Posts about smalltv

TVJersey: Ya gotta problem with that?

My friends at the Star-Ledger have created the TV station New Jersey doesn’t have: TVJersey, a blog that will feature not only their own videos but also the videos of the people. They’re asking our neighbors to put videos up on YouTube, tagged TVJersey, and those will flow onto the blog and the best will be featured. They’re also giving the people challenges; the first is about Valentine’s day. And on the side, they suggest other events people might want to shoot.

Not only that, but the Ledger is putting its videos on YouTube so they can be discovered there, swimming with the same fishes as everybody else. Says the site:

New Jersey needs a television station to call its own. Programmed by New Jerseyans, for New Jerseyans. TVJersey has no broadcast towers, no satellites. It doesn’t even have a studio. But it has you. And what you produce, we’ll promote.

So this turns video into a local conversation, an open conversation. It also turns a newspaper into a TV station.

Mindy McAdams is already impressed.

[Full disclosure: I advised them on this.]

Say it to CBS and the world

CBS — which essentially killed its “free speech” segments on the evening news — is trying to open up again, asking you to record what you want to say to the world in 15 seconds that could end up on the air on Super Bowl Sunday.

f you had 15 seconds to tell the world whatever you want to, what would you say? Well, now’s your chance to be seen and heard on national television, courtesy of CBS Interactive. Post your 15-second video on YouTube, and CBS Interactive will select one to be broadcast on TV.

See the first videos here. Yes, a lot of them are silly at best. But there are a few gems, albeit rough, in the pile. And I expect you to submit the great ones.

Steve Garfield tells the fuller story:

Yay CBS.

This is a step in the right direction. CBS is now asking people to submit videos to YouTube.

CBS is following the path that Jeff Jarvis suggested, and that I prototyped with SayItToKatie.com.

I personally explained how user submitted content should work in a discussion with management at CBS. I looks like they were listening.

CBS has a 15 Seconds page over on CBS.com where you can read the rules and follow a link to watch the recently submitted videos over on YouTube.

This is a smart move by CBS since they don’t have to screen any videos, and all the submissions can be seen on YouTube. The only videos they have to get a release waiver for are those that they choose to put on CBS TV.

Congratulations.

Now I need something to say. ;-)

When I told management at CBS about Steve’s SayItToKatie, they loved the idea. I had to add at the time that the first videos were not, well, gems. But still, the idea apparently took hold.

So go to record your 15 seconds.

: EARLIER: Here was the BBC version. By putting on longer segments, I think they encouraged more intelligent submissions. But CBS improves on the idea by making all the videos visible via its tag.

Small TV on small TV

Last night, ABCNews.com called asking for me to make a video at home with comment on AppleTV. I taped it, edited it, and FTPed it in and now here is the finished product.

And God said, ‘It’s TV, stupid’

My blogging pal Fred(erator) Seibert, veteran of MTV and Hanna-Barbara, has started a well-funded company to build the networks for the new age along with Herb Scannell of MTV and Nickelodeon, Jed Simmons of the Sundance Group, Emil Rensing of the AOL Greenhouse, and Tim Shey of the new world (including Rocketboom).

I know there’s something here. Frankly, I’m not completely sure I understand what that something is yet. And I suspect they don’t, either. We’ll know it when we watch it. But I, like they, have no doubt that it is time to start building the new television.

It was on my way to meeting Fred’s crew that I snapped a picture of old TV in the making and then wrote this well-linked post about the collapsing infrastructure of the old entertainment business and the emerging structure of the new. Hearing Fred’s plans the same week that I brainstormed with Jeff Pulver’s Network2.net team and met with some other people doing good things in the new television, I’ve told friends it was as if the heavens opened and God was shouting down at me, “It’s TV, stupid!” Yes, the time has come.

The creation and building is coming on many fronts. Some people are inventing the new creative forms for the medium — that’s the fun part, I say. There are plenty of distribution plays: YouTube, of course, and Bright Cove, Blip, Motionbox, Revver. There are many trying the important work of bringing revenue to this creativity: Google, of course, plus Revver and now, I think, Fred’s venture. There are efforts to guide people to what they want to watch: Network2, Dabble, ViralVideoChart, VidMeter. TV is exploding.

But remember, we are still in the Philo T. Farnsworth era of the new medium. It’s just the beginning. But I have high hopes for all of this, including Fred’s venture. Here’s how they describe themselves:

First came the radio networks, then the television networks… then cable networks changed it up again. We’re called Next New Networks because everything’s up in the air once more.

No longer are networks about half-hour increments of programming served up when the media behemoths decide. Talented people are making their own shows, and sharing them using tools available to everyone. Now, networks can operate on a different scale – with shows as short as three minutes – and the best ones will give you what you want, whenever you want, and on whatever device you want.

In this new world, we think the next networks will be about making connections – between audiences and talent, between advertisers and viewers, between people and the things they love. And they will serve specific communities united by their passion and their interest in a common thing. You contribute your own videos, your comments and ideas, and we pull it together with original content to deliver a regular and dependable experience for you and the people that share your interests.

It’s our TV now and the winners will be those who create and enable it.

[See various disclosures relevant to all this.]

The revolution will be YouTubed

The Guardian reports that the leading candidates in the French election took to the web to deliver their latest messages in online videos. (Wish they gave us the links but they don’t.)