These weeks are full with amazing events. On Thursday, October 25th,  there is a local wordcamp, where I am participating the business blog panel, talking about social networks and your business, and then I am flying across the Atlantic to Boston.

On Sunday, October 28th, 1000 at room 204a,  I am doing a brainstorming session discussing Internet TV and its false promise, as discussed in this post. It is a part of Podcamp Boston. After participating in Podcamp Europe, I can tell you that it is an amazing experience.

Here is the promo:

Last but not least, on Monday, the 29th of October, I am hosting IMTC Forum on content delivery and unified communications. In the event I am also moderating a content creators panel with great speakers such as Kathryn Jones from "35", Grace Piper from Fearless Cooking, and Mark Pascarella from Gotuit Media.

Some Exciting days ahead - looking forward to see you. Feel free to email me at kpravda@gmail.com if you want to meet.

I've met Jim Long at VON in San Jose back in March, and really enjoyed talking with him.

He has a unique angle on the industry, as he works for the big guys while building his own act.

I've just came across his insightful post about the new breed of media creators:

"To create opportunity, I believe you have to think beyond the limits of the traditionally defined media roles of cameraman, producer, or talent. I think the emergence of the micro media mogul is emblematic of this shift, a shift that is blurring, if not erasing the line where media jobs fall above (executive and management) or below (crew and production staff). So as media workers begin to chart a new course in these re-defined roles, they are faced with a number of questions. Not the least of which is how much entrepreneurial fire do they have in their belly. Are you as passionate about the art of the deal as you are about the art of your media? Or do you prefer the comfort of steady paycheck?"

Jim took a shot at one of the most exciting things in the industry today. If you want to be a player in this new arena, you have to be able to think creatively, identify good content, have hands on approach to the production process, understand new technologies that affect your content distribution, think about advertisers when defining the content itself, use social media tools to promote it, have a business understanding in order not be ripped off, and, of course, have a lot of courage and drive to do it all in bootstrapping mode.

Challenging isn't it? Well, otherwise it wasn't any fun!

The only thing I didn't like in Jim's post is the name. We are not micro media moguls.We are the media entrepreneurs, building a new segment in the industry, that is disrupted by technology. As such, it creates opportunities for new players to capture a part of the market, because of the ability to create good content on the cheap and distribute it.

Yes, most of the shows we see today won't survive, and some will be acquired. But some will grow, expand their brand, and become a market player.

I hope that we will see more and more of those, instead of reading about shows that are bought by the big guys.

Technorati Tags: Business, Strategy, New Media, Indie, New Media Industry, Micro Media Mogul, Entrepreneurship

Some New Media creators think that everyone know about their world, read blogs, know who Michael Arrington is, and watch internet video shows.

At VON I had a lot of discussions with telecom guys from Voice over Net, and was astonished to see how many people in this field don’t trust blogs, don’t know what Technorati is, and think that TechCrunch is a new type of snack. These people are outside of what I call the “social media walls”. They are important to us because they are our main growth potential.

Two main concerns were raised again and again regarding blogs:

1. Blogs are not reliable as they are written by independent people. They don’t have any seal of approval, that traditional media has.
2. Blogs give way too much private information about their writers, in a way that reduces their value.

Both points have merit, and pose real challenge for bloggers. However, at least the first one derives from lack of knowledge, more than true understanding of the medium.

Yes, bloggers don’t have third party seal of approval. There is no editor that controls the information published, no degree in blogging like the one exists in journalism, and information flow is free in form. Actually, anyone can just start writing his blog and that’s it. No on can stop him from doing it.

What most people are missing is that the democratization of media outlets, the fact that everyone can voice their opinion, has stronger moderation tools than other media channels. In a way, this is a self governing mechanism.

If you write crappy blog, no one will read it. If you write stupid things, immediately you’ll get feedback via comments, amount of links to your blog, and sometimes head on attack by more prominent bloggers. This crowd-rating system is much more powerful than the regular moderated media. If you write crap in your newspaper, and have a lot of readers, it will take longer time for people call your bluff. Here, things are instantaneous – the minute you write something wrong or unethical, reactions start to flow, and readers can see your true motives.

The only problem with this post is that it is written in a blog, and supposed to be addressed to the people who don’t read them. So, I am going to email it to the people I met in VON, and some of my other contacts. You are welcome to do the same.

Also, I’d appreciate if you will write me other concerns you’ve heard about the reliability and importance of blogs, as well as the way you tackle them. If we can get a clear understanding of what prevents people from utilizing this amazing medium, we can create better tools to convince them to be more open to it. And if we do that, we advanced our industry a bit.

So, feel free to comment, add your thoughts and ideas and bash me in case of need. Looking forward to hear from you.

Another Kind of Wall

So, here it is - the complete link guide to the most interesting people I met in VON07 in N2 events (yes, it includes the lounge party, after party and the whole party thing), in no particular order:

Jim Long, founder of Verge New Media, NBC cameraman at day and entrepreneur at night.

Don Loeb, VP of Partner Services at FeedBurner, who gave a great presentation about the evolution of media distribution

Casey McKinnon, Galacticast executive producer, the group which made my favorite N2 submission of all.

E. Barlow Keener (didn’t know he has such a long name, everyone call him Barlow), my favorite MA lawyer, and a relentless networker who wants to do something with ads

Brian Conley, the guy behind Alive in Baghdad

Revital Westriech Reitzes, VP of Business Development of Payoneer, an Israeli who lives in the US, with the longest name I've ever heard for a business development person.

David Kowarsky, the guy with the cam, and the creator of Focus for N2

Mike Walsh, independent media and technology consultant from HK, who kept stealing my WiFi signal

Dovev Gouldstein, Founder of VooV, who has an extremely close relationship with Chris

Roxanne Darling, from Bare Feet Studios, that make Hawaii look even better

Hillel Scheinfeld, COO of Qoof, a user generated advertisement (usermercial) company , that tried to sell me a watch all the time

Christian Oxholm Zigler, CEO of Play Networks, who was a long way from home.

Justin Kownacki, the producer of Something To Be Desired, and a guy that finds a story in everything he sees

Karen Blanchette, ECC (Extreme Chick in Charge), the woman behind SkyDiveGirls, extreme sport show for women

Dina Kaplan, COO of Blip.TV, whom I wrote about already

Chaim Goldman, the guy behind IsraelHighTech.tv, and a full blown Zionist entrepreneur

Michael Bailey, President and CTO of Mobasoft, who was not in Kansas anymore, was kind enough to listen to a telecom panel, and didn't have a liver

Bart Amelinckx, (no, it is not a typo, this is his name, really), xSP relation manager at Belgacom, and a great drinking buddy

Chris O’brien, CEO of Motionbox, who presented some very interesting ideas in his panel re video mixing for dummies

Jeff, Chris

and one British embassy rep.

Thank you all for a great week – reflections coming soon…

BTW - if you are going to do the same, please tag it with N2 LinkORama...

VON ended yesterday , and after tons of parties, discussions, and panels, I am certainly more educated about the new media field.

One thing makes this event different from others. Chris Brogan, Network2.tv community developer was quite amazing in my opinion. In a way, he is the networking equivalent of the Energizer Bunny. The guy was always nice and smiling, and gave me the feeling that he is constantly thinking who should I meet. He has introduced me to a bunch of guys that without his pro-activity, no chance I would have met. Considering the fact that this multi-day event also included a lot of parties, it seems like sleep was no more than a concept for him. The same goes for Carl Ford on the Voice on the Net side, that introduced me to many valuable contacts in informal gatherings.

So, when you think about whether to come or not to go to VON:

1. Don't just look at the exhibitors and decide based on that -VON is a great place to meet and interact, much better than most of the shows I know.

2. Don't forget to say hello to Chris and Carl.

Chris Brogan at Spring Video On The Net 2007

Uri Shenar, the guy behind Aniboom, and ex big media exec in the Israeli industry, gave a great presentation at VON about new media trends. He presented the concept that that internet would get TV to the right size and influence it supposed to have, just as Radio focused on talk shows and music instead of drama and sitcom, when television came to life.

In my opinion the fact that indie content creators can distribute content everywhere, on every device, in every business model gives this community a lot of power. Big media has to work slowly and carefully due to fear of cannibalization. The little guys don't have anything to cannibalize, so they can run faster. As this process continues, TV main strength will remain mainly in events - American Idol, Soccer finals etc.

An interesting twist is that Uri is planning a live internet event called Aniboom Eyedoll (you can understand the concept from the name). As he is the one who pushed event television in Israeli traditional media, this experiment is extremely interesting.

More to come...

Let's try some live blogging. I am at Jeff Jarvis industry perspective.

Here are the highlights:

1. We are networks - we have channels, we have shows, we have series. we don't have money but not expenses. We are TV - and we just began. We are 1954 in TV - TV sucked then, we suck now, but we will get better cause we can't get worse.
2. The advertisers give up - they loose and so are we. Our real friends have hard time in finding us. There is no longer one definition of good. The definition of big changes - blockbuster is dead. The top 100 shows are still very small.
3. It's about conversation - the most watched list is meaningless, size doesn't matter - but quality does.
4. We can do things right, and define what is right.
5. What should we do? Our roughness is good. We don't want to be old TV- let's hope we don't become one. we shouldn't have orthodoxy.
6. We will distribute our content in various outlets. The viewers are not going to come to us. We have to go to them.
7. Viacom legal action is stupid. YouTube gives recommendation on Viacom shows - why kill it?
8. Old media is about control. We need to understand how we can work without control and still get money.
9. We can work with the big guys, by cooperation. Viral is great but hard, but the good stuff are the series, that build audience over time.
10. Money - I am not getting any money. We are not ready for advertisers.

What do we need?

1. Measurements - Metrics is sex. In a distributed world it is harder than usual. we need context - we need a unique identifier to every video item we distribute.
2. We need to experiment on ads
3. We need to serve ads across platforms
4. Trust and identity of our content across networks
5. Help the advertisers and viewers to get in touch with us
6. How to find good content?
7. Relationships - big old TV won't die and is not the enemy. they give infrastructure, we can teach them how to be smarter. CBS is doing great as they use Youtube, unlike Viacom
8. Protection against regulation - this is not content, this is conversation. we need to fight to keep TV ours.
9. Creativity - we will make better stuff...

This guy is very energetic, and knows how wake up the crowd. Read more at his blog.

Jonathan Askin, general Counsel (and Wartime Consiglieri) at Pulver.com, announced yesterday on the creation of the Video On The Net Alliance, a global consortium of video content creators and application providers aimed at keeping this new industry free from government regulation.

As you all know, Jeff Pulver has a long history in VoIP politics, and it seems like he is trying to achieve the same goals in the new video industry . You can find more information here.

Yesterday was the first day of VON, here in San Jose. I spent most of my time at the New Video Summit, discussing the new media world. Most panels were insightful and engaging. Panels were led by Om Malik and Rafat Ali, among others.

If we want to summarize the event in one clear statement here it is:

No one has a clue what will happen in this field.

Here are some of the highlights:

1. Content discovery is the number one problem for video creators and aggregators. Channels is one way to tackle it, and everybody are looking for technology to create them easily.

2. Advertisers are not embracing the new medium yet, though sponsorships are starting to flow, especially on blip.tv (or at least their impressive COO, Dina Kaplan, was the most vocal about it). Targeted ads is what everyone is looking for, but no one knows how to do it.

3. Most panelists stated that You Tube - Viacom dispute would not change the industry, but eventually create new rules of engagement between traditional and new media companies. The general consensus was that "the future is here" and these disputes would not destroy this young industry.

4. Not surprisingly, all site owners support net neutrality. At the same time most panelists agree that Quality of Service is important for industry growth. I wonder how these two views co-exist.

5. In Rafat Ali's panel, two interesting assumptions were made: one is that it will take 3 years to this industry to pick up and bring economic value to its players, and it will mature in 5 years. So, my dear readers , we have a lot of work to do....

6. In the same panel, most panelists stated that Google would find a way to monetize this new medium for local advertisers, and by doing so mature the market. When I sat behind Jeff Jarvis, it seemed like he agreed with them...

More to come....