If you’re a student and keen to get more open media technology to the Web, apply for a Google summer of code project with Xiph. There are also a few Annodex-style projects in the mix, which bring annotations and metadata to Ogg.

Your interest could be with javascript, ruby, php, XML, or C no matter – you will find a project at Xiph to suit your favorite programming language.

Of the list of proposed projects, my personal favorite is OggPusher – a browser plugin for transcoding video to Theora. Imagine an online service for transcoding video to Ogg Theora without having to worry about having all the libraries installed.

You also have the chance to propose your own project to the Xiph/Annodex guys – you just need to find somebody who is willing to mentor you, so hop on irc channel #xiph at freenode.net and start discussing.

Incidentally, Google is providing a financial reward for successful conclusion of a project – but don’t let that be your only motivation. If you’re not in it with your passion, don’t do a GSoC project. This is about interacting with an open source community whose goals you can identify with. Become involved!