GeekSugar

Website Of The Day: Your Truman Show

GeekSugar — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 14:00:07 PDT

If you're interested in video blogging and lifecasting, but the around the clock Justin TV Network isn't your style, consider checking out Your Truman Show, a new personal video site that launches today. Obviously inspired by the 1998 wonder Truman Show, the site hopes to become the "place for personal videos on the web" and offers a free platform where anyone can share their life with the rest of the world.

The creators are asking for "your stories, your friends’ sagas, the compelling tales of the random people you come across everyday. True stories, fictional tales…and even quasi-fictional accounts of things that may (or may not) have happened."

Unlike the Justin TV Network, which was born out of now famous lifecaster Justin's antics, Your Truman Show seems as if it was created with women in mind and allows you to upload edited, controlled video. The site is clean white and gray (save for a small dose of pink) and doesn't overwhelm viewers with theatrics. Of course, you can always film your own videos with your camera and put them on TeamSugar. Hint. Hint.

To learn how to post your favorite sites to the Website of the Day group,

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I know that this long list looks scary, but trust me, once you get the hang of it, it'll be a snap the second time around.

First of all, join the Website of the Day group
Click "Create and Share!" on the left hand side
Choose "Blog"
Give your photo a Title
Leave the category as "general"
Change the channel to "technology and gadgets"
Add keyword(s) (for example mine for this photo was "Website of the Day")
Click on the "Add Image" link below the "body" box
A popup window will happen - click on "Browse" to find your image on your computer
Once you have the image chosen, click "Submit"
The popup will show you your image, choose size: "normal" - if you want, you can give it a title (which will show up as a caption)
Click "Insert" and the popup will go away
Your "body" box will now have some text in it. Leave it as is. If you want to add some text before the picture telling me why you love the website, do it before the code that has appeared.
Click Submit

So join the Website of the Day group and share information about all your favorite sites! Yours just might end up on the geeksugar homepage!

Justin.tv Gains Female Lifecaster

GeekSugar — Fri, 01 Jun 2007 09:14:36 PDT

Just a few days after Justin TV announced it would allow users to create their own channel and share their life with whoever has enough time to watch, the network has signed on a female lifecaster, appropriately named Justine. Just as I predicted, Justine's channel seems to be banking on her being an attractive blonde woman: Instead of the camera being attached to a hat and showing what she sees (a la Justin's camera), it seems to face Justine for much of the day, indubitably to show off how cute she is. (I'm not being a hater people, I'm just saying...)

Justine is from Pittsburgh, PA and works as a freelance graphic/web designer and video editor with her roommate/bestfriend Desiree. "I jokingly claim to be the internet so why not stream my life 24/7?," she says on her profile.

She's been live for about 5 days, but Wired's Epicenter has discovered she has been busy on the indie video scene for some time and even placed second in Yahoo’s video Talent Show, and since then has guest hosted Leo Laporte’s "MacBreak Weekly" video podcast and raised the profile of her own video blog TastyBlogSnack. Wired presumes the Justine channel will provide a look at the "lighter side of lifecasting" for fans who have been watching Justin's more serious channel. Anyone else think it's creepy they essentially have the same name?

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Will You Join The Justin TV Network?

GeekSugar — Wed, 23 May 2007 09:00:32 PDT

The media's favorite livecasting experiment Justin TV - a project where a 23-year-old San Francisco man Justin wears a video camera strapped to his head 24 hrs a day, seven days a week - has announced some new features on the Justin TV site.

The most exciting is the option for site users to create their own channel and share their life with whoever has enough time to watch. The media has been buzzing about Justin and his copycat lifecasters for some time now and rumor has it that Natalie Portman has even considered a continuous video feed of her work and personal life.

I know many of you agree with me when I say the idea of having a camera follow your world 24/7 is somewhat unsettling, but there is also a certain thrill about the idea. Sadly I fear a prominent lifecast by a woman would quickly turn into a sexualized "hot or not" debate, but I am still interested to see if the Justin TV network idea really takes off.

Would you: Lifecast?

GeekSugar — Mon, 14 May 2007 09:00:59 PDT

Last week, I learned Natalie Portman is reportedly considering taking a lesson from Justin of Justin.tv and "lifecasting" - as in letting a camera follow her every move and making a continuous video feed of her work and personal life online. As Catstarr so aptly noted, it sounds like a combination of MTV's Diary Show (you know the one were celebrities say "You think you know, but you have no idea" over and over and over again?) with the Justin.tv show.

The lifecasting phenomenon has been going strong for years, but it hasn't gained this much attention before. It's the stuff reality TV is made of: Constant, in your face raw footage of the lifecaster going about his or her daily life. Justin.tv has obviously become a geek god through his show, but there hasn't been a hit female lifecast star as of late. (I'm not counting ladies that drop their clothes for webcams - that is something else entirely.) Do you think you could attach a camera to your hat and go about your business, or would you be completely camera shy?

Natalie Portman's Life To Go Online?

GeekSugar — Wed, 09 May 2007 06:06:25 PDT

Just when I thought Natalie Portman was one of the few A-listers who strives to maintain a low-key profile in Hollywood, she heads straight to Silicon Valley in search of funds for a new online project. According to the tech gossip blog Valleywag, Natalie is "proposing a continuous video feed of her work and personal life," which means she is basically signing up for "lifecasting" like Justin Kan of Justin.tv.
I wonder what fueled all this? Maybe a means for her to promote all the organizations she's apart of? To possibly educate? Raise awareness? Whatever her reasoning, I must admit that I'd be one of the first subscribers to watch "a day in the life of Natalie Portman."

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