jonnygoldstein.com

These are some drawings I created for my presentation at the SOHO Apple Store yesterday. They illustrate the way “Jane” could hypothetically use a video blog to solve a problem in her neighborhood, the problem being a restaurant that leaves its garbage on the sidewalk at night, which attracts packs of rats that gross Jane out everytime she walks by. More images after the jump.

By the way, the SOHO event rocked with offering from Shannon Noble, Adam Quirk, Josh Kinberg (who also emceed and produced the event), Peter Van Dijk, Andrew Baron, myself, and Gabe McIntyre who interviewed Amanda Congdon infront of the live audience.


One day Jane walked down her block in Manhattan to find the garbage the restaurant below her apartment had put out on the sidewalk, teeming with rats.

Ick.

Jane went up to her apartment and pondered what to do. She ended up talking to the restaurant owners, writing her community board, local politicians, media, to no avail.

Then she had an idea! She would use her videoblog to make her voice heard.

One night she videoed the rats…

…in all their ratty nastiness, using her little 200$ digital still camera, which also shot decent video.

Then she put the video on her computer, added some titles and made a movie for the web.

She uploaded it to the Internet Archive, a free place on the web to put digital meda.

And she linked to the movie from her videoblog, which she learned to make from freevlog.org.

Then she sent out emails to various politicians, local media, community organizations, and her own social contacts letting them know about her problem and directing them to her videoblog. Meanwhile, people who already subscribed to her videoblog via i-Tunes, FireAnt, Mefeedia, and Vlogdir, were already checking out her video.

Local media actually paid attention, and the Mayor got anxious and called up the Chief of Police to make something happen.

One of New Yorks Finest went out to the restaurant and served the owner with summons for disposing of garbage improperly.

The owner ended up making sure the garbage was put out the morning that the garbage was picked up, not the night before. People in the neighborhood were psyched.

And so was Jane, happy that her videoblog helped her solve her ratty little problem.