For years I told Zadi that I would never have a blog because I simply did not have enough to say to make it worthwhile for anyone to read. I tend to be action-oriented as opposed to discussion-oriented, and I never imagined myself as a person who might choose to verbalize (or author, in this case) thoughts that could be better expressed through doing.

Now, though, I think I might have something to add to the discussion. Having worked in online media for the past 10+ years and having been consumed specifically by the world of online video for the past 1-2 years, I feel more strongly than ever that there is not enough discourse happening about content as opposed to technical and philosophical discussions.

That's what this blog will mostly focus upon: writing about how to create good content and what it means to be a writer and a director in film and video. I think I have a lot to say about those things. I look around the vlogosphere and I see so much creativity and energy, yet so little quality, at least in my opinion. I think we're all still figuring out how to make web shows, myself included, and I want to talk about this so we can figure it out together.

It's true that most of us contend with things like day jobs that eat into the time required to fulfill our potential as artists, but that's just tough, isn't it? We still have a responsibility to make the best media we can, and I am consistently disappointed by how little discipline I see out there, even with the shows I regularly watch and enjoy (my own work is included here, by the way).

My first few posts will be about things like dramatic and comedic writing structure, character development, and crispness and timing in editing. These are all things that cost nothing, but add infinite value to the content. I'm not sure many people know how to go about learning structure, or even know that it might be missing from their work.

For me, the promise of online video in 2007 is about taking that step forward into a larger world. Luckily, anyone can comment and tell me where I might be going wrong so that I can make sure my contributions stay on point in the 0-7.

Before I start blogging about issues related to online video content creation, a moment to reflect. Blogs are, if nothing else, a personal medium. I should do my part to spew forth some stream of consciousness musings about my insignificant little life.

2007 has just begun. I have owned the domain sleeplessnights.com since 1996. This is the 4th incarnation of the site.

Since 1995 I have worked on, in one form or another, 265 websites. No shit. I remember the fucking <blink> tag, ok?

I went to school for painting and got invited to join a gallery in Soho (the Chelsea of the 80's and 90's) when I was 20. I turned them down. Don't ask.

Graduated. Started designing websites to pay the bills. Went to work for a non-profit arts organization in NYC. Went to work for a Web 1.0 startup, then left before they went public. Don't ask.

Started freelancing so I could focus on my painting. Got involved in independent film, went to Hollywood and wrote a studio comedy, came back to New York and started developing television projects.

INSERT DOT BOMB HERE, INSERT PERSONAL CRISIS HERE, INSERT 9/11 HERE. Screeching halt.

Learned PHP/MySQL to survive (you could turn over a rock in New York and find a talented designed underneath at that time). Scrounged around for any work I could find. Lived off savings til they were gone, lived off credit cards after that. Joined second tech startup, this time with realistic personal goals.

Continued writing screenplays and traveling to the West Coast for meetings. Worked my way into Creative Director/Technical Director in the day job. Got engaged. Moved to California for a movie gig. Got fired. Screeching halt #2.

Enter videoblogs. I no longer cared about movies or television. I could no longer fathom wasting my time in meetings with nice, intelligent, generally well-intentioned people who could not see that their industry was slipping out of their grasp while we sat there and drank caffe mochas.

JETSET begins (as Jet Set Show). Got married. Found my place in the world.

I wonder what will happen tomorrow...

There. Now that that's out of the way, we can get down to business.

Today is Zadi's birthday! Happy Birthday!!!

Here are some January 3rd birthdays in history. You're in some good company:

• January 3, 1892 J. R. R. Tolkien, English Novelist, Lord of Rings
• January 3, 1905 Ray Milland, born in Neath, Wales, actor, Lost Weekend-Acad Award 1945
• January 3, 1929 Sergio Leone, Italian, director, Fist Full of Dollars
• January 3, 1940 Thelma Schoonmaker, actress/editor, Casino, Cape Fear, Good Fellas
• January 3, 1956 Mel Gibson, born in Peekskill, New York, actor, Mad Max, Mrs. Soffel, Lethal Weapon (sorry!)
• January 3, 1967 Helena Bonham Carter, London, actress, Getting it Right

Dinner tonight at Ruth's Chris in Beverly Hills, then some champagne, then who knows...

I was reading Eric Rice's very interesting blog post about his concentric circle theory and starting thinking that this might be the time to bring up a topic I've been mulling in the nether reaches of my cluttered mind.

Zadi and I have been discussing the situation with comments on videoblogs. This discussion began in earnest when we got a racist comment toward Zadi on JETSET a few weeks ago. Then we watched the rather appalling comments on Amanda's ABC videos and I became convinced:

Comments are not a community.

For the longest time video bloggers have treated comments as one of the holy elements of video blogging. We've argued that it creates a conversation. I don't buy it. It can create a conversation, but it rarely does. Mostly it's an outlet for friends to say nice things about each other, and anonymous trolls to criticize without accountability.

No accountability = no community.

I love the idea of comments. I love that from time to time genuine discussions emerge, usually between people who already know each other. But I think as the volume of comments goes up, the threads of a conversation are totally lost. In fact, strictly linear comments such as those on most blogs and videoblogs are the exact antithesis of a true conversation. A conversation does not follow a straight line, it rides into peaks and valleys, it zigzags around telephone poles and crashes into trees. And sometimes it comes all the way back to where it started.

Popular alternatives come up short.

Two quick examples of alternatives: Digg uses threaded comments that users can bury if they are wack. Ze Frank uses a forum to manage the deluge of comments he gets daily. These solutions require a user to register and to post under a screen name (or names). So there's some accountability there, which is good.

But I don't think either of them works very well overall. Try clicking through page after page of text on a popular forum thread on Ze Frank's forums. In fact try finding the thread of posts about today's Ze Frank video. Then try clicking the buried comments on Digg to follow the conversation points that other people have decided are not worth your eyeballs. This stuff is not working.

Just because you CAN post your thoughts doesn't mean you SHOULD.

Let's face it, the tools we have to create online media, distribute it, and cultivate communities is equivalent to banging rocks together to make fire. But with all the harping about pre-roll ads (myself included), Creative Commons licenses, and broken RSS feeds, I don't see any kind of discussion around why comments suck so bad, and even fewer innovative solutions to the problems. At BEST we are seeing rehashes of different technologies cobbled together.

In my opinion, anonymous comments should go away. All users should be required to at least give themselves an identity and a viewable history of their comments by clicking on their profile names. Right there you remove 75% of the pointless, inane, insulting comments on popular videos. It doesn't do away with it, though -- just look at any popular YouTube video as an example.

I'm going to give this a bit more thought, because I see an opportunity for an enterprising developer to come up with a solution to shitty commenting systems. I'd like to hear what you think about this. Is it as big a problem as I'm making it out to be, or am I just shouting to hear my own voice?

UPDATE: Eric Rice made a good point about clarifying the people who I indicated have been championing comments as part of the holy elements of video blogging. Many of the soapbox standpoints over the years where I gleaned that reference occurred in the Yahoo! Videoblogging Group as opposed to the thousands of videobloggers using services like YouTube who are blissfully unaware of the community that has generally claimed ownership of the video blog as a concept. To be fair, of course, the people in the Yahoo! group were doing what YouTubers are now doing two years ago, or more. So perhaps YouTubers will have this discussion in due time on their own.

We'll be in Vegas for CES Wednesday and Thursday, so if you're going, shoot me an email and we'll try to hook up.

Zadi and I will be at the DivX booth doing a live show Wednesday at noon 2:30PM, so come check us out!

In the meantime, I am formulating some thoughts to follow up on the last post about comments on video blogs. Thanks to all of you who commented and contributed some very interesting thoughts.

Update: Here's a link to DivX's booth location and the time of our show. Note that our showtime will be 2:30PM on Wednesday. Hope to see you there!

Dear Flickr,

I just wanted to write to you to tell you how much I love you. Of all the social sites out there, you are my favorite above and beyond all others. I feel like you make it easy for me to catch up with my friends, see what's happening in their lives, share in their surprises and sadness, and laugh along with them during their good times.

This is a special feeling that you give me, Flickr, and I don't take it lightly. That's why I gladly pay my $25 per year for a pro account, and would pay double that if asked. Your tools for uploading, organizing, tagging, adding notes, searching, and browsing are exceptional, and I feel like genuine thought has gone into your information architecture and workflow.

But that's just technical talk, and I know it bores you to hear it. You don't really ask much of me, but I felt like I had to write to you and tell you how I feel. Flickr, I love you, and I'm in love with you.

Sincerely,

Steve

MTV came by today with a camera crew to interview Zadi about the MySpace suicide intervention she was involved in the other week (info here, here, screenshot here, and another screenshot here).

This young man is very lucky to have had Zadi be the one to find the note. I had been up all night and just laid down to get some sleep when Zadi burst into our bedroom and said there was a suicide note on MySpace. My gut reaction was a hoax (and then I rolled over and went back to sleep), but thank goodness she followed her instincts and reached out to get in touch with the kid. When he stopped responding, she reached out to our friends online.

Rick Rey took the next step and canvassed the kid's profile to find his school. Rick called the principal and dogged him until he took him seriously. Kudos to you, Rick.

Danah Boyd came over to be part of the interview, as well. She studies teen behavior online and is an expert on social networking sites that teens use. What a smart woman, with an encyclopedic knowledge of the online world.

All in all it was an outstanding interview that Zadi and Danah gave, though 2+ hours of footage will be whittled down to a 3 minute clip for MTV News. It will air this Friday, January 12th. I don't know the time yet, but we should be able to post it online after it airs.

When asked a final question by the producer, Zadi summed it up best: "If you are in a position to do something or not do something, it's better to do it instead of wondering what might have happened."

Update: Danah has a great post on her blog about the interview and the whole event.

Sorry to be an egregious self-promoter, but with all the attention on Macworld this week, the announcement of Apple TV, etc., we were featured on the iTunes home page today! HUGE day.

Come listen in and/or join me, Zadi, and Steve for Episode 3 of New Mediacracy Live, today, January 12, 2007 8:00 PM EST/5:00 PM PST on TalkShoe.

We're calling in from Las Vegas to round up the action with videobloggers at CES, the Macworld announcements, and more.

• CES
• Podtech's BlogHaus
• DivX Stage6
• Nerdcore
• The iPhone
• AppleTV
• SteveTV
• JETSET
• Future of videoblogging

Web Link: New Mediacracy on Talkshoe
MP3 Link: (Direct MP3 enclosure link)
Duration: 59:13

Check out the post from Micki Krimmel on Worldchanging. She sums up some of the issues facing all of us creating video content for the new century:

Whether or not you’re a fan of online video, you should at least be paying attention. Online video is much more than the sum of its current parts. It’s more than silly lipsynching videos, movie trailer mash-ups, YouTube, citizen journalism, video-blogging, and the birth of a brand new independent art movement. Online video is all those things but it’s also forging the path for new media. As Old and New Media become one and the same, the importance of how this all shakes out cannot be underestimated.

And about the recent MyHeavy.com debacle:

Videobloggers are looking to create a set of standards – an accepted etiquette for sharing video content on the web. (See Mike Meiser’s wiki on the topic.) They want to decide for themselves how others can and cannot use their work. Most videobloggers have benefited from the unrestricted sharing of their content on the web, and as a geekier group than most, many are staunchly against DRM. So how can online video artists support open media by allowing the free sharing of their content but still retain ownership and ensure their ability to make money from their work?

Read the full article here.

Come listen in and/or join me, Zadi, and Steve for Episode 4 of New Mediacracy Live, today, January 18, 2007 at 8:00 PM EST/5:00 PM PST on TalkShoe.

The show's title: Online Video Wants to be President When It Grows Up

Come join us:
Phone number: (724) 444-7444
Talkcast ID: 11701

Or listen here: New Mediacracy on Talkshoe

Update: Apparently TalkShoe is a technical disaster. A day after our 4th podcast, they have still not generated an MP3 for us to link to, added a link to our show page on their site, or answered any tech support emails. I think we are going to dump Talkshoe for Skype. We already ordered new USB headsets.

Bonny, Lan, and Vu are doing some really quirky, interesting stuff with the recently launched Noodlescar Daily. Each show is 15 seconds long, and has the terrific, whimsical Bonny Pierzina as the host.

Zadi and I did a guest appearance. :)

Photo by Craig Schwartz

We went to see my cousin Jason Robert Brown's new musical 13 at the Mark Taper Forum in downtown L.A. tonight. It opened a couple of weeks ago and is about a Jewish kid who moves from NYC to Indiana after his parents' divorce. He's turning 13 and getting ready for his Bar Mitzvah (Wikipedia entry for you non-Jews) while adjusting to life in a small town, trying to make friends, and finding his place.

Photo by Craig Schwartz

Obviously I'm not the most impartial critic, but Zadi and I loved it and thought it was incredible that the cast featured 13 teens and the entire BAND was also all teenagers (except for one guy)! Amazing! It was funny and full of energy, and the whole thing was musically ambitious and wholly entertaining. The cast is great and engages the audience at a number of points in the show. If you're in or around Los Angeles and looking for a great night of musical theater normally reserved for Broadway, get your tickets while you can. Hopefully this coming week we'll get to interview everyone in the show for JETSET before the run in L.A. wraps and the show goes to Broadway. 13 has a book by Dan Elish and is directed by Todd Graff. Quite a creative team. In case you think I'm full of shit, Variety said that the show was "...sheer bliss."

Photo by Craig Schwartz

Afterwards we had dinner with Jason and talked about what he likes and doesn't like about the show. The guy is amazingly versatile. For anyone who knows theater, chances are you've heard of Parade, The Last 5 Years, or Songs for a New World. Such different animals from 13. Jason won the Tony® Award for Parade and moved out to L.A. a few months before we did, which is fairly ironic, since I think we were perhaps the two least likely people in our family to ever leave New York City. I think he was 27 when he won the Tony®.

Anyway, go check it out, you won't be disappointed. Also watch Grease: You're the One That I Want on NBC on Sundays. Georgia Stitt, Jason's very talented wife and my "cousin-in-law," is the vocal coach for the contestants and appears on the show. Fun times!

This ends raves for embarrassingly talented family members. :)

Cool! Michelle from DivX just sent us a note that the video from our Stage6 CES show was posted. Man, DivX quality is just sick. Check out the HD version and prepare to be blown away. There's a standard quality that is also really, really good considering the small file size. Great technology over there.

Super-special thanks to Irina from Geek Entertainment TV for moderating! And also to Eddie for asking great questions!

Here's the stuff we covered:

• Origins of JETSET
• Our fancy Hollywood agent
• Brandon's Pitch project
• Videobloggers in Hollywood
• Headbanging to Rammstein
• Hey Josh (the awesome Josh Shipp)
• Spreading vlogs
• Top 10 list addiction
• Q & A with the audience

Thanks to Ben Cote, Michelle Osorio, and everyone from DivX who made CES such a great time for everyone who attended. You guys rock and made CES fun for us.

Video in HD version
Video in standard quality

Ok, it's all very subjective, this recommending business. But I gotta say, I've been watching HeyJosh.tv from the beginning and this guy's videos keep getting better and better. This is my favorite so far. ;)

Entertaining: check. Informative: check. Genuinely interesting: check. Charismatic videoblogger: check. So what's not to like? He's even contributed to JETSET a couple of times (this one and this one).

Josh is Josh Shipp, a guy who tours the country every year speaking to teens about the issues that affect their lives. He's the real deal, having come through his own personal issues as a teen, so he speaks from experience. In fact, he's one of the most sought-after speakers in the country.

The truth is, for me, it's a needed videoblog. Not many videoblogs address a need. This one does. Check it out and pass it along.

HeyJosh.tv

Mo' media, mo' media, mo' media...

We had all kinds of trouble with Skype trying to record the new episode of New Mediacracy this afternoon, so while we regroup for another attempt tomorrow, we figured we'd put together a podcast covering some of the personal stuff we used to talk about the old New Mediacracy. Let me know what you think...

Click To Play

If there's any one statistic about JETSET that is startling, it's the fact that now over 50% of our downloaded episodes are delivered through our 3gp feed, which tends to be mobile phones. When you include iPod and PSP distributions, the percentage of mobile downloads goes over 65%! Whoa.

A lot of this has to do with the fact that the target JETSET audience is teenagers and young adults, who are more likely to be using their phones, PSP's, and iPods to watch video. So that's cool.

But I wonder, how many of these viewers ever actually visit the JETSET website once they subscribe? Based on a cursory analysis of our site stats and some decent educated guessing, I would say about 15% of mobile subscribers visit the site to participate in wiki projects or post comments.

Having just analyzed our January website stats tonight, we're seeing an ever-increasing disparity in our number of total show viewers compared to web viewers. So it begs the question: how relevant is the JETSET website to the show itself?

For us, we thought our website was one of the keys to our growth phase last fall when we started involving our community in projects like Brandon's Pitch, Are You Happy?, and The Confessional. Now, however, we're faced with the reality that as our viewership has grown, we need to start thinking about how to engage a specific audience -- the mobile viewer.

Mobile web browsers are horrendous (hurry up, iPhone), so the prospect of creating web-based projects to engage that audience is not attractive yet. We will be testing some new ideas in the coming weeks that are intended to interact with this group via things like SMS, but it's amazing how reactive content creators have to be to their audience to stay on top of things. We never anticipated the prospect of potentially needing to think about show ideas that engage someone watching on a specific device.

The audience really has the power now, and that's why this is so different from traditional media.

I don't think the website will ever go away, but it has to morph and change rapidly. For example, should I be thinking about creating a mobile version of the site for easier viewing on phones? The answer to that is probably yes.

What do you think? Are websites for videoblog shows becoming less relevant?

UPDATE: I neglected to include 3rd party distributions in the percentage of our total viewership. Including distributions like TV Tonic, DivX, Shozu, and a few others, the percentage of mobile distributions goes from 65% to 55%. As you were.