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Kansas City video blogger finds success on Web

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Wednesday, 14 January 2009 01:00
How do you stumble into being one of the most popular and sought after bloggers in the Kansas City area?
If you are Ramsey Mohsen, you just start chronicling your life and making videos about things you like to do in your spare time.
Mohsen, 25, is known in blogging circles as a life caster, someone who chronicles his life’s events. His videos show everything from his new iPhone to the new Cosentino’s downtown market to the Kansas City Air Show.
Most of Mohsen’s life involves the internet in some way. His day job is working as a consultant for Digital Evolution Group in Overland Park, where he helps companies design and redesign their Web sites. His work includes the Kansas City International Airport, www.flykci.com, and the city of Overland Park, www.opkansas.org.
As a hobby, Mohsen runs his blog at www.ramseymohsen.com and is a creator and author of an entertainment Web site, www.acrosstheboard.com.
Mohsen got his start life casting on the www.justin.tv Web site, where for a few months he chronicled nearly every minute of his life.
“I wore a Royals hat, with a Web cam attached to the brim, which ran to a laptop I kept in a backpack,” Mohsen said. “So everywhere I went, people online could see. There were chat rooms where people could interact with us.”
Mohsen helped start the site, along with seven other life casters around the country, and said the project lasted a few months before the wear of physically dealing with the equipment and constant viewing ran its course.
After finishing the project, Mohsen, a University of Kansas graduate, said he wanted to find something to continue on that same path.
“When I got done with it there was kind of this void,” Mohsen said. “I would go home and I was so used to interacting with people on the Internet in my room or we’d be going places and I’d be event casting. I said, ‘You know what? Why don’t I start video blogging?’ And it really started off with, ‘What do I want to do? What do I enjoy? I go to some events that are pretty fun and I kind of like to show them where I’ve been, so why don’t I just take video and pictures.’ I would literally just start showing up to these events and whip out my camera and see what happens.”
Mohsen said one of his videos that helped him reach a higher level of recognition came during the opening of the Power and Light District in downtown Kansas City.
“A friend of mind was DJ-ing at Tango Sed Cantina and said, ‘I know you do the video blogging, why don’t you come down to the Thursday night opening,’” Mohsen said. “I went down there and did the video and had a lot of fun. Then I saw all of the other bars were open and thought why don’t I just go to all of them. I stepped in and did an intro and literally walked up the managers and wondered what questions would I have.”
Some public relations and marketing professionals in Kansas City have sought out Mohsen to help publicize their events, just like they might with television stations, radio stations and newspapers. Folks from AMC Theatres invited him to preview the new Fork and Screen theatres at their Olathe movie theater. Cosentino’s gave Moshen the first look at the new downtown market. Moshen said various Power and Light District tenants have invited him to events.
Mohsen also had an eventful trip interviewing contestants at the Kansas City tryouts for “American Idol.”
However, Moshen said he is not “for hire” and only attends and films events in which he would normally be interested.
While the Kansas City blogging community has grown in the past few years, Moshen remains nearly unrivaled in his video blogging. He said he would prefer some competition in life casting or video blogging.
“I think it’s better for everyone if there are more voices out there, and I think if it’s more prevalent it will be more accepted,” Moshen said.
Several groups have asked Mohsen to speak about the emerging media of video blogging. He has spoken to groups such as the Greater Kansas City Chamber of Commerce and some journalism classes.
Moshen said he has learned by doing his videos and still finds it humorous that he is offering journalism advice.
“I give these presentations to journalism classes and they asked where I learned it,” Moshen said. “I say, ‘I don’t know.’ It’s just natural from watching people or learning. I do see now where journalists chuckle, because there are physical parts of holding the camera yourself. But I have a lot of fun with it.”
With his Web talents and a little bit of fame, Mohsen got together with friends this year to turn their annual “Ugly Sweater Party” into a fundraiser for Operation Breakthrough. Moshen did several posts and videos about the party, which raised more than $7,000 for the early childhood education center for underprivileged youth in Kansas City.
Mohsen said since he came into video blogging with no plan, he does not want to start making any hard or fast plans for what he will do next. However, he does have ideas of things he would like to do.
“I want to try and do some different things with it,” Mohsen said. “But it’s still a question mark, like what could become of all this?”

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