When you’re an internet company based in the Bay Area, with companies like Google and Yahoo! here in town and newer but way-more-famous startups like Digg and Twitter and WordPress down the street, not to mention hundreds of stories written by bloggers every day about other startups around the city, it’s only natural to feel like a small fish in a big pond, even when you know from your stats and your e-mail inbox that your service is used by millions of people.
Sometimes it helps to get out of our little bubble here for a small little ego boost. This happened to me two weeks ago, in Muncie, Indiana in an office that had absolutely nothing to do with the Internet, online video, or Vodpod.
(Why was I in Muncie? Answer here if you really want to know…)
In this office in Muncie, I happened to look over the shoulder of another person there, who was working on a laptop, and noticed they were watching a video. On the Politico.com. In a Vodpod widget. Naturally, I had to shout out: “Hey, cool, that’s one of our widgets.”
Yes, shameless self-promotion all the time, it’s the Vodpod way. It was then nice to hear a couple of people in the office say “that’s cool, I had no idea you were from Vodpod, I use this every day, it’s great.”
Word went around in the office that this guy (me) from San Francisco who started Vodpod was out in this office in Muncie. The next day, after a full day on the streets cavassing, I returned to the office and a fellow volunteer, a college student from Muncie, came up and said (and here I paraphrase): “I heard you were one of the people behind Vodpod, I’ve been using it for a few months and love it, it’s really cool you’re here and I just wanted to say that I am excited to meet you.”
Now, this never happens. We’re a small startup, we work hard, we love our product, but we’re a long way from being almost famous, even almost internet famous.
But maybe when you make something people like and use, you can be internet famous for a second. Like that beautiful moment in Muncie, a town I’ll always remember fondly:-)
Filed under: Stuff We Love , Ramblings
[...] May 16, 2008 · No Comments Mark is famous in Muncie. [...]
[...] May 16, 2008 · No Comments Mark is famous in Muncie. [...]
i imported a video to my blog wayfinderblog.wordpress.com and the video plays automatically. Now that that post is a couple stories old, it’s unsettling. I’d rather the video appear, but not run until the viewer activates it. Any suggestions on how to fix that?
i imported a video to my blog wayfinderblog.wordpress.com and the video plays automatically. Now that that post is a couple stories old, it’s unsettling. I’d rather the video appear, but not run until the viewer activates it. Any suggestions on how to fix that?
I see where you normally set auto play to off. when i look at the code, it looks like it’s set to on “%26autoplay%3Dtrue%” but I don’t know how to re-set it. any suggestions?
Here’s the code:
[vodpod id=Groupvideo.1181254&w=425&h=350&fv=%26vidFile%3Dreese_sam_dr002.flv%26cid%3D191029%26si%3D23%26nd%3D13722%26br%3D14%26pt%3D2434%26ncat%3D6005%3A2%3A13722%26autoplay%3Dtrue%26url%3Dhttp%253A%2F%2Fwww.bnet.com%2F2434-13722_23-162366.html%26bypass%3D%26connectUrl%3Drtmp%3A%2F%2Fv.zdnet.com%2Fvideo%2Freese_sam_dr002.flv]
thanks for any help you can provide.
I see where you normally set auto play to off. when i look at the code, it looks like it’s set to on “%26autoplay%3Dtrue%” but I don’t know how to re-set it. any suggestions?
Here’s the code:
[vodpod id=Groupvideo.1181254&w=425&h=350&fv=%26vidFile%3Dreese_sam_dr002.flv%26cid%3D191029%26si%3D23%26nd%3D13722%26br%3D14%26pt%3D2434%26ncat%3D6005%3A2%3A13722%26autoplay%3Dtrue%26url%3Dhttp%253A%2F%2Fwww.bnet.com%2F2434-13722_23-162366.html%26bypass%3D%26connectUrl%3Drtmp%3A%2F%2Fv.zdnet.com%2Fvideo%2Freese_sam_dr002.flv]
thanks for any help you can provide.