EngageMedia Beta
The beta of EngageMedia is finally launched after a year (on and off) of technical work. I think its a good step forward in the world of social justice online video, though there is a big range of functionality still to add and well a whole lot of training and getting it out there to be done. I'm hoping other crews will pick up the code and run with it and one of our aims over the next few months is to package and document the system to make it easy for others to pick up.
Basic blurb on what you can do with the site
- Upload video in any format
- Easily create your own personal video podcast channel, or your own custom channels based on a range or criteria
- Have your own profile page with their latest videos and vodcast channel
- Easily contact and network with other members of the site
- Have your own personal workspace to store files or collaborate privately with other site members
- Add creative commons licenses to your work
- Add events and news
Additionally
- Have your video immediately available for download via BitTorrent
- Playback Quicktime, Flash, and Windows Media video within the browser
should be finished in the next couple of weeks.
My ultimate vision is a kind of Indymedia meets Myspace meets Internet Archive meets Basecamp, that is that it becomes a collaborative space not just a place to host and distribute video. Much of this is already possible but adding wikis, blogs and project management software (easily 'pluginable' and ready to go in plone) will extend this aspect much further.
If I had a criticism of the development process we used it would be that we violated the 'release early, release often' doctrine and as such it's taken longer than it should have for us to gather supporters around the system. It's hard to learn not to be precious I guess.
Let us know what you think!!