Tag Archives: next new network

Online Video

Proving Social-Media Articles Don’t Have to Suck

2 Comments

No, all social-media articles don’t have to suck.

MediaPost’s Kelly Samardak takes us into a speakeasy during a social-media Mental Prohibition in this coverage of “Digital Cocktails: Keys to Social Media Success.” The piece, part business and human interest, chronicles the event — hosted at the NYC studios of ForYourImagination (where you can pass the social-media “dutchie on the left hand side“).

It’s a cool and quirky narrative exploring the social behavior of those advancing the NYC social media ‘n digital media advertainment scene, while these well-intentioned expatriates try to make enough money for this month’s rent, a new book, and an $11.50 pack of Merits (not necessarily in that order).

Maybe I’m charmed by the article because I’ve had a bong snap of the venue’s mojo, and can almost smell the couch at FYI studio as I read.  Samardak refers to it as “funky…. soft, coffee-house-like, velvety furniture bordered the usual white chairs used for panel viewing.” Now can you see why I get offended at a list of “The New Establishment” (Revision3, NextNewNetwork, Mondo, etc) that fails to include FYI?

ForYourImagination's studios, captured during a less cool event

You haven’t whiffed the inner belly of the online-video-social-media-digital-branded-entertainment advertising coup d’éta until you’ve been “shhhh’d” by Paul Kontonis (professional squealer and one of the most huggable people in emerging media). Can you blame him? You were gabbing too loudly with YouTube nerd stars while he was trying to introduce his virtual family members to some… new video hosting streaming adver-creative case study thing. “Hey, Radio Shack… we’re learning here.”

Parenthetically, have you not had the pleasure of sipping Kontinis’ invisible juice? That video’s up to a not-too-shabby 600K views, Paul. Will “Businessman Snow Fail” top Invisible? We doubt either of our YouTube Miller’s Bests will impress the martini web-series production man. He indulged me with his cameo despite visible befuddles, reverberated by qualms of co-unwitting-cast member Daisy Whitney… the Ginger to Samardak’s Mary Anne. Just keep moving, kids.

Feel your heart rate lower as you sink into Samardak’s recount of the crowd chuckling to pictures from “This Is Why You’re Fat (TIWYF).” And you’ve got to love this byte: “Kontonis is a moderator to benchmark… rather than asking a question, listening to each panelist, responding with “great,”  and then moving on, he talked with them, sometimes even challenging them to answer questions better, as if saying “if I were in the audience I wouldn’t accept that — go further.”

Samardak pokes Carrot Creative’s Katy Kelly, noting that the crowd giggled when Katy accidentally called TIWYF, “this is why I think you’re fat.” And Katy’s quote, (“you get what you pay for,”) quipped Samardak, put her in the “minor vs major league quoting strategy with clients.” snap oh no you dint.

Just when I was thinking 12 e-mail newsletters from MediaPost might warrant an opt-out surrender, I’m rescued by Samardak’s bid-ness poetry (check out the “Sneeze on the Salad Bar” piece).

Have I met her? I think so. I don’t know. It could have been Shira Lazar wearing a sombrero. You perky brunette journalists start to all look alike anymore.

Online Video

If a YouTube Channel is a Channel, Why Can’t We Select Specific Shows?

19 Comments

Poor Internet Television Station Revision3. It’s a case study of an increasing delimma faced by studios/networks moving to YouTube (reluctantly of course). They can’t invite viewers to subscribe to one particular show alone (unless the devide the shows into individual channels). So networks like Revision3 have three choices:

  1. Place all its shows up on a indivudal YouTube channels and gain little from the collective.
  2. Dump random stuff on YouTube and try desperately to get viewers to leave YouTube and visit Revision3.com to RSS or view specific shows (bad idea).
  3. Put all of its shows on one channel (youtube.com/revision3) and make the channel banner clicks open a subscribe window (instead of a redirect to the Revision3 website as I might have expected.

I probably would have done the same thing (except I’d have left my banner pointing to the website because most people on YouTube can find the subscribe button on their own).

But here’s the problem. What if I don’t care about Wine Library TV but love Internet Superstar (because I happen to be taping a show today)? I have to watch my subscriptions get bloated with shows that don’t interest me.

Solution? YouTube has to allow people to segment a single channel or create ways that a series of shows can live on individual channels without losing the power of the sum of its parts. I’ve got people that never want to see my family, but want to see me acting like an idiot in public. I have some people that want a video daily, and others that want not to be bothered until I create something epic. Why shouldn’t they be able to subscribe to ALL or 5-15 categories individually (public pranks, vlogs, sketches, family videos).

This is important to someone like me that likes variety, but even more important to a collective like Revision3, ForYourImagination or Next New Network. Note that these companies almost shouldn’t be compared because their strategies are so different. Revision3 shows are being shot, not coincidentally, for the precise time a 30-minute show would air sans commercials (21 minutes).