The title of this blog post pretty much says it all. The movie is everything I dreamt it would be and more… I watched it in the wee hours this morning on IMAX, and it was simply amazing. Christian Bale who is my current favorite actor (Deniro and Pacino have fallen greatly over the past decade) plays yet another perfect role… but this movie belongs to the late Heath Ledger and his Joker.

Ledger was always my favorite "young actor" (my age/my generation) and this role just makes me miss the thought of having him around for years to come even more. I was truly saddened when he died in January, and now the thought of not seeing him come back as the anarchist Joker just pours salt in the wounds… but there is a light at the end of the tunnel, he went out in a masterpiece.

I could ramble on for hours about how amazing this film is, and it is truly amazing but  I’ll simply steal the words of Kevin Smith from one of his recent blog posts:

“Without giving anything away, this is an epic film (and trust me: based on the sheer size and scope of the visuals and storytelling, that’s not an overstatement). It’s the “Godfather II” of comic book films and three times more earnest than “Batman Begins” (and fuck, was that an earnest film). Easily the most adult comic book film ever made. Heath Ledger didn’t so much give a performance as he disappeared completely into the role; I know I’m not the first to suggest this, but he’ll likely get at least an Oscar nod (if not the win) for Best Supporting Actor. Fucking flick’s nearly three hours long and only leaves you wanting more (in a great way). I can’t imagine anyone being disappointed by it. Nolan and crew have created something close to a masterpiece.”

I couldn’t say it any better. I will be heading back to the theater at least a few more times before this film has run it’s course at the box office. With that said, make sure you catch a glimpse of the new Watchmen trailer that debuts before Dark Knight… it looks like a hell of a ride as well. Zack Snider the amazing director of 300 and Dawn of the Dead brings his visionary look and feel to this sci-fi comic book juggernaut.

Every since YouTube first began to catch on in late 2005 the landscape of the internet has changed. Everywhere you look nearly every website across the globe has changed and integrated video to help improve their site and their message to their visitors… the once text based world of the internet is now returning back to a visual experience which will help drive even more people to the interwebs. The easier websites and the internet are to understand, the more casual users will give it a chance and stick around. So easy even a cave man can do it.

The overnight sensation and popularity of YouTube has spawned a flock of copy-cats and clones who are trying to get a piece of the video sharing pie… however it will take a small miracle for one of the many clones to grab a bite seeing as YouTube now has Google’s large elbows like a prisoner in the mess hall. Many of the other video sharing sites have improved upon YouTube’s model and actually offer a better service. Veoh, BrightCove, Revver, Blip.TV, MetaCafe, iFilm, DailyMotion and others have helped improve the video sharing experience and in my opinion are better sites than YouTube… however one site stands above them all, and that site is Vimeo.

Vimeo is an amazingly well designed Web 2.0 video sharing site and is really like no other on the internet. When you visit the home page of the site you can see some videos that the Vimeo team likes, you can explore via groups, channels or projects or you can view their High Definition videos. That’s right; Vimeo is the premiere HD video sharing service and allows users to upload videos in 720p resolution (1280×720). Since Vimeo is the best at user created HD video sharing they have a very technically competent and helpful user base. Reading the comments on HD videos you’ll notice a very interactive experience with intelligent dialogue back and forth, unlike most other video sharing sites.

Vimeo’s user experience is also easy to use and navigate. When you log into your account you are greeted with four tabs that help you around the site. Your inbox informs you of any new messages/comments as well as lets you know if any of your favorites has posted another video. Your My Stuff tab lets you keep tabs on your uploaded videos and albums. The Activity tab lets you browse what is going on across all of Vimeo or just what you and your favorites have done lately. Finally the Discover tab shows you other popular videos from around the site to help you expand your horizons. Vimeo also has an intuitive and simple voting process, you either can vote to like a video or not like a video… no more silly star system! 

The video view page and the flash player are slick as well. The flash player has the user controls superimposed over teh video and they show up and disappear as you mouse over and off the video. You can play and pause the video, use a timeline slider, share the video, grab the embed tags, enable or disable HD (to improve the loading time) and maximize the video to fit your entire screen. The page shows the video’s credits, associated tags, a list of people who liked it, a threaded comment system and the video’s statistics. Unlike most other video sites Vimeo’s main focus on each video’s page is the video itself… where most other sites have a small video with tons of clutter Vimeo shows you a large video with the clutter taking the back seat, which is how it should be.

Overall in terms of design, delivery and use Vimeo just blows the rest of the internet video sites out of the water; in my opinion there isn’t anyone even close to the amazing service Vimeo offers. Vimeo’s only real problem is that they limit their users to 500MB of upload storage a week. The cap of uploads is obvious for a few reasons. One, they limit their overhead costs of having to have an insane amount of storage available at any given time. With their membership and growth metrics they can easily estimate the amount of needed storage from week to week. It also helps them keep spammers and illegal videos off of their site. If people can’t upload entire seasons of copyrighted TV shows they’ll probably just move on to a site where they can (and they obviously do).

As of June 2008 Vimeo has roughly 440,000 members which is just a fraction of what YouTube has. I sincerely hope that Vimeo will continue to grow and gain market share as I’d hate to see such amazing site fall victim to not being able to catch on with the masses. With that said, Vimeo’s intelligent users are one of the strongest reasons to use the site, so I imagine most involved are trying to walk the fine line between driving more users to the website while keeping the trash of the internet at other video sites. The numbers from Compete and Quantcast are very promising and show growth of over 200% from April 2007 to April of 2008 with a continued growth of about 20% per month… so the outlook for Vimeo is promising.

When you enter a search keyword or phrase (I of course first searched "Nine Inch Nails") Viewzi allows you to choose how you’d like to browse your results via a coverflow-like interface, including but not limited to:

01. MP3 Search View
02. Web Screenshot View
03. 4 Sources View (Ask, Google, MSN and Yahoo)
04. Video x3 View (BlinkX, Veoh and YouTube)
05. Basic Photo View (Flickr and Riya)
06. Simple Text View (Compete.com, Google and Yahoo)
07. Celebrity Photo View (Google Images and Just Jared)
08. Reuters News View
09. Everyday Shopping View (Amazon, Ebay, Target, Walmart)
10. The Weather View
11. TechCrunch (CrunchBase, TechCrunch)
12. Amazon Book View

It is pretty amazing; each one of the options above gives you a completely new way to view your results… the most impressive of which are the Video x3 and Celebrity Photo. With Video x3 the results are pulled from all three of the video sites and begin to auto play without sound in three rows, it is very impressive to see. With the Celebrity Photo View you can click and drag the photos around like you would if the pictures were printed out and laying on your coffee table… it makes searching actually fun. The Web Screenshot view will get a lot of use as well as you get a full preview of the page before actually going to it, so your back and forward browser buttons will probably get a lot less use now.

I could go on describing the other aspects for hours because they are all so intuitive, but I’ll leave the exploring up to you. Overall I think Viewzi has a bright future ahead of it… I doubt they’ll overtake Google but the site has great promise. It’ll be interesting to see how many of the different search result features catch on and how they evolve the current ones while thinking of even bigger and better ones down the road. I know I’ve spent the past few hours just toying around and extremely impressed with the design and ease of use. I can honestly say that I will continue to use this search as it helps me come across things I’d never noticed with a basic text result, hopefully people will give this technology a chance.

The site doesn’t actually go live until June 9th but via a promotion with Dallas’s CBS11TV Viewzi is offering a special promotion code for closed sine-up; simply enter referral code cbs11… I’d jump on the bandwagon quickly though as they make no mention of just how many signups they are allowing with the code; and with the news looking to hit Digg’s front page soon they may go very quickly over the next 12-24 hours. If for some reason you can’t get in on the closed preview or if you’d like to know more, head to Viewzi.TV where they have a handful of videos showing you the ropes.

Just think about it, you no longer have to clog inboxes with 800 pictures of your sleeping toddler… now you can just send your friends your Picasa Web Album URL and call it a day. Trust me, they’ll thank you later. I know people who use social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace have a place to host their images but there is really something to be said for an actual web album site dedicated to being just that. Flickr is amazingly popular and a great site but to get the full experience you have to pay a monthly fee… why do that when Google gives you just as good an option for free?

So, you have Picasa installed and your images edited and looking pretty, your eight year old doesn’t look like the spawn of satan anymore thanks to that nifty red eye removal tool… and now you want to show the world (or just your friends). First thing is first, you need to sign up for a Picasa Web Albums account. The process is quick and painless and if you have a Gmail or Adsense account you can use the same login details. (note: you don’t have to use Picasa to use Picasa Web Albums or vice versa, they both can work together or alone).

1. Choose your desired username and enter your First and Last name. On the next page choose “I accept” to the Google Terms of Service.

2. BAM! You’re ready to get uploading (again, sorry for the Emeril reference).

3. You can upload directly from the website by hitting the “Upload” button or you can upload via the Picasa application, which is what is shown below. In Picasa hit the “Sign in to web albums” link in the upper left corner.

04. Once you are signed in uploading your images or folders are as easy as right clicking (either the folder or individual images) and choosing “Upload to Web Album…”

05. When you choose to upload you will be given the option to create a new album or to add to an existing album. You can also choose to resize the images from a drop down box and give a description and location of the album. You also have the ability to make the album public (anyone can view) or unlisted which allows only people you choose to view the album.

Once you’ve finished uploading your files you can view your web album at http://picasaweb.google.com/username, for instance mine is http://picasaweb.google.com/bradgroux. I encourage you to look around your Picasa Web Album where you can add image captions, input the location the picture was taken, create slideshows, order prints, share and organize. You have 1GB of storage space to share your photos, so upload at will. You can take a look at the album I uploaded here, the images were taken with my iPhone last September in Boston, MA at an Underworld show.