On June 3, at Videoday, we launched the redesign of www.23video.com and we have been really happy about how it turned out. However, that is not the only website we launched.

Since we introduced 23 Video a year ago, we have helped launch more than 130 sites and that number keeps growing. We believe that over 90% off all video sites launched in Denmark in that period are running 23 Video, and we want to show them off to the world.

Having a showcase with 130 sites on our own website would be a bit excessive, so we gathered ’round the good old whiteboard and tried to figure out how we could approach this in the best way.

We came to the conclusion that we are not the only video platform provider out there, and what matters immediately is not whether organizations use a free or paid service to reinvent their communications strategy visually. What matters is that in most situations, those on the verge of getting started with video have no idea where to get started and how to approach the task.

This is where Act Visually comes into play.

We wanted to have a place where we could show the world how we help organizations act visually, but also make it a community-driven collection of cases that share a common trait of being visually oriented.

The site already has a number of cases that we have put in to get it off the ground—both some of those running on our platform, but more importantly, also a range of sites that we think are inspiring.

If you are interested in how you can get started, you should go to www.actvisually.com and have a look. If you already have a case you want to show to the world, you can easily add it by creating an account and filling out the submission form. It should show up on the site right away.

You can already make your 23 Video site run on iPhone, Android and a whole bunch of other mobile phones that support H.264 encoded video, but we’ve just got our hands on a rather promising device…

We present to you: Obligatory Blurry Pic Of Beta Service Running On Cool Hardware:

We don’t have a timeframe on when this will be wider available, but watch this space, and you’ll be the first to know.

So, I’m sitting in Chicago O’Hare airport, trying to think about what has happened at SXSW the last few days.

SXSW is a web conference in Austin, Texas, and has bumped the number of attendants this year with 50% so now there is 15,000 people in the Convention Center. It is an amazing combination of thinkers, doers and makers with strong focus on interaction and development of all kinds.

The best part of it all, was how smoothly it went. The WiFi worked perfectly 95% of the time, and the remaining time it was just a bit flaky – nothing major. AT&T even managed to set up a network that did not break down (as it did last year), but most important; every single session went as planned. No delays, no cancellations (not for me at least – a lot of people were bummed when Quentin Tarantino cancelled his appearance at a panel).

It just runs smoothly – and that might be the biggest problem as well. Unlike Reboot and other smaller conferences, there is not much of the action that happens when 600 people or less are gathered. It is not a big problem in any way – it is just the difference that is bound to be there when so many people are at the same place.

For Austin, I must say that I was really impressed with the vibe of the city. It must be a pain to live there when so many geeks get out and get in party mode simultaneously, with the lines that follow (the line for every major party counted several hundred people).

Because of the party hubs that are pre-planned, a lot of people choose to make their own as well. I had a lot of fun at several other venues that were not part of any major, official parties. Austin is known as the live music capital of the world, and everywhere you go, there is a band playing. From Dirty Dog to Headhunter and Emo’s – there’s rock’n'roll everywhere.

I will definitely be going again, but the experiences from this year will come in handy next time around.

- Live as close to the Convention Center as possible (preferrably Hilton or Marriot – both right across the road)
- Bring more sandwiches for eating during the day – there’s no lunch break, so you tend to forget to eat for a lot of hours.
- Bring better shoes. Doesn’t matter what they look like – they just have to be fantastically comfortable.
- Plan less. Everything goes havoc anyway.

Over the next week, I’ll post video post cards and a few write-ups of what I attended during the conference – this post is just to grab a bit of the feeling from the interactive festival and share it with you guys.

(And yes, I know this blog post is very non-visually oriented, but check back soon…)

I recently read an interview with the “punk rock mathematician”, Tom Henderson, and found myself thinking a lot more than I regularly do when reading articles about teachers.

His teaching methods are weird and crazy, but highly enjoyable for those who attend them. Usually, teaching methods described as “cool” and “hip” make me cringe and feel sorry for everybody unlucky enough to attend that lecture.

But to understand how Tom Henderson teaches, he makes three points:

1. Punk rock is founded upon not knowing how to play your instrument
2. He has no idea what the problem with math education in the US is.
3. Math knowledge also exists as a performative concept

First things first. In an argument with his high school girlfriend – who was very much into punk music – he made the claim that punk is founded upon people not knowing how to play their instrument.

Which is true, but not the point. Being in a punk band, and being terrible at playing your instrument, is all about performing on a stage. Instead of pointing fingers at those who can’t play, one should focus on acknowledging the courage they have for getting up there and living the dream.

This changed his worldview completely, and what his teaching style is now founded upon.

When asked what the problem with math education in the US is, he has no idea. But what he knows is that many students’ approach to math is wrong. It’s all about showing the steps, getting an A for answering correctly and knowing the books inside out.

Essentially, it’s about not knowing anything, but still being able to answer the questions posed in the tests. What if math was more about the path towards the solution, and not just handing in an answering sheet? What if math was more like punk?

Math must also be about the performance – just as punk music is. If he has to climb the chair and desk to show the progression of a graph – he climbs and climbs and climbs. The visual element of math becomes real and the ridiculous bunch of letters and graphs becomes an interesting problem that should be solved.

Why do we blog this?

Besides talking about teaching, Tom Henderson actually touches upon a point that’s essential in the fundamentals of 23. It’s always been about building tools for people who want to express themselves, without the need to learn to operate the instruments usually needed to do so.

It shouldn’t be a hassle to set up a website that you can upload pictures to – it should be accessible to everyone looking for a way to show off what they stumble upon every day. That’s where 23 Photo Sharing comes in.

If we take it even further, we find the purpose behind making 23 video. Five years ago, a couple of guys started something called YouTube (you might have heard of it) that kicked off a video revolution. Every minute, 20 hours of video is uploaded to YouTube. Every single minute. It’s an unbelievable resource of education material, music, humor and cultural artifacts.

Yet, if you were an organisation looking for a possibility to have your own site, own domain and own relation to users you’d pay a premium price. It’s not unheard of that you pay €30,000 just to get started, and you never really knew the end price if you want extra modules and features.

We figured that if you take the best of both worlds – the ease of publishing a video to YouTube with the options of customisation from the premium retailers – interesting stuff could happen.

Now we’re seeing all kinds of creative uses for video; campaign sites, intranets built around video, video archives in municipalities being activated, kids talking about their schools etc.

It doesn’t take you months and months of preparation to start a video site, and it certainly won’t cost you tens of thousands of Euros.

To us, it’s all about taking the punk approach to video – it doesn’t matter if all you have is a Flip or Kodak Zi8 or whatever. What matters is that you have something to say and start performing!

We’ve been on a road trip again and as last time, we were so busy we couldn’t write anything. Luckily, the iPhone camera is actually halfway decent if you process the images through Camerabag.

So here goes – a walkthrough of sightings from London and Hamburg:

At The Hospital Club:

Crazy elevator:

It rained a lot. But then again, what did we expect – it’s London:

And then, the day after, the sun appeared:

All of a sudden, we were featured on a Pink Floyd record sleeve:

In Hamburg, Thomas tried to convince the employees at Scholz & Friends that Danes don’t lie:

Café Paris in Hamburg had a crazy ceiling:

Rosi’s Bar had crazy stickers:

Heading to the airport while the sun rose over the city:

Approaching CPH is always nice, but particularly nice is the flight over Øresundsbron:

Yes, the inevitable iPad post has hit the 23 blog.

Obviously we’re very excited about the iPad – not only because Apple introduced a new product (we are dedicated, naïve fanboys here at the office), but because the shape of the device itself is interesting for us. After it was introduced, our internal “digital watercooler” – Yammer – was red hot with posts from 23-employees discussing which version of the iPad would be the best purchase. Not if we should buy it, but which one.

The “tagline” of 23 is “The Visual Sharing Company”. We like things that are communicated visually and our products reflect that. We already have tight integration between 23 Video and other platforms such as podcasting through iTunes and RSS, directory listing in Boxee and an iPhone/Android-optimized site (try accessing http://video.reboot.dk on your iPhone/Android). The integration with other platforms is essential for sharing video with customers who want to access the content in their own way.

With the introduction of the iPad on Wednesday, we saw a new potential for our customers to reach out and create compelling experiences for their customers. After all, video already looks good on the iPhone, but it will look absolute stunning on the iPad with a screen size four times larger than the iPhone.

So tell us, what are some of the things you look forward to seeing the most on the iPad?

Last week, part of the 23 team were in Amsterdam to touch base on the local scene and get to know a bit more about the lovely Dutch people’s opinion on video. It was a nice trip that took us all around the city, and we got to meet up with people from the web business as well as government and public service. Hopefully we’ll soon be able to show you some more tangible outcome from the trip, but until then, here’s a selection of some of the pictures we took in Amsterdam:

All the pictures are taken with an iPhone and edited using the Camerabag application on the iPhone. It’s by far the easiest way of producing images that are of far higher quality than you (well, I, for one) can usually create. If you want to see more, the whole gallery from our trip is here: 23 in Amsterdam

In the coming months, we will be in a bunch of other European cities, so feel free to get in touch if you want to hear more about 23 Video or just say hi.