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Alexander McCall-Smith Engages Web 2.0

The Daily Telegraph is in the middle of a 20-week serialisation of an online book created by author Alexander McCall-Smith, his first such project. New Media Knowledge caught up with the organisers to discuss ‘Corduroy Mansions’.

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Business Brief: Video Advertising Looks to Future

Google has announced it will incentivise advertisers on its video properties as well as launching research programmes into how Web users consume Internet video material. New Media Knowledge spoke to a number of industry players to gauge their views on where the video advertising market is going.

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‘Virtual Home’ for Ex-Pats in London Established

A social network aimed at providing information for ex-pats living in London has been established. New Media Knowledge met the site’s co-founder to find out more.

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The Revolution will be YouTubed

Ian Delaney reports on the insync event 'The Revolution will not be Televised: It will be YouTubed'. Four supporters of citizen TV and four very different ways to achieve it.

Ian Delaney reports on the insync event 'The Revolution will not be Televised: It will be YouTubed'. Four supporters of citizen TV and four very different ways to achieve it.

Iain Dale is programming director of 18 Doughty Street. In case you haven't caught up with Tory TV recently, it now broadcasts over the Internet for five hours a day, five days a week. Dale described their attitude on launching the station as very much - "stick it out there now and see what happens. We can make it better later." Ultimately, the founders couldn't find any political discussion on mainstream TV that did any more than scratch the surface of issues. The revelation came when the company's founder discovered an American Talk-TV channel at the bottom of the list of cable channels that consisted of two people talking, debating political topics... for a long time. Why do we put up with soundbites on TV in the UK, he wondered, with pre-scripted questions and responses? The channel has a centre-right stance, in Dale's estimation, but also includes such items as a regular programme from Gay Rights activist Peter Tatchell. They've recently started experimenting with 'attack ads' such as this, with an aim, Dale says, of raising the level of debate about political issues. Even if the level of debate is shallow and biased in the video, he admitted, the debate around the subject will rise through viewers' reactions. The channel plans 24-7 output as soon as possible, which might well include such items as 'World-Wide-Widdecombe'.

Emily Renshaw Smith has just helped launch Current.tv in the UK, and is in charge of viewer-created content. The channel works through a website onto which viewers can upload their own videos. Established by Al Gore in the US, the channel seeks to engage those young adults who are turned-off by traditional television. In the US, the average Fox News viewer is 60-years-old, she said. They wanted to democratise TV. Viewer-created videos are uploaded and the best of the week are shown on the TV station, which is part of the Sky offering. If that happens, then the film maker receives financial rewards. They're also inviting viewers to create advertisements for their sponsors. If those sponsors then use those adverts on the station, there's also a payout, which becomes considerable if the sponsors use them elsewhere.

David Dunkley Gyimah has worked in video journalism for years and runs viewmagazine.tv. [disclosure: David is also a University of Westminster colleague, working on the M.A. Journalism course]. Gyimah anticipates the arrival of something called the Outernet - community billboards that show content created by members of that community that can also be tuned into by viewers once they reach their home. He's also keen on the idea that video is soon going to become three-dimensional. Not in a virtual world sense. In the sense that you'll be able to drill down through videos to reveal web links, extra footage, alternative views. Microsoft and Google are already in a race to be the first to market with 'deep video' solutions [my coinage: dismiss it if you like, but you'll regret it later].

Andy Porter from Hi8us currently works with young adults in the East End to give them the skills to create and publish their television. The site he's working on at the moment, www.uksoundtv.com, trains young producers and pays them a sensible wage. Their main production and editing people are aged 21-22, and have been working for the channel since the age of 16, having dropped out of college. Working for the site is giving those individuals a head-start in the industry that simply isn't available elsewhere. It also gives them a means of controlling their representation, which, as Porter admitted, sounds very 80s, but remains an issue. The UK Sound project mainly revolves around grime music, a UK hip-hop genre evolving in the East and South of London. Porter reiterated the idea that young people are not interested in mainstream TV, yet they'll watch niche channels geared towards their interests all day long.

The key questions?

Money: None of these examples are monetised to a significant extent. 18 Doughty Street is running towards the end of its £1mn startup fund and is looking for sponsors. Current.tv in the UK was launched this Monday, with no sponsors or advertisers, though the idea of film makers making ads for sponsors could work. Viewmagazine hasn't got advertisers, despite winning several awards for its content. UK Sound has a European grant that runs out in the summer. Personally, I think that the first and last on this list ought to be especially interesting to brands wishing to reach those niches, and won't have a problem attracting sponsors. More generic products like Current are up against the mainstream until they establish an engaged demographic that brands can't reach through regular TV.

Democracy: One delegate asked whether such stations weren't murdering the democracy offered by free-for-all channels such as YouTube. That may be true, but given the presence of YouTube and equivalents, the first question should maybe be 'is there any point to what you do?' Towards that idea, another delegate asked whether these organisations shouldn't just filter and aggregate YouTube content to serve their own constituencies, rather than make it themselves.

Regulation: Web TV doesn't currently fall under Ofcom regulation. Good news for the publishers of such channels as the panellists agreed, of course. And, as Dale pointed out, Ofcom regulations are farcical in some respects. Not such good news, at the same time, for viewers, though. Our panellists were all representatives of thoroughly respectable operations, but once hardcorep0rnandviolence.tv arrives on the internet TV spectrum, which it surely will, if it isn't around already, then the urgency of that issue may well become stronger.