One of the coolest things about new media is that it lets anybody publish content to the Internet and put it in front of the world. 

That’s empowering for individuals and indie content producers, but it’s also empowering for people like William Shatner – who’s using YouTube to talk directly to his fans and explain why he isn’t in J.J. Abrams‘ new Star Trek movie. 

In the video, Shatner basically calls Abrams a liar and lets his fans know that he’s still very interested in playing Captain Kirk. 

Abrams recently said that he couldn’t see bringing Shatner back because “his character died on screen,” adding “Maybe a smarter group of filmmakers could have figured out how to resolve that.”

Abrams is notorious for bringing characters from his television series back to life.

Yesterday, we noted that it looked like proprietary video viewers are dead, because Joost and blinkx were focusing on delivering video to your Web browser. 

It looks like Veoh is moving in the same direction. 

NewTeeVee reports that Veoh plans to release a browser plug-in that’s “significantly lighter than the VeohTV app.”

“We continue to offer VeohTV,” according to Veoh spokesperson Gaude Paez, “but based on viewer feedback, we know that many of our millions of VeohTV viewers would prefer to just view in the browser — so now we’re giving them that option.”

PodCamp Montreal, an unconference focusing on podcasts, blogs, video and social networks, will be held this weekend at UQAM’s Design Pavillion. 

Activities are scheduled Saturday September 20th from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Sunday September 21st from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. A complete program is available online.

Members of the volunteer organising committee include some some of Montreal’s top podcasters and social media aficionados, including Sylvain Grand’Maison, Julien Smith, Bob Goyetche, Mitch Joel, Jean-François Blais, Laurent LaSalle, Laurent Maisonnave, Hugh McGuire, Harold Boeck and Michelle Sullivan.

PodCamp Montreal is a community-based, not-for-profit event.

Edutopia, a project of The George Lucas Educational Foundation, has announced that it’s now offering free downloadable video podcasts on iTunes U (iTunes link), a dedicated area of the iTunes Store that offers free education audio and video.

Here, Lucas discusses his thoughts on visual learning and education:

Edutopia is now offering on iTunes U its Core Concept documentary videos, highlighting public school innovations in project learning, technology integration, teacher development, social and emotional learning, assessment, and integrated studies. A selection of more than seventy-five videos is available now, with more to come.

Previously, Edutopia’s videos were available only on Edutopia.org and by purchasing a DVD. This should bring Lucas’s educational vision to a much broader audience.

Martha Stewart dedicated the September 17th episode of the Martha Stewart Show to blogging, and she does a great job of covering the topic for newbies:

“I’ve been writing this blog for almost a year now and I have to say that I love being able to communicate so easily on a daily basis. Being in the public eye, I have a devoted following that wants to know more about my personal life and activities. Prior to blogging, we sent out a newsletter dealing with such issues. Although the printed newsletter was charming and informative, it was also a rather slow process and didn’t reach nearly as many readers as this blog does

I really love the spontaneity of blogging and being able to post whatever, whenever.”

Of course – blogging’s different when you’re Martha Stewart, and you’ve got your own private blog boy to help with the details.

Nevertheless, she offers some advice that’s relevant for just about any blogger.

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WordPress for iPhone has hit an impressive milestone – it’s been downloaded over 100,000 times. Most of the downloads come from the US, but it’s already in use all around the world. 

WordPress for iPhone 1.2 has also been announced. Here’s what you can expect:

• Landscape Mode for Write Screen
• Comment moderation
• Photo uploads at the original size
• a lot of bug fixes and UI tweaks

It looks like proprietary web video viewers are dead.

Today, both blinkx and Joost announced that they were following the lead of YouTube, Hulu and others and focusing on delivering Internet content straight to your Web browser:

• blinkx announced that blinkx BBTV will now be available without download, straight from your browser. BBTV simultaneously delivers a high-quality television experience over the Internet, and links it to the universe of information on the Web, adding dimension and context to the viewer’s experience. To try blinkx BBTV direct from your browser, visit http://www.blinkx.com/channelbrowser?quality=bbtv.
• Joost also announced that it was focusing on Web browsers. They also announced that they were making it easier to find shows on the site. They’ve introduced a new programming guide, categorized by Shows, Music and Film; and they’re also adding social networking features “that begin to imitate the watercooler environment on the web.” JoostFeeds are available to share what you watch with your friends. Joost plans two options: standard, which will include the new social features and work without any installation; and premium, which will show high-def and live programming.

If you like ninjas and you like pirates, tomorrow may be just about the best day ever.

Sept 19th is International Talk Like A Pirate Day – and this year, the Ninja from AskANinja plans to “attack swashbucklers and scurvy dogs.”

The Ninja will be chatting live about pirates at http://www.ustream.tv/channel/ask-a-ninja-live or http://fans.askaninja.com 3pm PDT/6pm EDT on Friday 9/19.

“Ninjas just pity pirates,” according to the Ninja.  “They are just poorly educated, physically disabled people with substance abuse problems.  They should not be celebrated, they should be put into a twelve step program or killed.”

Of course, if no pirates show up, things could get ugly.

“Ninjas don’t just kill pirates,” said the Ninja.  “We kill everything, really, really well.”

Amazon has announced plans for a content deliver network – a network designed to speed up the delivery of content on your Website – that will be easy to use and pay-as-you-go. 

A content delivery network is a distributed network of servers that put copies of your content close to end-users. For example, if someone in Chicago wants to download your video podcast, the content delivery network might serve the video file from a server in Chicago. 

Here are Amazon’s goals for their service:

• Allow developers and businesses to get started easily, with no dollar or volume commitments. 
• Be simple and easy to use. A single API call is all that’s needed to start delivering content.
• Work seamlessly with Amazon S3.
• Have a global presence, using edge locations on three continents in order to deliver content from the most appropriate location.

The New York Times has a great look at the state of the Zune today, that suggests that the Microsoft’s portable media player has found a niche:

Microsoft hasn’t made much effort to match the iPod’s universe of functions. The Zune store still lacks movies, downloadable programs, gift certificates, monthly allowances or any way to rate podcasts to guide fellow visitors. And the player still has no stopwatch, alarm clock, volume limiter, calendar, address book, note pad or external-hard-drive mode.

Yet for hard-core music lovers, it’s a gem. The Zune blows the iPod off the map in music discovery and downloading.

The Zune software offers myriad ways to suggest new music that you might like, based upon what you’re listening to, or what people with your tastes have in their own libraries. Again, it’s ZunePass gold.

In short, the Zune has become almost a cross between music player and satellite radio. Wireless streaming, capturing from the radio, channel subscriptions, recommendations — if you’re a heavy music consumer and you’re willing to pay $15 a month forever, it’s just the best.

The biggest problem Microsoft seems to have with the Zune is finding a way to show that it’s not an iPod clone, and to do this it has to create new features that are useful to a lot of people. 

Last year, Microsoft was pushing “squirting” songs with other Zune users. This flopped, because it was a convoluted feature that most people had no chance to try out, because most people don’t know any other Zune users. 

Now Microsoft is focusing on music discovery. Zune’s new features make the most sense if you are interested in subscription-based music. At $15/month, subsription fees will add up to $400-500 in a few years.

For those that do like the idea of subscription-based music, though, the Zune provides an attractive option.