Over the last year, we noticed a pattern in our support emails: people who have been getting choppy, incomplete videos – or, worse, no video at all – seem to be coming from areas that are slightly out of reach of our video delivery network. Whether the user is in Revision3′s home country, or in Europe, Australia, or the UAE, it’s possible to be just a wee bit too far out of Revision3′s reach.  We have great programming, and great viewers who want to see what’s happening next on Dan3.0, pick up a few pointers from Tekzilla, or weird out a friend with Scam School antics… so, its up to those of us in the engine room to fix the problem.

We can tinker and tweak all we want – but we can’t very easily get on planes with laptops and fly to all points of the globe to test out our video delivery system. (Although, I think it might be worth it for the free peanuts, actually.) So, that’s where you come in…

We’ve set up two new video delivery technologies that we think will significantly improve the delivery of programming to you, no matter where you are. Taking a page from old commercials and mixing it with a sprinkling of modern crowd sourcing, we’ve created a blind “taste” test on revision3.com. Just point your browser to our Revision3 Video Vote page and help us out.

The test will only take 7-8 minutes of your time, tops. Just play the three videos (it’s Tom’s Top 5, which everyone wants to see at least three times), and answer the response questions below each. Please note, the only reason we ask you for your location is so that we can chart how we’re doing in different regions. We do not maintain or use this information for soliciting, sharing, telling your mother where you are, or any other nefarious purpose. We promise.

Thanks for the help – and please spread the word. Blog, Facebook, or Tweet out the link to our video vote page: http://www.revision3.com/videovote We’re going to leave the page up for the next few weeks and see which technology serves you better.

Thanks again!

And that’s a big part of the reason why I’m so concerned about how the courts have removed the FCCs ability to police net neutrality across broadband ISPs. Left to their own devices, it’s only natural to expect large cable operators, including Comcast, Time Warner, AT&T and Verizon to start favoring their own cable networks and services, and slowing down competing services.

Heck, it happened back in 2007, when Comcast was ratcheting Bit Torrent traffic down , which negatively impacted us – as we used to distribute all our shows via BT.

But now, three years later, we’re an even bigger thorn in the side of traditional TV. Our shows are getting audiences that rival some of the best on cable TV, more and more people are abandoning traditional cable services for web-delivery of Netflix, independent TV, Hulu and other video sources, and new devices from Roku, Boxee, Syabas and others offer even more freedom of choice.

But today that choice is threatened. I just wrote an opinion piece for GigaOm detailing Why We Cannot Let Neutrality Fail. I encourage you to read it. But get involved too. Write your representatives and tell them you don’t trust the big ISPs to protect your interests.

Tell them you watch Web TV… and you Vote!

– Jim Louderback

In an effort to make sure we provide you with everything that you want / need, we are looking to you for thoughts and suggestions about products we could supply from the store. We are open to any and every idea (as long as it is appropriate and possible) for every show. For example, AJ Vaynerchuk (a summer intern of ours) designed a concept for a Revision3 sneaker:

As you can see when we say anything, we really mean it! In addition to the products available in store, we’re going to be planning on some great free giveaways and stuff like that.

If you want to make a suggestion you can either leave a comment on this blog post, or make your way over to the Revision3 forums (here) and join the discussion there! An early favorite of the forums posters (and ours) is the laptop skins!

We are truly excited about getting this thing going and thank you in advance for all of the suggestions!
- David Prager

Yes, we’ll be shooting at three different bars over the next three nights here in San Francisco, and we’d love for you to get involved. If you’re game, see below to find out where we’ll be and when. So come on by for a drink, a lot of fun, and your chance to be on a Revision3 show. (Sorry, but you’ll need to be 21 to attend.)

Thanks,
Revision3

2/26: Hobson’s Choice, 7:15pm

1601 Haight Street
(between Belvedere St & Clayton St)
San Francisco, CA 94117
http://www.hobsonschoice.com

2/27: Rock It Room, 7:15pm

406 Clement St
(between 5th Ave & 6th Ave)
San Francisco, CA 94118
www.rock-it-room.com

2/28: San Francisco Brewing Company, 7:15pm

155 Columbus Avenue
(between Jackson St & Kearny St)
San Francisco, CA 94133
www.sfbrewing.com

It’s not actually a new show. Instead we’re adding a daily component to the amazing and highly successful Tekzilla. What does this mean? Well every weekday you’ll see a new segment from the Tekzilla team, including Patrick Norton, Jessica Corbin, Neha Tiwari and Heather Frank. Some of the daily topics coming up include how to get better results from Google, retrofitting newer DVI monitors to work with older PCs, why you should only use lossless audio formats and getting more battery life out of your notebook computer.

This doesn’t mean Tekzilla is going to change. We’ll continue to deliver a high-quality half hour program each week. But now you’ll get a fun and entertaining tip’n'trick each day as well!

– Jim Louderback

In his latest blog post, he predicts a bifurcated future of video, where traditional TV video keeps getting better, while internet delivered video on the PC stays standard definition or worse.

But I think he’s wrong. Kevin is making the mistake of equating internet delivered video with the PC. The PC is just one of many devices that will be used to view video delivered via FTP, HTTP, RTTP or other internet protocols. The audience for Revision3′s episodic, personality-driven shows, along with others in our space, watch on everything from an iPhone to home-theater PCs, portable media players, AppleTV and other web-connected devices.

And even if you do restrict yourself to the PC, the history of that device has been a constant flight to quality.

There was a time – back when I was running PC Week’s Lab - when I thought it folly for a notebook to have a color screen. In fact, monochrome monitors looked far better than the first CGA models. But EGA, VGA, SVGA, etc kept on advancing the state of display quality — and what we looked at got progressively better too.

That’s only going to continue. Today’s HDTVs are no different from the computer monitor sitting on your desk or in your laptop. Some are connected to locally deployed computers (TiVo, Motorola DCTs, etc), and others get their bits from computers a bit futher afield, either at a cable head-end or at the other side of an ATSC transmittion signal.

Quality matters. And the story of the PC and computing devices is an inexorable march towards higher-fidelity (with a short detour as the internet become the dominant transmission medium). And unless we all end up going back to dialup, that’s not going to change. Even if you’re just watching dry how-to videos, or yet another LOLCAT, the better it looks, the better the payoff. And better payoffs translate into more traffic, more ad support and more sharing. The alternative, from where I sit, is dial-up AOL. And not even Time Warner believes in that anymore.

– Jim Louderback, CEO

Sure, the company will never live up to that hype. But the truth is that more and more people are spending more and more of their online lives inside Facebook. And now, if you’re a Facebook user, you can watch all of our Revision3 shows from inside Facebook!

In addition, you can select your favorite show, and have the latest episode delivered right to your profile page! So if you live inside Facebook, please add our new Revision3 player. Share it with your friends (20 a day), and enjoy a brand new way to keep up with all your favorite shows.

You can find the Revision3 Facebook Player here. Play around with it, see what you like and dislike, and let us know. We’ll be working to make it better over the coming days and months. And thanks again for being a Revision3 fan.

— Jim Louderback