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!

However, certain realities exist in any media company: how much can we do at once? We’ve had to make the exceptionally difficult decision to stop making this show in order to make room for new projects we’ll be announcing in the coming weeks.

I want to thank Andrew and Annie for their unending commitment to the show and also to the production staff of producers and editors who made the show for you every week. Annie is going to be taking lead on one of our “new projects” coming soon, so stay tuned for that AND you’ll keep seeing her on App Judgment.

We’re always looking to bring you guys the best possible programming the online world has to offer. Sometimes this means making really tough decisions but we hope you’re going to love everything we have coming down the pipe.

- Ryan Vance
VP – Programming & Production

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

Basically, it’s a way to enjoy the best of Internet Television on your computer or television. Boxee is the first “social” media center, whose free, downloadable software is changing the way we experience home entertainment. On a computer or connected to an HDTV, boxee allows you a simple way to bring all their entertainment into one place including personal movies, TV shows, music and photos, as well as streaming content from websites like Netflix, MLB.TV, Comedy Central, Pandora, Last.fm, and flickr. You can also share information about what you’re watching so friends can enjoy it too through legal sources online. It’s pretty darn cool and I’ve been using it for the majority of my Internet TV watching.

So, when the gang over at Boxee called us up and offered to create a Revision3 app for Boxee, we jumped at the opportunity! Any chance to make it easy for you, our audience, to watch Revision3 on your big screen TV (or any size, really) is definitely something we want to provide. Avner Ronan, Boxee’s CEO said, “”From Tekzilla to the Digg Reel to Co-Op, HD Nation, and Hak5 – Rev3 makes great shows that are available around the globe, on demand. They’re a great fit for Boxee, and we’re excited about the new interface we’ve created with them to encourage more people to watch Rev3 on their big screen.” Avner’s a great guy and so nice of him to say such kind words about Revision3!

If you’re looking for a new and cool way to watch Revision3, we strongly suggest you check out Boxee and install the Revision3 app. I can’t stop playing with it, it’s so cool. Just hook up your media center PC or your laptop to your TV, load up Revision3 on Boxee and then you’re on your way to hours of Revision3 fueled entertainment!

So head over to Boxee’s website, download the client and check it out for yourself.

Here’s what the Revision3 App on Boxee looks like:

Imagine browsing Revision3 with your remote control on your couch! Not bad, eh?

Huge thanks to our friends over at Boxee for putting the app together and helping us make it easier and better for you to watch Revision3 on Boxee!

Let us know what you think of the Revision3 app on Boxee!

So just what exactly has changed? Practically everything! Here’s a brief summary of the changes to the site with Revision3.com version 4.0 that you can expect:

Updated Design – It’s a brand new site with a brand new interface. Every section and page of the site has been redesigned and improved from the previous version. In addition, we’ve made navigation easier on the site so you can get around and find what you want. We’ve even given some love to the forums, so it’s fresh, new and ready to be used.

BIGGER & Better Video – We’ve increased the size of our video player, so now when you’re watching your favorite show, it truly is an entertaining experience. We’ve also added some cool features like the ability to pop out the player to another window or to put it in theater mode and make the video really pop.

User Preferences – We want to make the Revision3 website the site YOU want it to be, each and every one of you. To do that, we’ve begun expanding the User Preferences section to allow for customization of what you see and how you use revision3.com. Admittedly there isn’t much there right now but from what is there, you should get the general idea of what will be coming. Expect to see this area expanded on the most over the upcoming weeks, so make sure you register and log in to the site when you visit.

Enhanced Shows and Host Pages – We’ve redesigned all the show pages so that it’s easier to browse and find your favorite episodes. We’ve also worked to make sure our search functionality gives you the results your looking for. It’s also easier to find information about your favorite show host, such as the link to the their blog, Facebook Profile or whatever other social network they may be on.

Twitter! – Twitter’s everywhere these days, so why not Revision3? You may notice that we’ve worked with our friends at SquareSpace to create a Revision3 Twitter directory so it’s easy to find everyone from Revision3 on Twitter. We’ve also integrated the Twitter feeds of our hosts on their pages so you can see what they’re up to, minute by minute.

Under The Hood – For those of you interested in how things work, a lot of the changes and improvements come from behind the scenes. Previously, as many of you know, we were using WordPress for our content management needs. As we’ve grown, we’ve outgrown WordPress as a solution. Don’t get us wrong, we still love WordPress and still use it for our blog, but for running the site, we learned a lot from using it and have evolved beyond its capabilities. Now we’re running an internally produced content management system that was built on a PHP based MVC framework. And what’s even better is that we’re primed to grow from here, making it easy to add new features and functionality later on (hint hint).

As I said, we’re immensely excited for the site. Personally I love the new look and I love how bright the future looks for Revision3.com. We’re going to be building from here and creating some cool features for all Revision3 fans to come and enjoy. We hope you like the new site as much as we do, and please let us know what you think either by e-mailing us or on the forums.

I’d like to take a moment and put the spotlight on the awesome team here at Revision3 that labored for months to bring you the new Revision3.com – Stephanie Chu, Ryan LaBarre, Jeff Rizzo, Chuck Siu, Brendan White and a few others who are unfortunately no longer with us here at Revision3. All your hard work and dedication has absolutely paid off and I hope all the loyal Revision3 fans join me in applauding you.

thanks.
- Ron Richards

thanks.

Today’s update to the flash player introduces two new buttons on the user interface, “Share” and “Embed”. We’ve made it much easier for you to now take your favorite Revision3 shows and share them with your friends, either by email, posting on your site, or submitting to the social network of your choice. Now all you have to do is click “Share” and you’ll see the flash player transform into a panel with options to provide you the URL to share, or one click post to Twitter, Digg, Facebook and many others.

But we didn’t stop there. Oh no, there’s more. We’re also rolling out the ability for you, the viewer, to choose the clip of your choice to share with your friends. Once you click “Share” or “Embed”, you’ll notice a timeline above the video, and markers that show the time in the video. All you need to do is click on the starting marker and drag to the point of the video you’d like your clip to start at, and then do the same for the end marker. The URL, embed codes and links to other sites automatically update, making sharing your favorite moment easier than ever! So now, when you want to show your buddy that moment when Jimmy Fallon busted on Alex in Diggnation, or show your Dad a cool product review on Tekzilla, you can just pick your clip, and share away! We’re super excited for this bit of functionality and we hope it’s something you, the audience, can find easy to use and enjoy.

Here is the latest episode of Tekzilla if you would like to play with the new functionality:

Like I said, this is the next step in our rollout of enhanced functionality for our flash player, which hopefully will make your viewing experience on Revision3 as awesome as you want it to be. Stay tuned for more updates and changes in the coming months. We’ve got some super cool stuff still in development that we can’t wait to share with you! And as always, let us know what you think. Leave a comment below or talk about it in our forums.

thanks.

This week’s edition of The Digg Reel was a very special episode, as Brian Brushwood, host of Scam School, joined Andrew Bancroft to bring some “magic” to this week’s batch of online videos. David Prager snuck into the planning of the shoot with a camera and caught some of the behind the scenes action as Brian and Andrew entertained the The Digg Reel production staff. We thought everyone would get a kick out of seeing it, so watch the above video and enjoy!

I’m not the only one urging you to get out and vote. Andrew Bancroft, host of The Digg Reel, got a couple of friends together and created a video that does a far better job of encouraging you to hit the polls than I ever will. Check it out, and then get out there and be part of the process!