I've become pretty convinced that people's passion for telling stories, both about themselves and the world around them is pretty hard-wired in. But making that easy and fun is a trick. So that's had us thinking a lot about the process of making video, and the fact that not every person is good at every part (in fact certainly every person is only good at certain parts. So we've got on the drawing boards a number of elements, some simple, some quite complex. But all of them focused on making collaberation easier.

EditXchange is the one that's close enough to invite folks to begin to play with. It's beta - so don't expect perfection, yet.

Don't be shy. Feedback, feature requests, bug reports - you name it. The other tool that is super-cool is LogXchange. That code is locked, we're just integrating the sign on process with the new Xchange code and solving a few minor bugs, but logging has always been a chore, and the idea that it can be done in a collaberative fashion seems like it should be great for all kinds of videomakers.

Among the interesting things about the site is a philosphy that embraces both passionate amatures and working pros. So gigs that are barter- things that touch on art, politics, music, or other creative endevors that attract editors by feeding their creative hunger - build the sites community aspect. Gig's that are professional like family videos, corporate, music videos, sort features, docs, etc, allow professional editors to name thier rate and work for fees that are fair to them.

LogXchange is totally free - just a cool tool that should make life easier for all kinds of folks who wrangle video.

It's all pretty transparent, as any collaboration space should be.

So that's what's new - so far. Stay tuned.