Month: January 2008

The Reblog Button

jimmy wales & ellie

 

I spent some time today reading through several Kenyan blogs on the election crisis and have added more resource links to our Wiki. Have you been following the events? Our field correspondent Ruud Elmendorp has been stationed in Nairobi so we have been keeping close tabs on the region. Consider having a look and perhaps contributing in some way. Even just a link from your blog can be really helpful and uplifting for the bloggers there covering the events. Here is a short list of blogs to get you started, please add to the Wiki if you find any more important sites.

Kenyan Blogs

1. Insight Kenya – Very intense photo documentation.
2. Kenyan Pundit – Ory Okolloh is a Kenyan who graduated with a J.D. from Harvard Law School in 2005. She is currently based in South Africa working as the Legal and Corporate Affairs Manager for Enablis and as a consultant on telecommunications and citizen journalism in Africa.
3. Funua – Concerned Kenyan – Articles on the aftermath of the 2007 Election.
4. SIASA DUNI – “Truth comes only to conquer those who have lost the art of recieving it as a friend…”.
5. What An African Woman Thinks – It’s my window, but I don’t own the view.
6. Kenyan Diaspora Pro-democracy Movement
7. South of West – A journalist in Africa.
8. Kwani Blog

On Thursday, January 24th from 6pm to 8pm sharp, we will meet at the Rocketboom studios for presentations.

This month we will kick off a guest series with one of the main producers of Wallstrip, Jeff Marks. Jeff will talk to us about his start with Wallstrip, their CBS acquisition and now their new projects underway. Host Lindsay Campbell may also be in attendance to share the floor.

Everyone that attends the meet-up is invited to give a 2min introduction, then we will hear from Wallstrip, and then we can engage in discussion for the rest of the eve. Projector, wi-fi, etc.

Please RSVP with number of guests – must be on the list to get up to the studio.

My voice here on Dembot has recently been pretty disparaging and desolate, I must say. It seems I’ve shifted away from focusing on the wonderful experiences and observations I’ve had with Rocketboom and the healthy space around me to analyzing the likely flaws of the new players that enter in seemingly unwittingly. I was just trying to help.

Starting today, I’m going to make a conscious effort to switch back to the wonderful observation style of doing things and I’m going to start with a series of posts highlighting my very favorite online video efforts from people to shows to platforms.

If you like would like to get a head start, have a look at Wine Library TV. For anyone interested in a high-value, niche-content success story, Gary Vaynerchuk and his Wine Library TV are a must-study.

Neato, it looks like Tay Zonday may be headed out on tour soon. I checked his website and didn’t see any mention but just ran across some performance info in a NYC event listing. Maybe he’s getting his feet wet live in a few clubs before going all-out. ‘Should be a lot of fun and could make a lot of $ in tix and merch sales. 

From “What’s Up: NYC: 

According to FT, NBC’s Jeff Zucker is making big changes at the TV studio including getting rid of pilot season and up-fronts. While I agree this is a very good idea, I would suggest this is not a result of any clever thinking at NBC.

This is a result of not having any content to sell this upfront season (Duh?) The writers strike has now completely ruined any expectations the studios may have for securing the rest of the year so it’s going to be VERY interesting to see where all that business goes. 

Exactly one month ago, I wrote:

“If you attended the 2007 ad buyers week where the TV studios rolled out the red carpet for the ad buying industry with the cheesiest shenanigan of a show and dance, playing the role of middle people who make the connections between things like Lost and Coke, thats what it all comes down to. The network simply manages that connection, themselves a middle person. When a business has an opportunity to grow and improve, this type of position is the first to go.”

and…  

“Perhaps the greatest threat of all is the possibility that the Writers Strike will drag on through January and February, causing the TV stations to have almost nothing in store to sell for fresh content at the 2008 upfront season.”

In relationship to todays story about Zucker,  he is also now saying he and Steve Jobs are basically BFF. This might have something to do with his expectations for the future of Hulu (I still dont understand how Hulu will ever work).

The Big Range Austin Dance Festival is being put on in June by my good friend Ellen Bartel. Before moving from Austin to NYC, I created music for a few of Ellen’s Austin dances (performed with live ensembles and prerecorded music) some of which is documented here. If you are a dancer or composer, the application deadline is Feb 15th.

I just wrote a long email to the Revision3 folks to tell them privately the extent of my feelings about their content offerings and especially their latest show, The Digg Reel.

This show is designed to give a rundown of the top videos on Digg and is meant to appeal to the people who use Digg, as well as represent Digg to the outside world. 

Clearly the best place to gauge the success of the show then is via the feedback of the Digg community. Not me, not the producers – no one will be able to determine if this show works better than the audience it is meant to target and represent. Unfortunately, it’s thus clear that the show did not work, as a matter of fact. 

Consider the audience response from the debut article:

The Digg Reel Episode 1 – The Big Digg Debut – Description: Welcome to the very first episode of the Digg Reel! We’ve taken the best and highest rated user submissions from the video section of Digg.com and put it all together for you to enjoy. So sit back, press play and get ready to roll The Digg Reel.

# of Positive Comments: 0 out of 195

# of Negative Comments: 195 out of 195

Not even Mom came out in support of this one. My email into the network wasn’t a rag, I wanted to help illuminate this point because I believe in the spirit of the company. Diggnation is 100% awesome in my mind; I have zero criticism for the entire effort and you may know that’s rare to nonexistent for me to say. The next step is to understand the audience that they already have better (as apparent in the comments left by the Digg audience). I’m very optimistic for the company still, they have so much going for them in terms of resources and good will.