Month: March 2008

 

Rocketboom makes the Compete list for Fastest Growing Video Startups – 02/07 to 02/08.

  

And my oh my do I have a story to tell on how we have been able to do this with what relatively few resources we have. The main area of growth over the last year has been building a true dream team staff. Its almost all in the people.

What more, off-site distribution for Rocketboom is very deep now and continues to grow. This obviously leads to on-site growth. I predict we’ll actually see a slight dip over the next two months on our compete graph due to our internal plans and then we are going to really rocket on up and outta here.

A small note of optimism to boot: If you are into interface design and site optimization standards, you’ll notice that the Rocketboom website has one of the worst bounce rates around – most people land on a page and are never able to find anything else we do or have done – we have only upwards to go in this department.

Having a good today aside from the Compete news. Citings in NYTimes Magazine, NYTimes Blog and Techcrunch. Still most excited to have a video linked from Boingboing, my still-yet (and probably forever) favorite blog online.  

February Online Video: Politics Offsets the Writer’s Strike, GodTube.com Racks Up Impressive Year/Year Growth

A heafty new feature from YouTube that has just been released with out a press release (according to Chris Pirillo, its been out for some time but I just checked again and have not seen any blog posts or news articles about it). The feature allows you to create a stream – a playlist of prerecorded videos, and includes a real-time chat feature. As of now, you need to have an account to use this section of the site and the load only holds so many people. So far, I have not been able to create a stream because “the maxium number of streams has been reached” and some rooms are full.

From the YT page at http://www.youtube.com/streams_main :
“Ever wanted share YouTube with other people in real-time? We’re willing to bet you’ve already been doing that, so now we’re making it easier. With Streams, you can create a YouTube room to watch and interact with other users while sharing videos. Everyone in the room can add videos from their Favorites, QuickList, or by pasting in links, and make a running commentary as the videos play.”

Main Page for Streams:

Each time you enter a stream, you are presented with a user generated message in the form of a pop-up box:

Example of a Stream created by user sunnyx97:

I didnt even see Charlie the Unicorn in the playlist when I asked if this was the right place. I could feel it in the room:

Welcome message from YouTube on Streams:

I havent been able to create a page yet, the system is too busy:

 

Like platforms, content needs more than just a formula to work. Perhaps this wasn’t always the case on TV, but online, these days, people are more savvy and have more options to find something that they actually prefer. Techmeme is a much more effective way to get much more news in a more timely fashion for much cheaper and for a greater value than Webbalert, for example.

Webbalert may not be working because the show is not utilizing the medium properly (it’s trying to latch on to a formula and it’s not working it right) but also because it’s not adding any creative or authentic value, in my personal opinion. In discussions with my team at Rocketboom, I predicted the graph above because the show lacks creativity and authenticity and because its ineffective for a large portion of the audience it targets.

Watching the host’s eyes move from left to right while reading is the number one way to leave the audience feeling that the show is not authentic, for instance. Even if the audience doesn’t know it themselves, they will often feel uncomfortable if the person on camera is pretending to look into the camera, but is not looking in the camera. If the personality on camera is not invested in the stories and brings no character to the “job”, then the online audience in this day and age will typically wean away towards something more authentic, something that is more entertaining, or more efficient. 

Consider this along with my observation below about Wallstrip. Rocketboom is on a roller coaster ride and it’s still going (and growing) because we are holding out for our purpose, not pandering to the market. I’m concerned that the dreams people articulated when video first hit the web are becoming threatened as they depend on a still-yet undeveloped market – one that may be taking a major turn in the wrong direction. More on this shortly.

A few recent poster frames from the Wallstrip show by CBS. Ever since Lindsay left, episodes are no longer daily and have become sexualy degrading to women. With a full-time production staff of 16, the Wallstrip producers are now engaged in a second show, Moblogic. 

Forward Through Backwards Time

 

A picnic in an outfit!

This Saturday I’ll be at BarCamp NYC (it’s also on Sunday). Session title: A day in the life of episodic content creation. From idea to research, to record, to edit, to publish, to distribute and back around again, dosy-doe, and like such as.

Polytechnic University in Brooklyn 
At the Brooklyn Metrotech Center 
Brooklyn Campus (Directions)
Six Metrotech Center
Brooklyn, NY 11201

sharingtime:

It’s that time again. If you missed our last meetup, here’s your chance to finally meet the people you’ve reblogged/disliked from a distance/stalked/e-crushed.

What: a tumblr meetup for people in the NYC area

When: Thursday, March 13th @ 9 PM

Where: Fat Cat, 75 Christopher Street

Please reblog and hope to see you there!

Update: There will be drunken Scrabble.

 Im headed down there *my* now. Sarah is streaming it from her phone. Only time will tell.