In October, a man posted an interesting query on YouTube, and that is, what does fake English sound like?

The example that he gave was that many non-Chinese speakers have their own idea of what Chinese sounds like, and are able to mimic various phonemes of the language. As an Asian American, I know all too well the sounds of a non-native speaker mimicing the Chinese language. In the video, he calls this “fake Chinese.” But this begs the question: what does fake English sound like from a native Chinese speaker?

This is something I’ve always wondered about as well, but could never get an answer to.

The video invites responses from native Chinese speakers who would grace us with fake English. This is a perfect way to use YouTube responses, and, allows a kind of video conversation not seen before the advent of widespread easy-to-use online video. Currently, the video has spawned off various threads of people offering their fake English (and other languages). It’s a fascinating look into an area of linguistics that is usually hard to exemplify without a worldwide video response system like YouTube.

The reponses include a German speaker offering his fake English and another good response from an English speaker with various fake languages:

This too was also responded to by various speakers around the world. This is an example of the fascinating and intellectual videos that are residing on the edge of YouTube, away from the stupid animal videos and drunk driving clips. The good part is that this stuff is just as easy to get to.

One suggestion to YouTube is to make a better threaded response interface where users could easily jump around in the video thread.

Sorry for the light updates lately, I’ve been out of town in Ireland, having a blast and taking many photos. Now I’m back and ready to rumble.

While I was out, justin.tv, who I met briefly at SFBeta, launched their site. 24 hours a day and 7 days a week, we get an intimate view into Justin Kans’ life via his live streaming wearable camera. Call it what you want–Truman Show on steroids, ultra-voyeuristic, or just a waste of time. The truth is that he’s causing quite a bit of buzz here in the valley.

Justin.tv is significant for many reasons.

First, it represents the ultimate incarnation of social media. In the future, our life stream won’t be confined to non-live media like Flickr, del.icio.us, blogs, or even Twitter. Our stream will be richer, more immediate, and relevant. Justin.tv will be known as the first major foray into live vlogging.

Secondly, these guys aren’t just messing around. Justin.tv is probaby just a test bed to launch a service where anyone can stream their media (which UStream.tv is already doing). They’re gaining expertise in handling bandwidth and other technical issues with respect to streaming live video from a backpack around San Francisco.

And finally, Justin.tv has been drawing the whole web community together in a big meta social media frenzy.

They’re streaming social media. They’re deeply connected to the San Francisco web technology social networks. They’re creating a company. They’re interesting to watch for anyone in the community.

They’re doing a lot of things right.

The big question now is, how long will Justin be able to stand having his every move constantly streamed?

The Number 24

A Solenoid Concert

For every episode, we’ll be including a quick snippet from a few user generated videos during the intro. If you have a cool clip or photo, drop us a line.