I attended the NewTeeVee event yesterday at the UCSF Mission Bay Campus, an event highlighting the future of video on the web and cable TV. A good part of the focus was on competing technologies and restrictions of the converging paths. Also there were lively debates on whether and how the web and tv would live out its inevitable collision. Some argued that simply accomodating web browsing on the television using a method of viewing downloaded videos easily was one method (I think this was Reed Hastings, CEO of Netflix). Others (such as, I think, David Verklin of Canoe Ventures) argued that cable would start using features on your clicker that had been, to date, useless. Another suggested that the clicker was completely outmoded and that we needed to instead go to a point and click method more familiar to the computer.
In another session, it became clear that webisodic personalities, gurus, and shows have arrived and mainstream advertisers are about to take notice. Susan Bratton of PersonalLifeMedia has developed programming to address matters of personal growth. She appears to cluster programming and strike single deals with certain advertisers to run across the gamut for these clusters. During the day, I heard internet phenomenon of the character "Fred" speak and later had the chance to meet him and his manager. There is no doubt that this generation understands their every move presents the possibility of fame any maybe fortune, and it appears Lucas Cruikshank, Fred's birth-name-sake has an even-keeled sense of his unusual popularity and marketability.
I was struck by a sense that web people and cable people do not mix precisely but they are trying to ease the tensions of one industry gaining momentum without excessive profit and another industry whose profits are not what they were resigning to certain aspects of the web which are inevitably in an eat or be eaten category. I get the frustration from both sides. Profits are being made on web content but perhaps the expectations of VC money are not a good fit. And while a start on a webisode may have a dedicated audience with purchasing power, it is not always clear how the complex studio system can cop a profit that would justify its expenditure. I heard a well know web actress say something along the lines that she was going to hold out for a better deal and continue to produce her own show. Then I distinctly heard this massively popular star imply she was in the red. Wasn't the point of this whole conference that the do-it-yourself-ers are making money? I had to rethink the whole day.
Still, clearly those who have low overhead and high popularity, and adequate measures to monetize CPMs were making money. All at a time when I am hearing about and developing dozens of potential properties. So, we are in the midst of something pretty big. It wasn't here before this summer. It seems to have taken hold during the campaign. I am talking about the reaction by advertisers to the simple fact that we used the internet as much as the television to tune in to the day's events.
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