We're really happy to announce that Smashface has signed a licensing and distribution deal with Next New Networks for JETSET! This deal will give JETSET a stable platform for at least the next twelve months, and it will allow us to focus our energies on thinking of new ways to interact with our audience and make great content.
Zadi and I have known Tim Shey for a few months, but it seems a lot longer -- he's one of the founders of NNN. They were a sponsor of the Halloween Videoblog Festival last year, and at that party I got a chance to talk with Tim about what they were planning on building with NNN. I liked the things I was hearing, such as how they were focused on niche content, identifying audiences around which they could build networks of their own new shows, and creating an infrastructure that allows content creators to be free of worrying about platforms and distribution models. Seemed like a pretty smart approach to us.
We also liked that there were people at the helm of the company that had serious experience building and growing media companies. Herb Scannell and Fred Seibert basically built MTV, Fred built Frederator Studios, and Herb was president at Nickelodeon Networks. For some people in the online world I think there is a certain fear about working with companies with top people who come from mainstream media. That thought crossed our minds, as well.
When the Channel Frederator Awards were held here in L.A. in January, we got to spend an afternoon with Tim to talk much more in-depth about NNN's plans. We could see that they were not approaching this thing as if they had all the answers. They knew that there were going to be hurdles to cross and things to figure out, and they seemed to be genuinely interested in hearing criticism. A year of planning had gone into NNN, and in that time Channel Frederator had become a really fun show that we were watching regularly. This allowed us to get a sense for how they might approach their other shows.
Zadi and I had been thinking about the future of JETSET since it first rolled out the door. We knew we had something that could really reach a wide audience and break boundaries in terms of audience interaction, but time and money were always an issue. I was working a full-time job until January, and we did not want to be in a position where we were going to miss opportunities.
After talking to Tim, it seemed quite plain to us that we were thinking in very similar ways about building online shows and making them as interactive and engaging as they could be. They were calling them "networks," but they are really just groups of shows that serve the same audience with niche content. This is what we wanted to do with JETSET eventually -- build a network of teen shows with JETSET as the hub. Zadi had been hatching that idea since last June.
We presented the idea to Tim of making JETSET a part of Next New Networks, and things came together very quickly with the help of Barrett Garese at UTA. Even though it's their clearly stated mission to build new shows, I think we could all see the potential of placing an established show like JETSET into the infrastucture they had already built since we seemed to have such similar plans. So it made very natural sense for all of us that way.
Zadi and I have a very steep task ahead of us -- to be one of the first shows to try and figure out how to engage viewers on primarily mobile devices. Some 60+% of JETSET viewers watch on their phones, iPods, or PSP's. We're really glad to have the support behind Smashface to help JETSET solidify and grow while we all work on developing this industry. And we're excited about the possible opportunity to help NNN develop shows around JETSET eventually.
These are interesting times. :)
Got some pretty exciting news the other day -- the show we've been doing for the past nine months, JETSET, has been nominated for a Webby Award in the Music/Variety category of Online Film & Video. We were also mentioned in one of their press releases.
If you like the work we've been doing, it would be a really great thing for us if you'd take a couple of minutes and register on their site to vote for JETSET for the People's Voice award.
The Webby Awards have been called "the Oscars of the Internet" by The New York Times. While it would be a really great thing to say that JETSET is a Webby Award winner, awards are bad things to look at from a personal perspective. There's been a lot of talk about the fees that the Webby Awards charges businesses to enter their work for consideration. Let's just say it ain't cheap.
We paid to enter because it was a smart business decision for the future of the show. For us, it was worth the fee to get our show in front of influencers and people whose work we admire on the judging panel, even if we never got nominated. Turns out we were very fortunate and made it past some 8000+ entries this year to be one of the nominees. Very, very cool.
Even if we don't win, we've already turned our entry fee into hugely disproportionate gains in exposure and audience. So while I can understand why people grumble about the cost, if you look at it as an investment in your show or website it's relatively cheap.
The Webby Awards are a large event -- maybe the biggest in the online world. We feel fortunate to be a part of it. Even if we don't win our category, it would be great to get that People's Voice Award. Hint, hint!
Lately I've twittered a few links to my Flickr pictures titled, "At This Moment." The wonderful immediacy of communication on the web lets me share those moments with our friends. There's been so many immediate moments versus reflective moments in the past few months that sometimes I have to stop and remind myself to take a look around, see where I'm at, and make sure the ship is pointed in the right direction.
Zadi's recent blog post got me thinking about how to evaluate the past few months. I really liked Tim Shey's comment on Zadi's post that the reason some videobloggers are so hard to define is because they are really artists. At the beginning of any industry it's always the artists who set the tone, and it is the artists who show the way for others to follow.
Smashface is six weeks into its second production now, this one for Cyworld, the social networking site. We were very lucky to be able to partner with Next New Networks to give JETSET a stable base and a supporting team, and for now it looks like we will continue to work on a show-to-show basis to find the right partner for each concept. I really like the flexibility of this approach, and it keeps Smashface small and agile.
Building Smashface is going to be a multi-pronged approach. We will be doing niche market shows like JETSET, consulting/production gigs like Cyworld, and large-scale immersive entertainment produced in partnership with major studios. At the moment I'm only planning about six months down the road. In my opinion, it's unwise to plan beyond that for danger of filling the cement buckets around our feet. In the online world where things shift on a weekly basis, you have to be ready to adjust your thinking, pick up your feet, and march in a different direction. Being fast is far more important in this world than being big.
This is the third online business I've been a part of building. The first was with a company called NetCreations, a web 1.0 marketing company where I was lucky to be exposed to the business savvy of Rosalind Resnick and the marketing and programming smarts of Ryan Scott at a very young age. The second was with VisualMax, where I spent the past 3 years working with Steve McBride handling clients large and small, and also delegating authority.
Zadi and I—the artists—are the ones on whom the responsibility now falls for heading a company and doing the strategic planning. We have a lot of help with the latter from UTA, who we signed with back in December. The team is everything, and we feel very fortunate to be where we are right now.
So where are we? That was really the point of this blog post. Despite some misplaced energy (understandable), some financial pressures (expected), and some road bumps (unexpected), it seems to me like the choices we have made have been the right ones. What's interesting is that to reach a certain point you have to work like you have never worked before, until you push yourself so hard that you find out you can do things you never thought you were capable of. And once you get to that point, the "foot in the door" so-to-speak, you have to forget about everything you have accomplished and re-double your efforts to continue moving forward.
It's that re-doubling of your efforts when you're already at the brink of exhaustion that can really knock the shit out of you if you're not ready for it. That's where you find out if you can really persevere, where you really get to know who you are and where your limits are. The trick is just to stay focused. It's very easy to let things start unraveling and allow all that work go to waste. Maintain your perspective on things. Once you realize that life will go on and the sun will rise the next day no matter what happens, it's much easier to see things for what they are. That, to me, is the very definition of focus.
For a few days over the past week I think I lost focus, but today is a new day and I feel like the ship is pointing in the right direction. You work on building that ship until it is strong enough to withstand any manner of rough seas, and sometimes it just takes a little more time in dry dock than you want. You know, in re-reading that last sentence, I think George Carlin said it best when he wrote, "People who speak in metaphors should shampoo my crotch."
See? Focus.
Veracifier is a political videoblog I wish I had the experience and knowledge to create myself. I wanted to give it a few weeks to see where it goes, and it just keeps getting better and better.
Josh Marshall from Talking Points Memo has joined up with Next New Networks to put out a daily show that breaks down the statements of politicians in the media, shows the sources they are using in their statements, and offers commentary based on an independent assessment of the actual resource.
From the blog associated with the show:
TPM Media are a new kind of journalist outfit; the kind that wears its independence on its sleeve and has an army of thousands of readers and contributors helping them get to the root of a story. Over the past months, for instance, TPM doggedly pursued and published information on the US Attorney scandals, and simply put, owned the story, as admitted by no less than the LA Times.
Josh Marshall is a real person offering straight commentary. To me, shows like Veracifier are the future of political commentary. I'm so sick of tv pundits that I tune out immediately. This is something I've been waiting for. Wth the presidential election getting into full swing this summer, it's a very refreshing new resource.
Veracifier also shows Alive in Baghdad:Uncut on Fridays. From their blog:
When we began looking for unique perspectives to be part of the programming here on Veracifier, Brian Conley and the Alive in Baghdad team were the first people we called. We've been avidly following their work since we first came across them last year, and when we began to hear some of the stories about how some of their reports were made, it seemed that there was a rich vein for a project together.
If you haven't seen it, Alive in Baghdad is simply one of the finest examples of progressive media on the Internet. It's a weekly videoblog produced by a team of Americans and Iraqi correspondents on the ground which brings testimonies from individual Iraqis and footage of daily life in Iraq.
The Veracifier site is still working out some kinks, but the show itself is way above par. Check it out.
Important links in this blog post:
Veracifier
Talking Points Memo
Alive in Baghdad
Disclosure: JETSET has a licensing and distribution partnership with Next New Networks.
