We’re happy to announce that Geoff Snack has accepted our offer to join fisheye. Little did he know that the first thing we’d do is throw him in right at the deep end. So far he has continued to turn up for work every day so we presume he’s still having fun.

Before joining fisheye, Geoff helped the Drake Hotel and the Queen West Art Crawl to increase attendance numbers and build meaningful connections with their communities.

Above is Geoff in action on his second day, shooting video at a live event.

Yesterday, with Jo-Ann driving us from a meeting in Barrie back to Toronto, I  streamed video and audio from our car, via the ustream application for the iPhone. The video could be watched live, embedded on any website of my choosing. We had five viewers during the test, from Brazil, the UK and here in Canada, all of whom reported excellent video and audio quality.

What only five years ago would have taken about half a million dollars worth of equipment can now be done by a  $300 phone.

Technology like this is completely changing the media landscape. Jo-Ann’s 15 year old daughter gets her fashion and make-up advice not from magazines, she now gets it from home produced shows on YouTube. NFL stars produce their own after match shows straight from the dressing room, armed with nothing more than an iPhone, amassing tens of thousands of viewers. Come Monday evening, we will be rigging a camera to the second floor balcony of our building in Kensington Market to broadcast the Festival of Lights parade to anyone who wants to see it.

It is getting easier and easier to share what you know, to share what you’re passionate about, to share what it is you are really selling.  It also means that if what you have to say is of interest to enough people, an audience that shares your values and interests will crystallize around you.

To a business, the value of building these communities is the creation of trust, because trust leads to more business.

So, define what it is your business stand for, what you believe in, who and what you truly are. Then, find ways to communicate this essence. The tools are ready and waiting, all you need to do is start using them.

This evening, about two minutes ago, I unsubscribed from the Mountain Equipment Co-op newsletter. For those of you not living in Toronto, the MEC is a local institution, the ultimate shop for pretty much everything and anything outdoor related. Skiing, hiking, canoeing, they’ve got it covered. Staff is passionate and knowledgeable, the product selection is excellent and the prices are reasonable.

I am a fan. No, that’s not true. I am a huge fan.

So why did I unsubscribe from the newsletter of a company I love? Let me show you what it looked like:

The MEC is a special place. There’s the memory of late summer canoe expeditions in the air and early morning cross country skiing trips, across snow so fresh it crackles. It is not just a store, it is a place of memories and passion for the great outdoors. Walk through the doors and you can almost smell the forest, hear the cry of the loons, leaving busy King Street behind you. The MEC is unique, to both Toronto and Canada. Most MEC customers, myself included, love both the store and the buying experience.

Unfortunately none of these values are addressed in the newsletter they are sending out. Take a look at the headlines – a store locator, opening hours, and free rush delivery. This might as well be an email for Walmart or Sears or any other major retailer out there. There’s no passion being shared, there’s no knowledge being imparted, there’s no excitement communicated about all the stuff I know they are excited about.

So this newsletter is doing the opposite to what it was supposed to do – it’s doing the company a disservice. It’s hiding what makes the MEC unique behind the smokescreen of corporate communication.

It’s not always easy to remember what makes you special. But if you want to be successful as a business you take whatever it is you’re passionate about and you shout it from the rooftops. We call this knowing what you’re really selling and it’s probably the single most important thing you need to be sure of, it needs to be the internal compass that will keep your business on course.

So be brave. Don’t hide behind the meaningless, just because it’s the accepted and safe option, communicate what it is you love, what you care about, what your passion is.

And if you do that, I promise I won’t unsubscribe from your newsletter.

Hulu.com, the US based video streaming site, has been more successful than they perhaps had bargained for. Many viewers exchanged cable TV subscription for a fast internet connection and proceeded to watch their favourite shows on hulu.com, legally and ad supported.

Like iTunes did for music, hulu.com made it easier, and more convenient, to comply with the law than to break it by downloading shows from torrents or usenet.

Officially hulu.com is available to residents of the US only. Try to log onto the site from Canada for example and you’re informed that the service isn’t available up here.

Of course, in the age of the geek such obstacles are relatively minor and easily overcome. VPN service providers with servers in the US have seen a considerable upswing in business as viewers from outside the US clamour to use the service.

For hulu, this creates a problem. Their income model relies on guaranteeing their advertisers a certain number of viewers. Viewers who spend their cash in the US, not the UK or Canada or wherever else they might live. And unlike a traditional TV station broadcasting over the air, where the amount of viewers doesn’t affect operating cost, hulu.com has to pay bandwidth cost for every show or movie streamed. Bandwidth cost that’s paid for by targeted advertising. You can see the dilemma.

Hulu has reacted to this problem in ways that are as predictable as they are unsustainable. Recently VPN using viewers found that they were getting a message asking them to disconnect from the service before they could watch any content streamed by hulu. This move is designed to make sure that only bona fide residents of the US will watch the content and in turn be exposed to ads.

Unfortunately for hulu, this will not work. VPN providers aren’t going to let their new found customers cancel their contracts and drift away, viewers will not just return to the dark days of cable bundles that few people need or want.

The VPN companies have already started rotating IP numbers, making it almost impossible for hulu.com to keep track of who is a local user and who isn’t. Add to this the simple fact that many US based viewers use VPN services for perfectly legitimate reasons – you should never use public wireless without being protected by a VPN – and the battle hulu faces is lost before it has even started.

So what should they do? Hulu needs to make money to survive and it can’t sell non US viewers to their advertisers just yet. The solution seems easy to me. If I am logging in from outside the US, just sell me a monthly pass. I’d willingly pay 10 bucks a month to access hulu, just as I willingly pay iTunes to watch a show or purchase a movie.

Make it easy for people to support you, and stay within the law, and they generally will as services like pandora, last.fm and  Apple have proven. Exclude people from content they want to access and they will find ways around the obstacles you’re putting up.

Hulu cites licensing agreements as the main reason why it can’t serve content to viewers outside the US. Local licensing agreements are of course completely irrelevant in today’s day and age.  Whatever is published anywhere, is published everywhere, we might as well get used to it.