The Vlogger Interviews: Ken Goldstein [Kenrg]

"The Vlogger Interviews" is an ongoing series of vlogs and blogs exploring the definition of vlogging – from the vlogger's perspective, If you like this interview, I would appreciate your subscription to http://youtube.com/worldaccordingtorich on YouTube.  

2006 is only five years ago, but in the world of YouTube, it's practically an eternity.

"It was a magical era," says Ken Goldstein, known as KENRG on YouTube and across the social media landscape - he's one of YouTube's early vloggers.   He was already a long-time blogger when he first came across the site - in fact, he was looking for video footage to supplement a blog post, and then discovered that YouTube offered the video equivelent of what he was already doing.  He discovered Renetto, one of YouTube's earliest "stars," a spritied, outspoken raconteur, among other things, "and I thought, well, if he can do this, just sitting in front of a camera and talking to a camera and sharing it, I can certainly give that a try." 

The idea of a social network was still new, then.  MySpace was primarily for kids, Facebook was in it's earliest stages, and Twitter didn't even exist.  In you wanted to interact socially online, YouTube was the best place to be. 

"I think one of the most brilliant things that YouTube did in the early days that helped the community and the art of vlogging...was the video response...not just that you could comment, but I could comment on your comment."  Through their videos, directly attached as comments to another's vlogger's video, a video conversation followed,  "That's really where it stated, and that's the magic of where it started in 2006, when there was a limited universe of us vlogging back and forth with each other."

New Blog: Social Media Journeys

I've just started contributing to "Social Media Journeys: Personal Adventures in a Wired World"  a blog run by Andy Gunton, known in social media circles as Andymooseman.   Andy's a veteran vlogger based in the UK.  I met him at a gathering here in Los Angeles last April organized by a mutual friend, Ken Goldstein (KenRG).  He's also contributing to the blog.

I love the concept of this new blog - while most blogs about social media focus on the commercial, this focuses on what is probably the more profound impact social media is having on our everyday, individual lives; it's already generated fundamental change in methods and frequency of human interaction from almost every angle. The very nature of friendship is being redefined.  With all of this technology just a few years old, we've only seen the beginning of the impact social media is certain to have in society at large.  Just ten years ago, we couldn't have imagined the nature of interaction in 2010.  I can't help but wonder about the reality of interaction in 2020.

Take a look at the new blog, and tell us what you think!

http://socialmediajourneys.blogspot.com

It Takes a Story

I drove up to Santa Cruz for a “Social Media Meet-Up.”  It actually turned out to be a small event, but my conversations with KenRG and KevyNova were quite intriguing.

I’ve known Ken on and off since high school – I was a silent observer of his social media activity long before I dove in myself, and he’s one of the reasons I decided to take the plunge.  

I met KevyNova  at the meet-up  – Ken’s been chatting, tweeting and blogging about this talented musician for a while now.   In memory of his father, who passed away from cancer twelve years ago, KevyNova recently held a 24-hour marathon to raise money for cancer research – the entire event consisted solely of himself performing before his  Macbook iSight webcam.  Though both personal contacts, word of mouth, and social media, he raised over six thousand dollars.  It’s quite an impressive feat – and a great lesson in the power of networking.  He’s not a YouTube star- he doesn’t have a huge following. 

What he does have is a powerful story, the passion to make it happen, and the sincerity to make it real.  That almost sounds like the rules for a successful, meaningful life…

Vlogging For the Masses

In Andymooseman's comment on my last blog, "Why Do People Create on YouTube," he categorized himself as a hybrid of the first and third of the categories I mentioned - in short, someone who enjoys creating on YT for the sake of self-expression, but someone, at the same, who is open to exploring social media as an entrepreneurial opportunity.

It occurs to me that there may be a pathway to creating additional (monetary) value in the vlogs that Andy, Kenrg, OhCurt and many others create on a regular basis.  These vlogs are the modern equivalent of the opinion/commentary pages in your local newspaper (and now are as slashed to a bare minimum).  I'm not writing so much about the "Letters to the Editor" section, but the guest columnists that provided a community or individual voice on issues at hand.  These personal perspectives and anecdotes often provided the reader with a distinctly personal and  independent view apart from the "usual suspects" of reporters and paid columnists. 

Of course, guest columnists were never paid - but I still wonder if that concept can be adapted for the social media world.  Blogging, of course, has a robust presence on many news sites, but I would think that guest vlogs might even be a more attractive draw for the casual visitor.  

Guest vlogs on mainstream news and information sites, in turn, might help bring vlogs of this type to a larger (YouTube) subscription base - which in turn provides new opportunities for the vloggers themselves, reviving interest in this particular category, and widening the YouTube universe.

YouTube Pondered

One of the challenges of both learning and anticipating the social media world is the very fact that it's constantly changing and reforming.  Another challenge is the fact that the applications of social media are as varied as the individuals that use them.

In the case of YouTube, I've now created sixty videos of varied format (and, yes, quality), to better understand the environment - and what I might want for it (for that matter, where I fit in the YT universe). In some ways, I'm still not certain of my ultimate "product."  While I'm very much convinced of my theory that YT and social media is a third creative platform, I'm not entirely certain of my long-term destiny in this world..

As I was pondering this blog entry, one of my vlogging mentors, Andymooseman "liked" a video from a couple of years ago from another YT friend, Kenrg that perhaps best explains this difficulty I'm experiencing...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cQniA1dyXrA