Oreos + Chair spinning = generosity!

Hello Everyone,

Last night I completed the Oreo eating challenge (an alternate view of this challenge can be found by clicking here) with RNO live on Justin.tv, and after that ended in near disaster, I spun around in my office chair approximately 20 times, all for the American Foundation for AIDs Research. Though I still feel kinda woozy, I'm extremely excited to announce that we raised over $200 in donations from our generous viewers! Miamiasweetie and lizzie_ will both be receiving a shirt for their amazing donations.

I want to thank everyone who donated for this wonderful cause; every little bit helps! I also want to thank everyone who stopped by to watch and offered us their support!

:D
-Norah

The mute button is a beautiful thing...

Hello Everyone,

Firstly, I want to thank everyone who has donated so far to the Shelter for Abused Women & Children! I'll keep that charity up until I broadcast again tomorrow.

Technical problems still haunt my broadcast, so the next challenge is going to be a little more relaxed. We may attempt to use a different camera or a different publisher. Solving this will require some experimentation, so bear with us!

In other news, I'll be appearing on RNO aka Arnaud from Paris show soon. It will either be a picture in picture style feature of a challenge I complete live, or a skype interview.

Also, we have been specifically requested to go to a food bank by one of our most generous contributors, quintano_media, so I'm searching now for the best opportunity for doing that. More updates as they become available!

Cheers!
Norah

Episode 2 Charity: Shelter for Abused Women & Children

Hello Everyone!

Firstly I want to thank everyone who donated. Every little bit helps, and I hope that more people are as willing to help a great cause as those who already have. Bill of Justin.tv was the number 1 contributor, and he will be receiving his t-shirt asap! Second place goes to quintano_media, and third to bobbyk. Thank you so much for donating!!

For this new episode we checked out the polling votes, and chose the Shelter for Abused Women & Children of Naples, Florida. This shelter received great scores via the Better Business Bureau, Charity Navigator, as well as positive mentions on several other charity sites.

I'm aiming to incorporate themes of the challenge into the charities selected. The first episode were challenges that reminded me of being a kid; I loved going to the aquarium with my grandma, and ice skating around bundled up little kids seemed to fit as well. This time I'm hoping that the intended theme encourages more people to donate, because this is a really great cause that I hope we can all support.

Tune in today at 3 p.m. to see what challenge I chose! I can guarantee you that it is more difficult and dangerous than ice skating...

ChipIn widget thwarted!

My lovely ChipIn widget on my Charity Challenger page is not working properly. I'm thinking I'll have to go to a new system for the next charity, a widget I update manually and a standard PayPal button. I'm sorting out now what donations I have received in response to everyone's emails, and I'll have this issue corrected ASAP.


Thank you for your support!!!

Day 1 of broadcast completed!

Phew, well that was an experience! Today Jacob and I went ice skating, where I almost fell many, many times (the "WOA!! AHH!" count was at 32 last I checked). There was also a slight transportation issue (the issue being we got on the correct MUNI line but it was heading in the wrong direction) and unfortunately being underneath several tons of water in an aquarium tunnel isn't conducive to live streaming over EVDO. Some people also didn't understand the "blag" joke in my profile section, so I have to change that as well.

I'm very happy with how things went: we raised some money for charity, entertained the best website users on the planet, and figured out technical issues to iron out before our next show. I also got to see a Chevrolet Volt, which just happened to be on display just outside of the aquarium.

The next episode will air on the 17th at 3 p.m., with hopefully a better microphone and maybe better quality streaming. This episode will involve greater embarrassment on my part, and will hopefully result in even more charitable donations! Hopefully I don't get arrested...

The Grand Finale Challenge:



Watch live video from charity_challenger on Justin.tv

An expression of deep affection

I can't resist the opportunity afforded to me by this blog to express my love for Justin... the 7 year old Capuchin monkey on imonkeyboy , of course!

Jacob and I tune in constantly and try to plot the little guy's escape from his cage. The noises he makes are adorable, hiding under his blanket is adorable, swinging from the chain is awesome, and the duckie... well, we don't watch during duckie time.

He is certainly one of the most entertaining broadcasters I've ever seen! We are sending him a care packet with this lovely cake , as long as he promises to steal the camera and laptop during his escape!

The Charity Challenger is born!

I should probably give a little background on who I am, before I explain what I'm doing.

My name is Norah, and I am the Justin.tv Charity Challenger. I'm also a sociology/anthropology student and the girlfriend of chief designer for Justin.tv, a web start up based in San Francisco where anyone can broadcast live video to the Internet 24/7. If you ever watched the officecam channel, or saw a girl fall out of a chair on Justin's stream many months ago, then you've probably seen me. Most of the time I stay in the background, though I've made my appearances off and on. I've Firecasted with Justin at the old office, broadcasted LoveFest with Phil and Jacob, and accepted an Broadcaster Highlight award for a lifecaster on air.

That's the Justin.tv Norah that my two or three fans know and love. None of that really matters for this channel, however. I have essentially no skills that will aide me in this broadcast attempt. I can only barely stay standing on ice skates, I'm terrified of heights, I'm epically clumsy (I fell out of a chair, remember?), I can't sing or dance, I'm not rich, I have a fearful temper, a low tolerance for failure, I use far too many commas, and probably the most important issue is I'm terrified of cameras. Being around all these cameras has slowly acclimated me to their existence, but I don't intend to be comfortable being seen. As a child in a school play I traumatized myself by stuttering instead of giving my line and being harassed by the school music teacher for the next two years (he wasn't very nice). I spent four year as a teenager taking drama classes to get over my fear, and ended up bursting into tears during a final project because the audience cheered for me.

So, what exactly am I doing? This requires a little more background. A new feature recently rolled out on Justin.tv called Challenges, and for the first time I truly felt excited at the prospect of broadcasting. I created some Challenges for other people to do, and I waited. And waited. And waited... until I realized that most people didn't even see the potential in using that feature! Spying on chat rooms, I saw the viewers complain about lifecasters "not doing anything", and yet few of them created challenges for broadcaster to attempt! I kept that thought in the back of my mind as I talked to JTV broadcaster Dealer aka Alan about how his fans bought him toys to keep them entertained. Normally, every year I do something to give back to those less fortunate during the holiday season. Its just something that I've always done on my own without a big production about it, usually involving a website and a credit card. Last year Jacob and I were in a financial bind, and I was unable to even give my family presents, let alone donate to charity. This year we've been very lucky, and though we are not wealthy, we now have the ability to bring more attention a good cause then we ever have before. Thus, crammed in the back of the JTV Honda Civic listening to Alan brag about his DDR skills, I came up with Charity Challenger; I complete clean, safe challenges created and voted on by viewers and promote a charity of the day. I'll have the link to the charity website available on the page as well as a paypal button, from which all proceeds will be given to that charity.

My greatest asset in all of this is Jacob. I've never met anyone else who will honestly tell me when I look bad on camera, and who knows how to fix it. He is a genius and an artist, and I have my complete faith in his ability to provide constructive criticism... well, mostly complete faith. We bicker every once in a while, but I'll put this to paper and say he is probably always right. His help in this experiment is absolutely essential; as the designer of Justin.tv , he has beautified my channel page and can operate all the software with ease. As a film major, he is adept at shooting events properly and knows how to make even someone like me look good on camera. I should also thank the guys of Justin.tv, as they are lending all the equipment I will be using (which, knowing my ability to break bones and electronics with ease, may prove to be a costly decision on their part) and though they don't know it yet, their involvement will prove to be essential.

I'm very nervous about the success of this project. My hopes are that we will make a fair amount of money for some good causes, encourage use of Challenges for future entertainment value, and someone will take my place who is more entertaining and comfortable with being on camera. To be safe though, I'm donating money to all the charities I promote, just in case. ;)