Vlogger Interview: Bill Elder [BillTVMacon]

Today's Vlogger Interview features Bill Elder, known on YouTube as BillTVMacon.  He's based in Macon, Georgia, and has had a long career in broadcast radio - including thirty years as a DJ.  That experience definitely shows.  His vlog is funny, well edited, and responsive to his subscribers the vlogging community around the world.    He has an amazing ability to create content that has an appeal across all age groups on YouTube.  AND, if that isn't enough, he's a nice guy.

Though the Vlogger Interview is usually ten minutes long, I sometimes have great conversations that go on quite a bit longer.  I'm considering an audio podcast that would, among other things, include in-depth interviews with a number of vloggers that's you've met here.  What do you think?

Building Community Online - Where's the Town Square?

I've been spending the last couple of weeks recharging my batteries, so to speak, in relation to my social media activity.   It's not exactly a creative block - I know, generally what my next several vlogs, audioboos, and blogs might be about - but I'm also after a more productive use of these resources.  

Productive, in my case, extends to both the practical (how can this help me really) to my more community-based interests.

The concept of community online is a bit difficult to grasp - especially as technologies change, new sites develop, and new concepts emerge.  In the real world, a group of communities form a city or, at least, common geographic area with common interests.   In the YouTube world, there are countless communities based on individuals (or more generally speaking, channels) - but few opportunities for the larger YT community to "gather" to explore common interests (to "grow" the overall community, for example).  

There have been and continue to be attempts - websites and attempts at limited community governance - to bring this world together for the "common good."  The "Common Good," of course, may be as hard to define as "common sense."  Still, I think there's a great opportunity in certain areas to act in concert to achieve individual goals, while at the same time preserving and expanding the vibrant individual communities each YouTuber builds.

One of my hopes for Vidcon was/is that it can offer the opportunity to create unified efforts to help build the community - an effort, perhaps, not based on the corporate YouTube structure, but on the establishment of vlogging as a platform (living largely on YT, but ultimately not limited to that world).  Combine Vidcon with BillTVMacon's online NoCon concept, and the result might be the beginning of a central community "town square."

There's NoCon Without Vidcon

BillTVMacon, a vlogger and former radio personality, will be leading NoCon2010, a YouTube channel for those who aren't attending the VidCon YouTube conference.  It's a simple online community gathering/discussion that will address one focus question each day: on Friday, the topic will be "how to get noticed;" on Saturday, production will be discussed, and on Sunday, the future and direction of YT will be debated.  It's a simple idea, and being a wide-open forum, I'm sure it will take some unusual directions - but I really do like the concept, especially for non-YT vets.  I'd be all over it, if I wasn't a YesCon guy....