Today, Jalopnik is reporting that BMW has launched video podcasts from show floor at the Detroit Auto Show. We saw similiar “on the floor” reporting on at CES - in both podcast and video blog form, and I expect that we’ll see it in the future at other trade shows (personally, I’m looking forward to what comes out of E3). However, I like that the car companies - a traditional consumer product - are doing something similiar. This is just the latest in a long line of impressive usage of online media coming from car companies - both U.S. and abroad. Volvo is sponsoring podcasts on Autoblog, as are other car companies elsewhere. This, in addition to the report from AdAge at the very end of the year that Automakers - lots of them - have bought up 80% of ad space on car websites, makes for what appears to be a very exciting 2006 for watching what comes from the automakers in terms of online media.

Slashdot, highlighted an article by Jakob Nielson discussing why talking heads on the internet are boring - and why most video blogs will be boring. While this isn’t a huge revelation (a few views of video blogs or online video of people just talking *at* you would help you figure this out yourself), Nielson backs up his discussion with eyetracking studies. Evidently, people are easily distracted by items in the background of a video, text boxes, etc, and Nielson includes a sample eyetracked video in his blog post.

And we’ve reached the end of my vlog oddessy. These are the vlogs that I enjoy - but don’t have to watch immediately after they upload a new episode. Here we go!

Cult of UHF is just what it sounds like. A “cult” (using the term lightly) of people who are interested in the old UHF television (remember the movie with Wierd Al Yankovic? Not that.) like the Three Stooges, etc. Each episode is short, but is like a blast from the past with cool (public domain) clips and videos from yesteryear.

TikiBarTv is a show about a Tiki Bar - complete with cute girl, Doctor Tiki, and wacky cats. Each episode is centered around a special drink. While it doesn’t always make sense, its certainly one of the more popular (and random) vlogs out there!

Drivetime is a weekly vlob produced during the host (Ravi)’s commute. It’s an interesting take on the morning and afternoon commute (and makes me miss mine not at all) . Plus, Ravi seems like such a nice guy.

The Mary and Karla show is a vlog that I’m including at the behest of several of my friends. While Mary and Karla remind me of my friends back in “the day” I can only watch about half of their vlog before turning it off. It could be because I prefer vlogs (and podcasts) with more structure, but I’m not totally feeling it. Everyone else is though, so please give it a whirl and let me know what I’m missing.

Late addition to the vlog list, and one I haven’t seen but am including because I read about it on Amanda Unboomed (companion Rocketboom blog by Amanda). I’m downloading them as they speak, but if she loves it, you probably will too. Its called The Richard Show and its about a guy named Richard. Read what Amanda has to say about it here.

I was struggling with whether or not I actually like FireAnt, the new media aggregator thats been featured on Rocketboom, Xolo.tv, and a host of other vlogs, tech shows, etc. When two of your favorite vlogs tell you something is good, well, you go download it and try it out.

I decided to test it over the holiday, and was immediately impressed by the wealth of content they had (including a great vlog for Kevin Smith’s Passion of the Clerks), as well as all my favorite vlogs to date - and some I wanted but couldn’t find on iTunes. I dug through their channel list, watched some of the videos that had downloaded and went to bed.

When I woke up, I had no memory left on my computer. Yes, FireAnt had taken over my all of my harddrive with videos. It reminded me of the early days of Napster when people (not me of course, but I’ve heard about them) would stuff from Napster, then realize that they had no room on their computer to do anything else. I’ve read that the same thing happens with new RSS adopters - they oversubscribe to things they’d never, in all seriousness, actually want to read nand thus get overwhelmed. So I spent the morning after the holiday deleting all those videos. I decided to park my FireAnt fun for the time being and go back to my regular way of imbibing media content (iTunes + Sharpreader).

However, this morning I started playing with FireAnt again, and discovered a few tricks that have (convinced me to convert. First, its an all-in-one RSS aggregator, meaning I can have my blogs, podcasts and vlogs all in the same place. To date, none of the other aggregators that I have used (Sharpreader, Podcast Pickle, or iTunes) appear to have that capability. (If I’m wrong, please let me know) If you are someone like myself, who gets distracted and grumpy due to multiple programs, FireAnt will be the best thing that has ever happened to you.

The second feature that I absolutly love is the “preview” feature - which allows you to listen to vlogs & podcasts without downloading them. I subscribe to a LOT of content, and am constantly doing the “deleting dance.” With FireAnt, I can preview, and then if I really, really want to keep it -it gets downloaded.

My only complaint is that it is not (at this time) compatible with iTunes, but it is compatible with PSP. I’m hoping that this will happen in the future. Until then, I’m fine with transferring the items I want to my iPod from FireAnt any time I need to update (which isn’t all that often).

In my earlier post, I went in search of video content on iTunes and came up woefully short. So I did what I do best: looked around on the web for stuff to watch. What I found was interesting, compelling…and some of it was really, really dumb. Before I share my favorite vlogs (or videoblogs, or vodcasts, or videopodcasts)* with you, I wanted to provide a rundown of the sites I used to find them. Not everyone is going to have my tastes, so I wanted to share my three favorite directories with you so you can go out and find your own favorite blog (and then send it to me - I need more video!).

Vodstock is an interesting directory. With only 20 categories (at the moment), Vodstock allows users to vote for their favorite vlogs, and provides a list of the most “popular” (or downloaded) . They also offer a “how to” so if you crave the spotlight of a few hardy souls, you can create your own vlog to share with the masses. The only drawback with Vodstock is that they have a snippet of video each show page - a nice thought, but it crashed both Firefox and Explorer multiple times - including while I was writing this.

VlogDir has a LOT more categories than Vodstock, but isn’t as organized. I like VlogDir because they endorse FireAnt , a vlog aggregator which I’ll touch on another day. The best thing about VlogDir is the variety. They have vlogs for the kidlets in the Kids Entertainment and the Family Fun category, as well as blogs of a more adult nature in the Fashion, Politics and Sports categories. Sadly, they don’t have a “Not Safe for Work” warning - and believe me, some of the vlogs are not safe for work.

Finally, I wanted to pass on my personal favorite method of learning about new vlogs - from VlogSoup!. VlogSoup is just one of the vlogs done by Steve Garfield, all round interesting guy, vlogger extraordinaire and frequent contributor to the only vlog I’ll never go without, Rocketboom. In each edition of Vlog Soup, Steve takes a “Talk Soup” approach to the world of vlogging - and at least 75% of what he shows has me in stitches. A great introductory vlog if I ever saw one.

*For the record, I prefer vlog, so we’re sticking with that.