Earlier this week, BoomTown pointed out how Cisco Chairman and CEO John Chambers was captured doing duck calls on the Flip digital video camera, made by the start-up his company bought in March for $590 million.

That was an adorable use of the consumer electronic device. But in the not-so-cute department, I submit this photo at right.

Sitting next to her boss, Barbara Walters, an ABC producer used it to ghoulishly take shots of the kids of pop legend Michael Jackson memorial service on Monday.

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What hath the Flip digital video camera wrought?

Well, for one, getting to see a major Silicon Valley tech exec do duck calls online, that’s what.

Cisco PR guy John Earnhardt, who is obviously studying technique from BoomTown’s shaky-cam video style, caught company CEO and Chairman John Chambers quacking away in his office.

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In what is quite possibly the most spot-on comment about Twitter that BoomTown has heard thus far, Harvard University Professor Jonathan Zittrain said about its use by Iranians protesting the election results there:

“It is easy for Twitter feeds to be echoed everywhere else in the world. The qualities that make Twitter seem inane and half-baked are what make it so powerful.”

In other words, Twitter is so simplistic and silly that it is a perfect digital tool to overthrow a government–which kind of makes the trendy microblogging service the Forrest Gump of international relations.

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Continuing our posting of the full sessions, in order of their presentation at the D: All Things Digital conference in late May, here is a video of the demo of new personal channels from Pure Digital, maker of the Flip digital camera.

Which is, as many readers of this column know, a key BoomTown accessory–with which I make my wobbly videos annoying various tech mandarins.

Pure Digital debuted its first Flip at a previous D conference and was recently sold to Cisco.

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Today, at the Silicom Summit at Stanford University, BoomTown was on a panel about consumer media, and right in a front seat paying rapt attention was Steve Wozniak.

It was the same Woz–the famous nickname of the Apple co-founder–who was also staring back last week at the seventh D: All Things Digital conference and taking it all in.

So, of course, I whipped out the Flip digital video camera and asked him some questions.

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Last week, Walt Mossberg and I interviewed entrepreneur, high-definition television fanboy, dancing fool and reliable gadfly Mark Cuban at the seventh D: All Things Digital conference.

After our onstage interview, BoomTown also got him to be more specific about his thoughts on a variety of things he discussed, including Google’s underwriting of its YouTube video subsidiary, the problems with broadband and the Internet as a “utility.”

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Oh dear, I always forget that the camera is turned on 24/7 these days, knows all and sees all and then sticks it on YouTube.

Like this moment for me that came during a speech I gave last week at the Software & Information Industry Association’s NetGain conference in San Francisco, which was titled, “How I Stopped Worrying and Learned to Love the Tweet: What Interactivity Really Means for Real Businesses.”

In 140 words or fewer, I insult Amazon’s Kindle, Apple and even myself for being a Steve Jobs fanboy.

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BoomTown has been an unabashed fan of Pure Digital’s Flip digital video cameras since we debuted them at the D: All Things Digital conference in 2005.

And I have used the nifty device on this site since for my shaky-tastic video extravaganzas.

Yes, Pure Digital’s CEO Jonathan Kaplan is to blame!

Here is my video interview with him, which I did last week, in the wake of Pure Digital’s acquisition by Cisco for $590 million, in which we talk about what’s to come for my beloved Flip.

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Pure Digital, the maker of the popular Flip digital video cameras, has sold itself to Cisco (CSCO) for $590 million in stock.

The deal, which had been rumored last week, was announced this morning by Cisco.

The simplicity of Pure Digital’s line of relatively inexpensive cameras has made it a huge consumer success, which is no easy task in the devices arena.

And Cisco has been trying to turbocharge its consumer-focused business and the move is a clear step in that direction.

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This weekend, YouTube is going analog, showing off a bunch of the freaky people who have become online phenoms, at YouTube Live, its “first ever official live community celebration.”

Taking place in San Francisco on Saturday, BoomTown and thousands more are going.

And, frankly, I am not sure I want to meet some of these folks, including the truly warped Fred Figglehorn (the No. 1 most subscribed channel in YouTube history), Obama Girl and Brandon Hardesty, the guy who does movie reenactments.

Will I be shooting online video? Oh, yes, my fellow freaks.

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As you might know from Katherine Boehret’s review of Pure Digital Technologies’ newest Flip today, there is now a high-definition version of the popular digital video camera.

BoomTown has been using some version of the Flip for our videos since the site started almost two years ago to make our jiggly masterpieces about the tech scene.

Thus, here’s a video where my old Flips meet the new one in town.

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So I took a trip up to Rochester, N.Y., over the summer to visit Kodak, the once powerful film giant, which has been struggling in recent years to make the difficult transition from film to digital.
I made a few videos there and then neglected to post them in the rush of other breaking news.
But [...]

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The second video I made on my visit to Kodak HQ in Rochester, N.Y., is a talk with John Blake, who is a vice president and general manager of its digital capture and imaging devices division.
It also includes a visit to its camera museum with the scientists who created the very first digital camera [...]

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In case you missed it, Katherine Boehret–one of our fine tech columnists on this site and also in The Wall Street Journal and pictured here–debuted a video yesterday, using the same kind of Flip video camera I do for my video posts on BoomTown.
She was testing for her regular Mossberg Solution column a new version [...]

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