I was really looking forward to reviewing Kodak’s new Playsport video camera in Croatia last week- The water there is crystal clear and it would have been perfect conditions to test its underwater recording capabilities (up to 3 meters/10 feet). My last Kodak had a USB charger that was built into the camera and plugged straight into my laptop for charging, but alas the Playsport needs an extra cable to charge it and I had forgotten it, making it impossible for me to charge the battery and test it:(

One of my holiday buddies was recording with her new iPhone4 which has the same recording capabilities as the Playsport (1080p full HD) so all was not lost… but disaster struck when the boat carrying her and her iPhone collided with another boat and the iPhone was flung two meters deep into the ocean. It was of course retrieved and dried, but to no avail, the iPhone was dead.

Such a sad story, If only the Playsport had a built-in USB charger just like my Zi8, (which I am sure they will bring out on the next model) I could have reviewed the camera in beautiful Croatia, against the backdrop of the sunset, rather than my crappy bathroom. Sorry about the bland taps, but the point is that it really does work underwater, we just need a cable-less version next time please Kodak!

Share on Facebook

Last week, Facebook Developers Garage London was back, with more tech you can shake a Facebook app at! Held in the heart of London’s Silicon Roundabout, at TechHub, attendees heard from Simon Cross, Executive Product Manager at BBC ID & Social (basically one of the top developers), who spoke about blending TV with social media platforms with the launch of the new BBC iPlayer in the next few weeks. He wowed the audience with some amazing figures, such as 130 million requests for video/audio per month, 1.4 million users per day and wait for it… it makes up 10% of the UK bandwidth!

Regular speaker, Iskandar Najmuddin from Nudge ran through what is new on the platform, namely Facebook Places (what everyone is talking about!) and Dave Nattriss gave an interesting dissection of what is hot on Facebook right now – apparently Farmville still (60 million people like it!) and it’s mostly social gaming applications that are the most popular on Facebook – so if you are thinking of creating an app for Facebook we definitely suggest you should add an element of competition to the service

There was also a Hackathon Update from some of the guys who presented their app ideas to The Zuck earlier this year. Todd Chafee’s Six Degrees of Separation app caused a bit of buzz and Iskandar made the interesting observation that an application like this could merge a user’s personal and professional online persona to the point that there would be no need for Linkedin – What do others think?

You can watch the full video report below:

Share on Facebook

Last week our sister video production company, Newspepper headed to the annual Bootlaw & Chinwag Summer BBQ to find out what’s hot in the world of tech in London!

We asked what people thought about Facebook Places – soon to be launched in the UK – what has been the most exciting technology development this year and possible the most important question for the ladies in tech – Jack Doresy vs Mark Zuckerberg; Who would you like to spend a bit of personal social networking time with?

Find out the winner in our video report below:

Newspepper Report – Chinwag and Bootlaw Summer BBQ from Newspepper on Vimeo.

Share on Facebook

This week we are back delving into the lives of Melbourne entrepreneurs and Aussie startups making ‘business waves’ down under.  We continue with our Melbourne Silicon Beach Series, in conjunction with The Next Web Australia, and you can watch our second episode below:

Australia; it’s not just about sandy beaches, beers and bbqs, Melbourne (and Sydney) have thriving digital and tech communities and this month, entrepreneur and technology journalist Hermione Way and her team at Techflufftv will be exploring the startup scene interviewing the hottest startups for The Next Web Australia’s Melbourne Silicon Beach Series.

Sponsored by Kodak, Silicon Beach Australia and The Next Web, Techfluff.tv decided to delve a little deeper into Melbourne’s startup scene and video interviewed ten of these companies.

This week we caught up with Scott Handsaker and Andrew Edwards from Eventarc. Scott and Andrew talks to us about their online registration system and what it’s like being a start-up in Melbourne.

Stay tuned for next week as we will bring you an interview from Skitch.

Share on Facebook

What do online video experts and trail blazing rockers AC/DC have in common? Their ability to attract a rocking crowd at Melbourne venue 24 Moons, on AC/DC Lane of course!

The line up for the latest event organised by the Social Media Club Melbourne included Industry Manger of YouTube, Suzie O’Carroll and Managing Director of Portable, Simon Goodrich, General Manager of Viocorp, Nick Bolton.

With a room packed full of social media enthusiasts, the presentation was dedicated to everyone’s favourite video viewing platform YouTube!

Some of the main issues discussed included:

How can I use YouTube to attract audiences?

This is a ripper of a question as it only takes four minutes to capture a viewer’s attention.  Suzie gave a great example of how companies have used YouTube to capture consumer’s attention through the Toyota Sienna ‘Swagger Wagon’ video series on YouTube videos, with the viral attracting over 5,685,218 views alone. The reason why the videos are popular is that they are engaging, creative, funny and can be shared across the interweb. Additionally social media promotion is vital let people know the video is available via Facebook and Twitter.

What are some problems with synchronising live Twitter feeds with YouTube?

One of the main problems with synchronising YouTube video with Twitter feeds are sometimes it can be hard to moderate comments as they are coming in so quickly. A way to avoid this confusion is to have specific hashtags to filter each topic.

What are some YouTube tools that I can utilise?

This is a great question for those wanting to monitor the popularity of their videos. Some tools include YouTube Insights which shows how long it takes for a video to become popular and quite interestingly where your video is viewed around the world.

Also YouTube annotations are a way to include detailed content with options to add links to related videos, channels and search results.

How can I reduce upload time on my website?

This is a common problem especially when faced with a coding nightmare- no one wants to be stuck for hours figuring out video code = Headache!  YouTube has listened and made it easier for users with a growth in APIs and multi-formatting.

You can watch Part 1 of the panel below on SMCMelbourne’s very own You Tube channel.

Share on Facebook

Following a very successful Silicon Roundabout Series on The Next Web earlier this year – and after my trip back home to Melbourne this summer – we decided that we wanted to get a better understanding of the tech and startup community down under. So we are very happy to announce a brand new web series called the Melbourne Silicon Beach Series to run on The Next Web Australia for the next couple of weeks. You can read our first post below:

Australia; it’s not just about sandy beaches, beers and bbqs, Melbourne (and Sydney) have thriving digital and tech communities and this month, entrepreneur and technology journalist Hermione Way and her team at TechfluffTV will be exploring the startup scene interviewing the hottest startups for The Next Web Australia’s Melbourne Silicon Beach Series.

Sponsored by Kodak, Silicon Beach Australia and The Next Web, Techfluff.tv decided to delve a little deeper into Melbourne’s startup scene and video interviewed ten of these companies.

This week we caught up with Tim Bull, the Co-Founder of BinaryPlex (a company we’ve covered a few times here at The Next Web AU). Tim talks to us about his latest  Twitter analytics tool, Tribalytic.

Stay tuned for next week as we will bring you an interview from Eventarc.

Share on Facebook

Last night I was high rolling with London’s top geeks for LondonLebowski3 ‘Third Time Lucky’ event organised by the one and only @cyberdees Held at Funland in the Trocadero Centre, we filled the every single lane with the best tech heads around. I even bowled a strike or two View some pics from the flickr account here and everyone’s favourite London Tech Paparazzi @stevekennedyuk here

Here’s short video I made of the event – enjoy! Thanks for a fun night Dees and friends!

Share on Facebook

If you want to keep up-to-date with all our tech news then make sure you follow us on Twitter via @techfluffTVWe tweet about the hottest entrepreneurs, startups, events and news straight from the European tech scene!

You can also @ reply us if you want one of our techfluffTV correspondents from around Europe + the world to cover your event.

And if you are on Facebook (who isn’t? ) then please join us at our official Newspepper page to find out about online video and the future of the web. You can ‘like’ us here.

If you are looking for a new way to engage your consumers by using online video then get in touch with @hermioneway or @thatgirl_chloe

Share on Facebook

So I know I’m <very> late to the game on getting an iPhone4, but I rushed out and bought and iPad from the US as soon as it came out and restricted myself on waiting for my free 02 upgrade for the iPhone4. Finally it came and today is the first day I’ve had it! I thought I would do a quick vlogg (video blog for those in the dark ages) and test the HD camera and iMovie app.

It was the perfect day to test the camera as I was filming at London  Zoo today for The Entrepreneurs Exhibition where I’m going to be doing a seminar later this year (make sure you get your tickets).

So what do you think of this video? It was filmed, edited (whilst I had a cuppa-tea) and published in one hour…all on the iPhone4- I think it’s pretty amazing considering it’s editing HD footage and the app is limited but easy to use. You can add name tags and music to each clip and change the theme.  Make sure you watch right until the end to see The VintageMaker app that allows you to film as if it’s the 1920s!

Ps: The video is still processing on YouTube  which is why it might look a little grainy- Come back in a couple of hours if you want to see it’s full potential.

PPs: I am not sponsored by Apple I just love their products -If you know of a better  phone and app on Android or other smart phone I would love to test it out and publish the results!

Share on Facebook

Bit more of me, me ME! Are you sick of me yet? I was featured in a life-style article by The Evening Standard’s Mark Prigg on Monday because cloud-based services enable me to run my company from any computer, anywhere in the world. I’ve just come back from three months in the USA and although I have the wonderful Chloe on the ground here in London dealing with day-to-day logistics, I was able to run my accounts and company filing from the USA with ease. It’s also about how I HATE clutter and physical possessions – I have not had a TV for three years as I watch all my programing online and only buy minimal amount of clothes- Hopefully living our lives digitally will enable us to step away from this gross buying and throwing away culture we have.  You can read the full article here.

Share on Facebook