Quick post from from the Rewind Fast Forward Conference in Sydney (where I am speaking on the 3.30 panel with Microsoft, Sony and Disney). I am currently writing this from the audience in a panel presentation on wireless internet futures which is kind of ironic – as soon as one person in the room discovered the free wireless internet in the hotel all the laptops started to come out and everyone goes into multi-tasking mode, only partly paying attention to the words of wisdom coming from the speakers…Anyway to the point of this post…
One of the new hybrid, transitional models coming out of personalized user generated content is evident in Al Gores Current TV service just started in the US. We (the hybrid media types) have to be very careful as the new user-generated broadband world starts to clash with the old broadcast models – and in the Wired article today this looks squarely rooted in production value issues – we have to be careful in not disenfranchising traditional only consumers with ‘crappy’ badly contextualized re-broadcast web content. I’m off to ring Al Gore now and get him to pull his finger out! It has to get better quickly otherwise the wall will strengthen between user-generated and broadcaster produced – and choices will be made for all the wrong reasons, presentation over story.
An excerpt from the article (link above)
Current TV: Fast but Treacherous
By Niall McKayAl Gore’s new cable network, Current TV, is a media smorgasbord of quick, slick and sometimes very interesting short-form video segments targeted at the iPod generation. But it often leaves you feeling cheated out of the main course after a tasty appetizer.
The segments, nauseatingly called pods, run between two and five minutes and comprise a mix-and-match of short films, MTV-type snippets and video blogs. Some of the pods are refreshingly authentic and make the youth-oriented programming on MTV and VH1 look vacuous. Others, however, are smug, unsubstantial and even boorish at times, and seem to finish just at the point where they get interesting.
The short format is partly to blame, but one also senses inexperience and lack of judgment on the part of the producers and editors.
Posted by Gary Hayes © 2005
