Bencredible

Wow!

I mean WOW!

The response to the last Spacevidcast daily was phenomenal and we’re only part way through the day! It is pretty clear that the community prefers the more creative, humor filled space news. By far our two most talked about daily clips are these:

There are some interesting data points when it comes to these two videos:

1. We have had more subscriptions in the last week to our YouTube channel than the last 2 months combined.
2. Most of the new YouTube subscriptions have come in within the last 8 hours (from the writing of this post)
3. In addition to higher subscriptions we also have higher views. An average daily gets around 350 views a week whereas the Space Elevator has just under 1,000 views and the MRO video is on slate to get around 500 views by tomorrow.

Then there are some lessons learned as well as some lessons that are simply reenforced by looking at these stats:

1. Content always trumps quality. We have been working so hard to improve the quality of our dailies that I forgot that we have to script everything better. To this end I ripped everything off the set and am starting from scratch. You’ll note there was no HDTV in the MRO video and the quality was poor (by design of course).
2. People like humor. You can get space news in about a kabillion great places on the Internet. The same space news rehashed in video form is, well, boring and a waste of time. Adding our own unique spin to it is what makes it entertaining and engaging which is what we’re after.
3. It takes a long time to produce good content. These videos took twice as long to produce as their straight news counterparts did.

We have already pre-shot most of the rest of the dailies for this week, so we may not have as much fun with those, but going forward we sure will. I think somewhere in 2009 I lost my way and started making Spacevidcast too much like a serious news show. That’s not true to who we are, it is not what people want and it isn’t where we should go. I got rattled by the very vocal minority that told us how horrible we were and how terrible it was that we gave everyone a voice and should take space travel more seriously. We were not good enough to play with the big kids was the general impression. Well screw that. The big kids are old and decrepit and can go mumble to themselves in a corner. We’re the new blood in space, we’re having fun with this stuff and we’re not going away. OH, and just because we’re going to have some fun with this stuff doesn’t mean we won’t get awesome interviews with astronauts. I have a feeling some of them like to have some fun too!

With the recent time zone change (and the confusion that always accompanies daylight savings time) it got me to think about time zones, daylight savings and coordinated universal time.

At times I am still amazed at how few people understand UTC or Coordinated Universal Time, even those people who live in that exact time zone! Throw daylight savings time in there and I’m pretty sure heads explode. Back in the days when getting a message across the planet took weeks this may have made some sense. When the industrial revolution came around there really was no time standard, so when a train would leave one city and go to the next it was entirely possible that you would arrive before you left… Well according to the city time at least. Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) was adopted in 1847 by the Railway Clearing House to help eliminate this issue. If all of the train stations used the same general time, then you could no longer arrive before you left. This was a great invention 150 years ago, but times have changed and the world is a lot smaller now.

In 1972 GMT was abolished. Ok, not really abolished per say, but it was replaced in most regions by UTC or Coordinated Universal Time and should have been abolished. When someone says ‘GMT’ today they are actually referring to UTC and just don’t know it. Same with Z or Zulu time. Coordinated Universal Time is the most accurate clock the planet has which is based on atomic time. In fact you probably use it every day and don’t even know it! GPS uses UTC to keep the satellites in sync, so if you’re ever on a boat cruise, flying on an airplane, launching a missile at an enemy country, or driving your car with GPS nav you’re using UTC. In 1972 it was enough just to make the clocks of the world scary accurate, but there was no need to touch daylight savings time or time zones in general, so they didn’t. UTC follows the same offset as GMT did.

As we approach 2010 I think it is time to take UTC to the next level and create WUT or Worldwide Universal Time.  In my proposal we would continue to use the scary accurate atomic clocks that UTC is based off of, but the entire concept of daylight savings time would be gone. You would never, ever, ever change your clocks forward or backward an hour again. In addition (and just to make me sound super loony) the concept of time zones should be removed as well. We live in a world where real-time communications can happen at any hour of any day on any place on the planet or even in space! Why then do we cling to the idea that 12:00 noon must be when the sun is directly overhead? Who cares where the sun is at any moment in time anymore! That’s why lights were invented. Move to a 24 hour time and make it a universal time across the planet, right at the current offset of 0. In my proposed scenario the sun would be directly over my head at what I call noon today at 1800 hours WUT. What difference does it really make? The entire planet can work on whatever time is correct for that region and we would all have our watches set to the exact same time, accurate to the sub-sub-sub second. When you schedule that conference call between Japan and New York everyone would know exactly how the meeting time would affect them.

Yeah, radical idea that will probably never happen. As we reach more and more to the stars and as the world becomes smaller and smaller clinging on to this legacy time system will become harder and harder. Lets just make everyones life easier, come together as a planet and accept WUT as the new universal time that everyone will use.

kthxbai

I am currently pissed at Apple and the iPhone, more specifically the inability to get Google Voice on my iPhone and the lame App Store policies.  My next phone? I’m going to have to guess… oh, I don’t know… THIS ONE!!!

This is a great 40 minute video.  I just now had time to watch it and should have made time earlier.  The interesting thing is that Leo and I are starting from opposite ends.  Spacevidcast started with a live 24×7 channel and is working backwards to on-demand options and podcasts whereas he started with podcasts and is working up to a live 24×7 channel.  The good news is that he is starting to see some traction on his live channel, so there is hope for us yet!  Of course we’re starting to see traction too, but probably not to the same level that Leo has.