don't fall into the wrong hands. We appreciate his stalwart work.

So after seeing some people about ChannelFlip in London yesterday morning, I spent yesterday afternoon showing the guys from the Totally Rad Show around Oxford. Being total geeks, the guys loved the Tolkien and Harry Potter stuff, as well as the chance to sup beers in the reading room at the Union and check out some of the colleges.

After some crazy milkshakes (Cadbury's Cream Egg shake? Epic!) We headed out to see Run, Fatboy, Run at the Odeon, and I'm sure the guys will be giving you their run down on the movie next week!

You can check out the boys' postings from Oxford on their blog here. Great stuff!

Holy smokes, that was absolutely insane. What a stonking night! 1500+ people turned out to watch Kevin and Alex film the live London episode down at the Future of Web Apps conference, and the whole thing was like being at a rock concert. The Digg duo walked onstage as the opening credits for the show rolled on the big screen and across the awesome PA system, and the crowd went absolutely n-u-t-s. I have only ever seen that at a gig. Insane.

The show was funny, and I did manage to convince the guys to take a couple of whisky shots as they taped just for that authentic Digg feel. We had some beers afterwards and a good time was had by all.

I met some fantastic guys and gals - lots of Brits who love TWiT - so thanks to everyone (especially my drinking buddies Jim, Chris and Barney) that said hello. Jim took some awesome photos which are here, which you should totally check out.

I can't wait for the chance to get to another one of these. Cheers everyone!!

I'm at the Future of Web Apps conference today, in London (at Excel). If you're also here, come say hey, and I'll see you at the live Diggnation later.

Also, new Unwired goes out today, as well as new Play:Digital and Discus. Enjoy.

UPDATE: Wow. 7:30AM Thursday morning and I am feeling rough. Diggnation was absolutely insanely awesome. More later.

ChannelFlip.com

Beta week this week - testing, getting the animations in, playing with compression, etc. Proper launch next week. Bed now. Knackered. More later. Enjoy my first show below, and make sure to check out Justin and Katharine's too. Another one of each on Wednesday. Cheers chaps.



UPDATE: Coverage at TechCrunch UK

UPDATE: Nice write-up by Jason over at PhiloKing