Chuck Olsen said:

My friend Aaron complained it was content he'd already seen on bb. (I've heard the same complaint about Rocketboom.)

I think the content is great, but then again I don't keep up with bb every day. It's fun to see some of this stuff in video - like the lobotomy billboard with crazy phone messages. It's also uncensored, so you can't exactly say they're selling out.

But the delivery? Yes, completely watered down. It feels like an airplane show. Somewhere I heard they worked 9 months on this. Say what? A lot of vloggers would look at bbTV and think, "I can do that in a weekend."

Zadi said:

I hope it gets better as well. With such great people at the helm, I was expecting something more innovative. I love Xeni and Mark so it's very unexpected. Is it the direction they're being given?

Also kinda weird that no one is saying anything about it. It needs to be better! Not sure about Deca's knowledge of online entertainment. Seems like they are missing the mark in an integral way -- or whoever they hired...

Steve Woolf said:

I don't really understand why you need an outside production company for this kind of show. I was expecting some really innovative stylistic elements to complement the content.

Chuck Olsen said:

I do wonder if they're playing it safe to get cozy with more mainstream distribution, e.g. Virgin America, etc.

Steve Woolf said:

If that's the case, it's weird that they would try and alienate their core audience that way. Also, the Boing Boing brand is all about being "wonderous" as they have in their tagline. There's nothing wonderous about a talking head in front of a green screen. :( Now, if it was a floating head in front of a green screen, we might be on the right track! ;)

Rick Rey said:

Yep, you pretty much hit the nail on the head.

It's about as far away from the spirit of Boing Boing as Sesame Street. Actually I think Bert and Ernie would deliver the content more enthusiastically. That said, I think the BB team are capable of great things in the online video space... but not like this. It's a public access version of Dateline. Come on guys... this is freakin Boing Boing!! Did you stop having fun over there?

One last observation. What a huge slap in the face to the DECA investors. $5 million in funding. Ouch.

Rick Rey said:

I disagree about this being a safe choice. A safe choice would have been hiring experienced hosts. It would have been shooting in a real studio. It would have been channeling VH1's vibe instead of Nightline. I don't know what they were thinking here.

Bill Cammack said:

I don't have the positive bias of ever reading boing boing other than when someone's posted a link to it in the videoblogging group or on twitter.

I watched the episode on day 1, specifically for that reason. People were excited and twittering that boing boing started a show. It was tough to watch. Extremely boring. My impression was that since these were text bloggers attempting to do a daily show, they were going to do it as bare-bones as possible. I'm only reading today that they have actual funding for this show, and backing from DECA, which I had never heard of until this thread.

I'm also surprised to hear that this might have taken months to figure out. This is essentially a radio program with pictures overlaid as b-roll. They could take out the talking-head video entirely, because it does nothing to add to the value of the program. There's nothing entertaining or endearing about the delivery, which I can understand because boing boing already has their fans all over the world. People will tune in to see text bloggers TALK about what they would otherwise read on their own from the blog. This isn't always a good idea because when site visitors have to read something themselves, they add their own context or inflection to the writing that makes a text blog more interesting to them than, say, an e-book. This is also why you want to hire on-air talent instead of just letting anybody (including the actual authors) be the talking head... A talking head, mind you, for some odd reason greenscreened when there's no purpose to it. There's no point to seeing swirls behind a talking head instead of a blank white wall or cubicle background perhaps. You want to greenscreen when you're actually going to insert content after the fact, such as moving video in a box over the talent's shoulder, which I haven't seen them do in my fast-forwarding experience of the show.

After reading this post and the comments, I skimmed the latest two episodes, which are exactly the same format as the first episode I watched. I would agree with Chuck that they're playing it safe so the show will be more widely accepted. I also agree with Steve that they're alienating their core audience, because their CONTENT is web-related while their FORMAT is non-web-related. You can't even call it Dateline, because that show has the talent walking while talking and uses camera moves and actual backgrounds. It's a strange combination because it's boring enough to get shown, but the people who would be interested in something so boring wouldn't be interested in their niche content.

Suddenly, I'm wondering what happened to Technorati Buzz TV.

We also have to consider that this isn't boing boing's primary function, video. It seems to be lowest common denominator between effort and speed of production. The "script" is basically commentary, which is what I assume boing boing does in the first place, in text, so there's no time spent on scripting. There's no time spent on shooting. Just sit in front of the greenscreen and talk, maybe to a teleprompter. There's no time spent on post, add the swirls behind the on-air talent (for no reason) and animate the images if you need to. I'm not down or negative about the show. I'm saying that as someone that isn't positively biased by boing boing's track record of internet excellence, every single show that I could name which comes from (largely) unfunded producers or teams is done better, more interestingly and more creatively than this show.

Basically, what this appears to be is using video as a medium to deliver a text blog.

Phil Campbell said:

I'm doing a show today at 4:30GMT (8th october) if you are around, i'd love to have you on for your opinions on this steve as i have mine too regarding it which are quite different. So i expect it to be a good conversation! - hope you can be there.

http://operator11.com/shows/4557/episodes/24763

Actually all invited. :)

Mark Schoneveld said:

BoringBoringTV is what I was thinking. Man, what a let down. And I'm a fanatical daily reader of their blog. Rehashing information on video that you've already written about doesn't make a lot of sense. Why watch? Skimming a text blog is SO much faster, and I can skip the stuff I'm not into. I sure hope they can get it together.

Also, I have to say I'm a bit skeptical about this whole Virgin Airlines crap they seem to be shilling. When they named the airplane a few months ago, they went on and on about how awesome Virgin is and how no, they weren't getting paid by Virgin in any way. Sure. I believe you. Whatev.

jay dedman said:

yeah....this had to be said: BoingBoingTV is pretty boring so far.
I think the blame lays on Deca.
I bet they simply made it too big a deal...and so created a pretty safe format.

All this being said:
--every show needs time to breath and read criticism so they can evolve.
--i don't know what a good BoingBoing TV format would look like. I like skimming the text posts. As others have said, why would i want to see someone read it? maybe if they had the readers actually explain each post since many posts come from the audience? (skype voice over images)

By the way, weren't they doing something with Rocketboom last year?

BIll Streeter said:

DITTO. I love BB, but BBTV just repurposing their blog content as video in a Headline News style format. Not very interesting. I would like to see some more in depth reporting on some of the things they cover on BB.

That said, I'm sure it will be very successful. People who don't read BB or even know what it is will probably love it. It's hard for people (like me) who are long time fans of BB to see this. Imagine if you are on a Virgin flight and aren't a regular blog reader, and don't know BB from Techcrunch because you've never heard of either, BB TV would probably blow your mind. I think that’s the audience they're going for, and in the end it will likely build an even greater readership for the blog.

Aaron said:

In the context of the Virgin Airlines deal it all makes sense. BBTV is better than Mona Lisa Smile or Failure to Launch if you're stuck on a plane with nothing to do, but as video for the web it fails to live up to BB's reputation as being on the forefront of the web (not sure what that means but i said it). Any suggestions I might have to make their web show better would probably make for an unsuccessful airline entertainment.

They are safely cashing in their chips and are not interested in pushing the envelope. It's a shame, but to each his own I guess.

Rick Rey said:

I wanted to chime in on a couple of points in the comments.

First, so what if you can read the blog posts faster than watching the show? I don't think that's a fair criticism of the show. I can skim through a script faster than watching a film. It's about the experience. Besides, the only reason you're saying that in the first place is because the show failed to engage you. That's really the underlying problem here.

Second, I don't think the Virgin Air partnership is a big deal. I doubt DECA was thinking about Virgin when they put this show together. It doesn't make sense, in terms of audience, revenue, etc. Keep in mind that both Boing Boing and Virgin had a lot to gain from the deal -- and I'm not talking about money. Virgin is looking for attention in the blogosphere (as usual), and what better way than to license the video content of one of the top blogs? I'm sure they snagged it on the cheap, too. BB needed to announce a deal like this so they could demonstrate a successful launch.

Virgin is a drop in the bucket. My guess is DECA and BB have their sights set on mainstream forces -- not the occasional licensing deal here and there. They want a TV deal.

Bill Cammack said:

In response to Phil Campbell's show segment where he speaks about this topic => http://operator11.com/shows/4557/episodes/24763 (time, between -22:00 and -15:30)

I see what you're saying as far as not judging content harshly because people who want to make something may become afraid of being judged themselves. However... There are people (and I'm not one of them) working very hard to establish themselves at bringing what they consider to be quality programming to "internet shows". For them to do everything that they do and not be funded, and then for another group to become funded and then do way less with that opportunity is at the *very* least a disappointment. To not say so would practically be to endorse said show as "this is how it should be done". That would set a poor example about the abilities of groups that do internet video. That would say to investors "If you pay money to have a show done on the internet, *this* is what it should look like".

It's not the content that's being criticized... It's the content in the context of the circumstance of the group doing the show being well respected for the text content and supposedly funded by a group that's good at doing videos. You can't get a better combination than that, and the current format of boing boing tv is the result. This doesn't have anything to do with discouraging Joe Average from doing his own show with his iSight from his cubicle. He doesn't have material. He doesn't have funding. He's not expected to be good in either aspect. His content will be treated differently inside "the echo chamber". He'll be cheered on and supported whether his show is 'good' or not. The point is that he's *communicating*, not 'entertaining'. The same would have been true if someone from boing boing had decided to make their own personal video blog based on content from their columns. There would have been no expectation of it being 'good', because of the context and parameters of it being, essentially, a side project.

You have a good point that looking at boing boing as a site doesn't mean they're going to be good at doing video. That's why you hire a production team. That's why you hire writers or on-air talent. That's why you have auditions. If you choose to skip all that, you get what you get and people have to say about it what people have to say about it. Also, we don't know if they specifically packaged it like this so that it would be more palatable for people sitting on airline flights that might not watch internet video at all. If we were to act as if we thought boing boing tv in its current state was actually entertaining vs just going to the site and reading it the way people already love to use the site, that would actually be a disservice to them, because there would only be positive comments, and no actual constructive criticism.

As far as elitist behavior, yes, that's something for us to be aware of and attempt to avoid, IMO. However, there *are* two different things going on in the space. There are the people who are communicating via internet video, and I'd say that's the vast, vast majority... and then there are people that are trying to push internet video up the hill onto a level playing field with television shows. When there's an opportunity for a well-respected web site to make their own show, the hope is that they're going to do something that raises the bar. We're TRYING to raise the bar so that people stop thinking of "internet video" as less marketable and literally worth less, monetarily, than television shows. If Joe Average had produced that show, we all would have said "Great show, Joe!", because he would have been applying himself to the best of his abilities, time-wise, content-wise, skill-wise and funding-wise.

As far as your mention of Nike... Nike has different departments. Just like you said, "the brand is different from the media". If you had the people designing the sneakers trying to be in the commercials, you'd get the exact same thing. Instead, they let the video people handle the televison, the radio people handle the radio, the web people handle the web, and the sneaker-makers keep making sneakers. The point is that everyone has to play their position, and in a situation where content, funding and production ability all come together, yes, there *is* an expectation of quality, and when that expectation isn't met... it's "disappointing".