{"id":7336,"date":"2010-04-20T06:50:11","date_gmt":"2010-04-20T10:50:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/?p=7336"},"modified":"2017-04-19T06:12:05","modified_gmt":"2017-04-19T10:12:05","slug":"running-after-my-hat-the-two-year-30-second-version","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/2010\/04\/running-after-my-hat-the-two-year-30-second-version\/","title":{"rendered":"Running After My Hat<\/em>: The Two-Year, 30-Second Version"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>I’ve been trying to come up with something… different<\/em> to do for this blog’s second anniversary. And then along comes Google, with its wacky “Search Stories Video Creator<\/a>” for YouTube.<\/p>\n

The Video Creator’s first page gives you up to six search boxes, into which you enter search terms — presumably forming some sort of “story arc.” (There’s also a seventh box on the form; this is used to create a “last slide,” as you will see.) For each search, you also choose whether you want to search the Web in general (the usual Google search), Google Images, Google Maps, blogs, news, Google Products, or Google Books. And then, when you’ve made those selections, you select a canned soundtrack from among numerous genres and styles.<\/p>\n

And when you’ve done all the above, the system creates a YouTube video of your search(es) results.<\/p>\n

It’s… it’s weird<\/em>. Also kinda cool. And\/Or disconcerting. Best of all, it gave me something… different<\/em> to do for the blog’s second anniversary.<\/p>\n

What I did was choose six posts from the last two years, published roughly every few months. From each of those six, I pulled key words or phrases for my search terms. I can’t say that the selection is entirely random: I wanted it to be sorta-kinda representative of the way RAMH<\/em> has evolved (assuming “evolution” describes what’s happened here). And yet I also didn’t want to select “greatest hits,” “my favorite posts,” or any such thing. (You’ll find, for example, that none of the six was a What’s in a Song<\/em> post, although a couple other series are represented.)<\/p>\n

Here are the six posts I chose:<\/p>\n