For nearly 50 years, Jonas Mekas has lugged his camera around New York, creating short films about himself and his friends. While most of those friends — Andy Warhol, Stan Brakhage, Allen Ginsberg — have departed for that rent-controlled loft in the sky, Mekas continues to create and innovate.

On Jan. 1, a week after his 85th birthday, Mekas launches a yearlong film-a-day series. He’ll post a new poetic short at his his website each afternoon until the end of 2007. The videos are intended to be viewed on portable video players, and each download is free on the first day of release. That Mekas is still on the cutting edge of filmmaking should surprise no one. He’s been called, alternately, the godfather and midwife of the American indie scene.

Mekas launched New York’s first theater dedicated to independent movies, started an influential film theory magazine and became the city’s most famous film diarist, logging tens of thousands of hours of footage of New York’s explosively creative ’60s and ’70s underground. “Shoot all scriptwriters,” he wrote in his popular, long-running Village Voice column, “and we may yet have a rebirth of American cinema.”

Via: Wired.

On December 31st, you can welcome the New Year in unique style – by connecting with millions of music lovers from around the world as they count down the final minutes of 2006. Nokia New Year’s Eve, a global music event stretching across four continents, will feature a number of international artists including The Black Eyed Peas and Scissor Sisters to entertain audiences at New Year’s celebrations from Hong Kong to Rio de Janeiro. Those unable to attend in person can experience the party via television or the internet.

To orchestrate this unique global celebration, Nokia has enlisted the services of Harvey Goldsmith CBE, the producer of Live Aid and Live8. Nokia New Year’s Eve will travel from east to west, starting in Hong Kong’s Harbour City Ocean Terminal, followed by Mumbai’s Andheri Stadium, the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin, Ipanema Beach in Rio de Janeiro and rounding off the night in New York.

StumbleUpon’s social browsing application has been such a big success in the past couple years they decided expand. They just launched StumbleVideo which recommends videos based on what others voted as thumbs up and thumbs down.

The overall concept of StumbleVideo is great because it lets people watch videos from YouTube, MySpace and Google all in one place. From a business perspective it also gives them new opportunities with advertisers because in the future, they could potentially charge companies for each time their video is watched.

Via: Pronetadvertising.com

Real estate agent Krista Miller had done Web sites, podcasts and virtual tours, but she needed something new to set her apart from other agents. Then she watched a video of a man taking viewers on a walking tour of his hometown on YouTube and had an idea: She would film a tour of her client’s home and be one of the first agents to put it on YouTube.

Although many may use YouTube to watch embarrassing celebrity moments or quirky videos, many real estate agents see it as an effective way to sell houses. Miller, 33, an agent with Berkeley-based Windermere Bay Area Real Estate, put her first walking house tour video on YouTube in October, and her client received multiple offers. One buyer who spotted the video purchased the home. Read the full story Here.

This movie was made by the Danish Road Safety Council and aims to draw attention to speed signs and speed limits in Denmark. Despite a decrease in speed violations, 7 out of 10 Danes still exceed the speed limit on a regular basis. Respecting speed limits is the best way to save lives.

Potentially NSFW if you’re non-European..

The newest member of the GigaOM family – NewTeeVee.com – aims to cover online video from end to end and front to back. They’ll point you to hot startups, hot videos, hot pipes – tracing the talent, money, code, and data across the network. Combining the signature GigaOM skepticism with a healthy sense of wonder for all the cool stuff that’s going on out there.

Planned pieces from Katie Fehrenbacher on mobile video and Om Malik on telecoms, television, and underlying technologies, funnyman Jackson West to write about P2P and TV, and adding IP communications, telecom, broadband, and VoIP expert Paul Kapustka (formerly of Advanced IP Pipeline and pulvermedia). We’ll also see posts from Russell Heimlich of DVGuru and Russell Shaw of ZDNet.

A(nother) website dedicated to covering the web video revolution.. nice.

Via: TechCrunch