St. Paul between Woodruff and Crooke

After first hearing about On My Block, a neighborhood filmmaking project that encourages New Yorkers to collaborate in writing, filming and editing a short film using only people and places on one city block, we were skeptical. We can hardly get our neighbors to hold a door open for us, much less spend weeks working together on an unpaid project.

Mary Crosse, who is director of On My Block Films and co-conceptualized the project with Ryan O'Hara Theisen, told The Observer about their hybrid of filmmaking and community service. “New York can be so anonymous. When you get to know your neighbors, it can change a lot. It could potentially reduce crime or get people involved in improvement projects,” she said.

The rules are fairly simple: make a short film by using locations, actors, directors and cameramen from the block where you live. Films will be uploaded to Vimeo and will receive votes through “likes.” The top 15 will be shown at a film festival where prizes will be awarded for Best Narrative, Best Documentary and Best in Show.

Mr. Theisen recruited 16 neighbors for a trial film (which won't be eligible for the prizes) on his own Carroll Gardens block, Union Street between Henry and Clinton. “He's a celebrity on his block now,” said Ms. Crosse. “The neighborhood has really changed in a dramatic way, and now other surrounding blocks in Carroll Gardens are trying to compete too.”

To see it ourselves, The Observer sat in on a Prospect Park South block's very first filmmaking meeting on St. Paul Place between Woodruff and Crooke. Miranda Childs, actress, writer and leader of the operation, put together a six-man team with the help of her housemate Kate Gandall, 63. We joined the gang at the three-story townhouse where three out of the six occupants, Ms. Childs, Ms. Gandall and Timothy Mele, 30, were gathered in the living room with their two neighbors, Patrice Miller, 26, and Aura “Ria” Maria Mure, 59. (The sixth member of the team couldn't make the meeting.)

They only lived within three doors of each other, but it still took time for everyone to get situated.

“You live where?”

“Which house is that?”

“How long have you been there?”

“With whom?”

Ms. Miller, who was approached by Ms. Gandall late one evening a few days prior, wasn't surprised that they'd never met before. “I never hang around here and don't know anyone's name on the block. I guess I kind of feel alienated in a way,” Ms. Miller said.

Moved by Ms. Miller's admission, Ms. Childs sympathized with her neighbor. “Well, I didn't even have Tim's phone number until I got this together, and we've been living in the same house together for a year and a half!”

Once everyone shared their stories of obscurity in relation to the block, Ms. Childs jumped right into the discussion, where the group shared talents, interests and ideas for the film. Jobs were assigned, a timeline was formed and the go-ahead was given for Ms. Childs and Mr. Mele to start on a script that would likely center on a dinner party with a sci-fi twist, courtesy of Ms. Mure's fascination with aliens. But the most fortuitous development was the newly developed neighborly bond: Ms. Childs and Ms. Mure made plans to go to Orchard Beach to dance salsa, Ms. Childs and her housemate Mr. Mele will now be sharing tennis rackets and Ms. Miller will now have people on her block to say hi to.

Interested in meeting your neighbors and making your own film? It's not too late. October 31 is the submission deadline. The On My Block Film Festival will take place November 17.

09/23/11; Day before Mass-Arrests from JRL on Vimeo.

Musicians seem to be taking to the protests--the rapper Immortal Technique played a concert at Zuccotti Park Sunday night, and chronic drum circles lend an agitating or festive vibe, depending on one's state of mind.

As part of the celebration, the team from Vimeo lit up the Frank Gehry-designed IAC building with a rippling, psychedlic display of green and grey light. A New York Times reporter captured it on video.

The computer-generated projection used the building's odd angles and countless window panes to enhance the geometric patterns rippling across the facade.

It was strange contrast to the somber tone of the Best Video award winner, Last Minutes With Oden, which documented a three-legged dog's struggle with cancer.

One in 8 Million series on NYTimes.com - How many times have you walked around the city streets wondering about the people who pass you by every day--the pretty girl who sits next to you on the subway or the scruffy guy who orders an Americano at your coffee shop ? The New York Times' One in 8 Million series is one way to get to know them. "This is a collection of a few of their passions and problems, relationships and routines, vocations and obsessions." A new profile is posted every week. Don't miss Maggie Nescuir, who walks up to 90 miles a week in New York; Nancy Bunche, who has been the maid of four city mayors; Christian Hubert, who suffers from vertigo but still rides his bike across NYC bridges; or Mark Mocha, the ex-bank robber. We love them all.

Funny Business at the New Yorker on Big Think - Ever wonder why The New Yorker keeps publishing those old-fashioned looking cartoons? Big Think, a high-quality video site of pundits bloviating on lofty subjects, takes a look behind the line drawings in this series of videos. Editor David Remnick explains how the process works and why it's easier to get a reporter to dodge bullets in Afghanistan than to find a genuinely funny humor writer for those cartoons. Cartoon editor Robert Mankoff recounts his path to humor and the magazine. And you'll want to check out Josh Lieb, the executive producer of The Daily Show, saying "big deal"--those cartoons are cake for talented comedy writers.

92nd Street Y's Fridges - Last week, the 92nd Street Y debuted a new video series called Fridges. They're peeking inside well-known New Yorkers' pantries and freezer boxes to find their snack addictions, dietary restrictions and how long they keep takeout iaround. New York Times reporter Jennifer 8. Lee, author of The Fortune Cookie Chronicles, is the first subject (she'll be at 92Y on Dec. 20 to talk about it). And yes, they realize they're biting off another reality TV show that airs on MTV.

Germans in the Woods - A StoryCorps animation - Since 2003, StoryCorps has been collecting audio recordings of people's stories:  conversations between sons and daughters, immigrants and natives, neighbors and strangers. Each participant received a free CD to share, and stories are also gets preserved at the Library of Congress. It's one of the largest oral history projects of its kind. Rauch Bros., a Brooklyn animation studio, is bringing some of these stories to life in beautiful videos. Here's one about an 86-year-old World War II veteran who, more than 60 years later, can't forget one soldier he killed in the Battle of the Bulge.

"We're not shy about the fact that Boxee is used by mostly early adopters," Mr. Klein told the Observer in an interview. He said he'll be working to make Boxee easier for any consumer to use--from grandma to a perhaps less tech savvy suburban mom--while keeping their 600,000, mostly male users happy.

Currently, users still have to jigger devices and TV sets to make it work. And other companies, from TiVo to Vudu, are already integrating Web content onto TV screens on their own.

So Mr. Klein is charged with meeting with device manufacturers and game console designers to make sure that Boxee's software is serving their needs and getting on an actual device by the end of 2010.

"It's all about improving the user experience," Mr. Klein said. "There's a lot we can so to make it immediately appealing to a whole new segment of consumers." That's going to involve better marketing, superb design, and giving Boxee a personality to make using the software "a compelling and charming experience," he said.

After getting press from their battles with Hulu earlier in the year, the Boxee startup team has been focused on raising more venture capital, creating more content partnerships with major media companies, and preparing to release a new version of the free software that might make it easier for the technology-challenged folks to use.

Boxee's new beta version, which will include a cleaner interface, even more social sharing capabilties and a global search for video content anywhere on the Web, will be released some time in late October or early November, according to a Boxee representative. They are considering a tentative Nov. 5th release date.

Boxee founder and chief executive Avner Ronen made the announcement that Klein was joining the team earlier this week on Boxee's official blog. "We raised our latest round to enable us to take advantage of the momentum we see in the market, but growing the team (we are now 19 people at Boxee) is always risky for a startup," he wrote.

But adding Mr. Klein seemed like a good fit. "The development of the Boxee Beta is wrapping up and we need to start thinking of the future beyond the Beta," he wrote. "Zach could not have joined at a better time."

Mr. Klein, who co-founded and designed Vimeo's video sharing interface from the ground up, told the Observer that he has been familiar with Boxee for the past year and a half and has been in talks to join their team in "the past month or two."

Mr. Klein left IAC in early 2008 and took some time off to "enjoy the fruits of my labor from five or six years of workaholism," he said. For the past year and a half, he worked at a tech incubator on futuristic concepts. But he was ready to let go of his "ego," he said, which was holding him back from joining a company that already had a great, original idea. He could do just as well improving it, he said.

"Boxee represents a group as scrappy and entreprenurial as I am, and they're willing to give me a role that I can take as far as I want to," he said.

"I'm excited to design the ten-foot experience," Mr. Klein added, referring to his experience designing for the desktop experience at Vimeo and CollegeHumor. "Users worldwide are pretty experience agnostic. But the media that they want to see, they can't get on their big beautiful TVs yet, they're slouching upright in their bedrooms with their laptops."

“You can decide you no longer want to get updates from your old friend from high school who you rarely talk to, or you can filter the stream to only see updates about your family members,” Mr. Zuckerberg explained in a March 4 blog post. “And now, if you want, you can read what President Obama is saying on the same page as your best friend.”

Facebookers will also notice a “Highlights” section on the far right of the redesigned home page that features specific posts or photos from friends.How does it work? According to a Facebook staffer, “Highlights” is curated in part by a special little feature that popped up about a month ago: the “like” link.

Starting on Feb. 9, users could click on the “like” link if they liked whatever their friend had to share, whether it was a clever status message or a snap of their adorable dog. A tiny thumbs-up sign would appear beneath the post. Like that your friend “is hooked on Breaking Bad”? Click the “like” link, no witty comment necessary. It’s fast, fun and, well, nice.

Start-ups and smaller Web businesses have built their companies on top of that tiny “like” feature, from IAC’s video-sharing site Vimeo to MP3 aggregator the Hype Machine to Enjoysthin.gs, a sharing site built by Ted Roden, formerly of Vimeo and now a "creative technologist" at the New York Times. Elegant blogging platform Tumblr uses it, too. On these sites, “liking” can work as a fun bookmark tool to help users see what their friends are checking out on the ever-expanding Internet. Yet, “likes” do more than add to algorithms. They encourage users to keep adding content, the most valuable currency in the Web 2.0 world, and also to set a friendly tone for interacting with other users.

In other words, the “like” feature makes our Internet world a little bit smaller, and maybe a little bit nicer, too.

>>READ THE WEST COAST REPORT: BRET TAYLOR OF FRIENDFEED ON THE 'LIKE' FEATURE

“When I got that first ‘like’ on my first video that I ever uploaded, it was really a big deal,” Blake Whitman, Vimeo’s community director, told The Observer. “That excitement is sort of what made me want to keep participating on the site.”

Vimeo embeds the “like” function, indicated by a heart glowing on the upper-right-hand side of the clip, in every video uploaded by their 1.2 million users. “The whole way that Vimeo works is through ‘likes,’” Mr. Whitman said. Once they “like” a video, users can see it posted in their “My Likes” page in their profile. Users can also see who else has “liked” the videos they’ve chosen (time-lapse videos and arty vignettes of city life are popular across the board). Whenever they add someone as a contact, Vimeo automatically subscribes them to not only the videos that that person uploads, but also the videos they “liked.”

“If I add someone as a contact, I’m basically saying that I like them and I’m probably going to like the videos that they like,” Mr. Whitman explained. “It’s sort of an organic recommendation system based on your choices.”

Users can also check out what other people are “liking” in all kinds of ways on the site. In “Vimeo Land,” an application that works as an animated, interactive visualization of who is doing what on the site, cartoon, paper-doll-looking representations of Vimeo users scissor their stiff legs around a landscape peppered with trees, under a big, yellow sun. Girls have ponytails and boys have shaggy ’dos or spiky green crowns. Little hearts bubble above their heads when they like things. Users can click on them to find out which video they “liked” and maybe start connecting with them to see what else they might like. Mr. Whitman said fostering new creative partnerships and friends with the “like” feature is part of Vimeo’s mission.

Mr. Whitman describes “liking” videos as a way to participate in the community—he has “liked” more than 5,000 of them. “We don’t really believe in a rating system, we just believe in giving that person love, literally, by clicking a heart,” he said.

A HEART SYMBOL can be a powerful branding tool to create a positive atmosphere, according to Anthony Volodkin, creator and chief executive of Brooklyn-based Hype Machine. “All the imagery of the heart on Hype Machine is about finding an easy way to communicate passion,” he said.

Hype Machine’s Web bots scour music blogs for reviews and songs, then gather all the material into one spot—hypem.com. Users can click on a heart next to an MP3 posted on Hype Machine, and add it to their list of “loved songs.” They can do the same for blogs or other users they like, resulting in a stream of their favorite music, accessible in their profile. They can also discover new bands by checking out artists that are the “most blogged,” and MP3s that have “most plays” and, of course, “most favorites.”

When Tumblr first launched their “like” feature in November last year, it worked similarly to Facebook’s, as a direct message of appreciation. “In the beginning, [the “like” function] was just sticking a little note under the post,” David Karp, Tumblr’s founder and chief executive, told The Observer. “You personally want to let me know, ‘Hey, you enjoyed this. I’m here and I’m a fan.’” Mr. Karp said integrating the “like” feature was about creating, and controlling, how users interacted on each other’s blogs.

Mr. Karp explained that Tumblr doesn’t integrate a commenting function, a “Swiss Army knife of user interaction,” because it can be a murky, and frankly negative, area for white noise between bloggers. Tumblr allows users to “reblog” entries, which posts the original text or picture, along with their commentary, on the “re-blogger’s” own site. “Re-blogging on Tumblr forces you to be very considerate of what you post because you’re going to be mucking up your own space,” Mr. Karp explained. “It’s not just a comment on someone else’s blog. Liking is the same thing.”

But as Tumblr users experimented with the more basic “like” function, they wondered, what’s in it for them? “It’s hard often for a community to appreciate something that’s really just about giving feedback. Very often, they want it to serve some kind of functional purpose for them,” Mr. Karp said.

For a few weeks, Mr. Karp and his team wrestled over the meaning of changing the mechanism of the “like” feature. If Tumblr was about creating a positive social atmosphere, how would making the “like” feature into a self-serving tool change the way users interact on the site? “We just wanted it to be a social interaction, not a functional tool,” Mr. Karp said.

Eventually, Tumblr’s coders created a page where users could look at all the things they liked, creating a kind of social timeline for how they discovered content. Mr. Karp seems happy with the change because Tumblr users find it neat and useful. But he told The Observer that he wonders: “Are you less likely to hit that button, to like something, if you don’t want to muck up that page that you go to to look back and browse things you like?” So, in other words, will users start liking less?

And if all of these “likes” are creating a more insular, catered experience for users based on their friends’ preferences, will they bother seeking new things and ideas outside of their comfort zone?

We’ll take the risk. The Internet provides all of us the essential space to critique, debate and discuss, as well as a home for useless snark (as David Denby asserts) and indecipherable, anonymous and often cruel commenting (peruse the verbose buffoonery on YouTube for proof on that one). In this environment, the “like” function seems like a welcome antidote—a lightweight way to revolutionize our attitude about, and on, the Web. And, yeah, we like that!

greagan@observer.com