Delays

From September until now, I had meant to do more work on Federama than I have. Part of it was procrastination, but part of it was regular life intruding. I’m not complaining, since it meant I spent quality time with my family, but it’s a bit of an explanation. While I haven’t been doing much coding, I have been doing some other stuff related to Federama, 10th Street Media, LLC and fundraising.

One of the things I like to do when I get home from work is to check out YouTube. YouTube has some creators that I subscribe to because I really like their content. Some post new videos on a regular basis, while others only post a few times a year. Despite this, I’m not a huge fan of YouTube. Because it’s part of Google and because their recommendation algorithm is terrible, I prefer to find content elsewhere. This usually means PeerTube, because it doesn’t have ads and it doesn’t have the whole Big Brother thing going on. But the difference in scale is enormous.

By 2017, YouTube had over 7 billion videos (That’s billion with a b) and over 30 million users daily. With all PeerTube instances combined, they only have about 100,000 videos and around 20,000 users. With those differences, it’s no wonder I watch stuff on YouTube more often than PeerTube. I’ve been thinking about that conundrum a lot over the past month or so and think I can take a few steps in the right direction.

I bought a digital camcorder online. It’s a generic camcorder with no brand name. Years ago I bought a couple of GoPro knockoffs made by a company called ccbetter, which was a brand name I’d never head of before. This new camcorder doesn’t even have an unrecognizable brand; it has no brand at all. What it does have is the ability to shoot 4K video. For less than $150! It says a lot about the state of consumer technology when we can buy unbranded cameras with good quality at decent prices. Since I’ve only had the camcorder a few weeks, maybe I’m jumping the gun a bit by saying it has good quality, but so far it’s been pretty good.

The plan is to start creating some content of my own and adding it to PeerTube. So far I’ve added one cat video shot with my phone, and several videos shot with the new camcorder. They all lack the professional polish I expect from future videos, but they’re all part of the process of learning. In shooting those videos I learned how to shoot video with my phone and with the camcorder. I learned how to upload videos to PeerTube. I learned to edit videos and create subtitles. I’ve learned so much, and there’s a lot left to learn. But I digress…

The more people who put videos on PeerTube, the more people will be attracted to PeerTube, which will make more people want to create videos for PeerTube, which will attract more viewers, and so on. It’s a virtuous cycle to bring more content creators and more viewers to PeerTube. I may post some videos on YouTube, but mainly to tell people why they should go to PeerTube instead.

Anyway, I haven’t given up on Federama. I have a couple weeks of vacation coming around Christmas and New Year’s, so I plan on doing a lot of coding then. One of the reasons I want to start creating videos is so I can create video updates discussing Federama progress, along with my thoughts and ruminations on other Fediverse matters.