Posts about smalltv

The hunt for good video continues

January 1, 2007 by Jeff Jarvis
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I’ve become a quick fan of Kevin Nalty’s funny videos and blogging about video. Today he reports on YouTube’s “customer-support fiasco;” the other day, he put together a good list of video predictions:

1. Online video and television collide then converge. . . .
2. Consolidation of online video sites will increase exponentially. . . .
3. Viral video creators will “cross over” to television. . . .
4. Many television shows will develop online manifestations. . . .
5. Consortiums will form for economies of scale. . . .
6. Select amateur video creators will begin to make a full-time living without “crossing over” to television. . . .
7. A major news story will break via live (or close to live) footage by “citizen journalists” holding cameras. . . .
8. Marketers will get smarter about how they gain consumer mindshare through online video. . . .
9. Real vs. fake will be a major 2007 theme. . . .
10. The “big boy” sites are going to start sharing advertising revenue with select creators like some smaller sites (Revver, Metacafe, Blip, Brightcove, Lulu). That means Google, YouTube, Yahoo and AOL will finally realize that good content means eyeballs. And eyeballs means more revenue.

I’m no fan of year-end top-10 lists and predictions, but that’s a good list.

Appropriate to the meta-ness of Nalty’s video-on-video existence, one of the most entertaining video on his site is a local Fox video about his videos. The best part is is wife complaining about how everything he does is on tape.

Preempted

December 30, 2006 by Jeff Jarvis

About 40 minutes of the two-hour 20/20 special on small TV was preempted last night by the Saddam execution. Oh, well. But as Rex Hammock suggests, ABC should put the show — especially the preempted parts — up online. (They had a few segments online as a preview at the 20/20 site.) Better yet, for this show of all shows, they should take each segment and put it up on YouTube: turn the big TV about small tv into small tv.

Small TV

December 29, 2006 by Jeff Jarvis
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One last plug for tonight’s 20/20 about small TV on ABC at 9p ET. I hope it’s going to be good and that I don’t embarrass myself (I sat in the interview chair for two and a half hours and so I’m bound to have said stupid things; here’s hoping those were two hours , 28 minutes, and 30 seconds that were cut).

Part of my mantra in those interviews is that big media pays too much attention to the silly flaming farts that end up on the home page of YouTube and too little to the gems that are buried within: the new voices that we couldn’t hear in mass media. So I went hunting for those gems. It’s not easy, I’ll admit. But I’m finding them — and I’d like you to help me find more. Please do leave comments with links to small tv that you think is good — not just cool, but good.

Here’s one I found last night trolling Blip.tv: Mary C. Matthews makes interesting small TV, including this series about disastrous dates:


Click To Play

See also this nicely reported and edited piece on a Christmas-tree salesman.
Her pieces are simply and well-made and begin to give shape to this new form of TV. I argue that broadcast television invented one new form: the sitcom, a perfect product for the medium — life and laughs in 22 minutes. Now many people are trying to figure out the right forms for two-minute TV. Rocketboom, Ze Frank, and others are experimenting with comment. Others are working on quit-hit serial drama. Matthews is experimenting with storytelling.

Please share the good things you find.