From: Bram B. <b...@be...> - 2006-09-04 01:20:21
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Hi all, Perhaps you know it, or you don't, but for the past year, I've been working on something, I like to call 'the Instrudeo project' (Instrudeo = instruction+video). The whole concept of the Instrudeo project is to use screen-recordings and screencasting for a whole lot more then what it is used for today. It's based on the concept of community-created videocontent, using free and open-source screen-recording software (like Istanbul and ScreenKast), but connected to the web. Current screen-recording programs are designed to produce static video content, possibly editable, but that's about it. I'd like to expand this concept to the web, creating a flexible basis or library for more interesting applications. One idea is to create a client that can broadcast and record the video-stream on the fly, so you can help people out, just by doing the required actions on your desktop, having the possibility to edit the recorded stream afterwards and publish it as a 'solved solution'. A second one is a AJAX-based video player, which I nearly completed (check http://beligum.org/testbed/). My testbed was (and still is) ScreenKast, which is also a client for http://captorials.com and it's backend-webservice, but I don't want to stop here. My goal is to join some people together in an action-group who actively think about how we can use screencasts in new technologies. The community is always blamed that we aren't able to create new technologies, and I'd like to be a part of one of the counter-examples, but I can't do it alone, so I'm recruiting ;-) Of course, there's need for some funding or sponsoring; for the past year, I established some connections with people who are interested in the idea, and are willing to help in one way or the other. An example: I've bought two Dell PowerEdge servers that are colocated in Brussels (hosting captorials.com). The colocation-hosting is entirely sponsored by E-Bo Enterprises (http://www.e-bo.be), a company in Ypres (Belgium) who is manufacturing thin client solutions, together with VMware and are on the verge of going global. This week, I had a very interesting meeting with a person from Lille (France), who is the CEO of Speechi (http://speechi.net), a company that specializes in recording and publishing Powerpoint-sessions. As a third, I've been in contact with one of the largest bandwith providers here in Belgium (http://www.realroot.com), who was willing to sponsor some rackspace and an uplink. If you are interested in the idea of creating some new and progressive screencasting technologies, please mail me your thoughts and forward this mail to other interesting people. For the moment, I don't have a job (ScreenKast and Captorials took 100% of my time the last year), but as my savings run dry, I'll need to start looking for one if I want to keep paying my rent. Besides sponsoring, I see some opportunities in making money by displaying ads for open-source projects, partnering with FOSS-businesses to share technologies, creating promotional video's, etc. The final goal is to make a living with creating FOSS software, playing around with new technologies and just having fun. Tell me what you think. Bram Biesbrouck |