--- In videoblogging@yahoogroups.com, Rupert <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > At dinner, there was the usual confusion from TV people about "What's > the point?" in reaching a few hundred or thousand people - surely it > was better to be able to reach a few million people like they did > with broadcast TV.
As it stands right now, there IS no point. Television exists because of advertisement. Advertisers pay because networks can quantify their ability to put their product in front of X-many eyes on Thursday night @ 8pm. On the internet, there's no telling who's going to see your ad, because the same ADD patients that clicked on the video in the first place might click on something else or thier back button before your post-roll ad comes up. Advertising on the internet is a shot in the dark, and television execs deal mostly in "sure things". > And in explaining it - explaining the connection, > the immediacy, I realised how much more satisfied I have been > producing videos - mostly those I made in 2005 rather than the odd > bits I've shoved up in the last few months - which reached a few > hundred or thousand people and which elicited responses and > connections with people - how much more satisfying that has been than > making the films I made that went out on Channel 4 in the UK and were > watched by 2 million people and had good reviews. I realised that, > explained it, and the penny really dropped for me - and more > dramatically for the TV people I was talking to - that making > something that's actively watched by just a few, with human contact > from even fewer who didn't have to contact to you but did - is more > satisfying than making something that's passively viewed by a > thousand times as many anonymous strangers. Not to advertisers, of > course, but to me as a creator. That's absolutely true, AFAIC. When I get a comment from my cousin that he didn't appreciate how many times I called his [podunk, back-woods-as-far-as-I'm-concerned] town "the sticks", I just love it. :D When a friend of mine emails me from Japan, saying that she watched our videos and enjoyed them and is glad to see what's going on in NYC, I love that too. It's totally a different thing than I got into this for. There really is something to be said for two-way communication via the internet. I met Bre via webcam on Jonny Goldstein's show <http://reinventingtv.phovi.com/2006/10/16/reinventing-television-episode-2-bre-pettis-full-size-window/>. Months later, I met him in person @ Drew's party, and I already had an established understanding of what it is that he does. The only difference was that I could actually shake his hand. I went to meet up with Casey & Rudy of Galacticast when they were in town, and Charles from blip was hanging out with them. I thought I had never heard of him before, but eventually, I realized I had seen a video that he had shot at breakfast with a friend. The difference is the opportunity for feedback and interaction. When you put something on television, there's no feedback at all. You make it, and it's sent out to whomever happened to be watching at the time or whomever set their DVR to catch your show. > That's something that's ILLOGICAL to > hard core MSM creatives and management, where the advertisers' > commercial goals have over time merged with their own good intentions > and creative goals - a survival necessity. It was unsettling for > them, grappling with the idea of not judging success by audience > numbers. I mean, I didn't really understand this satisfaction > 'illogicality' fully until just now, and I *do* it. At least now I > partly understand why I'm so excited about doing it. Instead of > thinking that maybe I'm crazy. And maybe now I'll let myself put up > more films. Ho hum. Audience numbers = success. The more audience you can prove, the more your time slot is worth and the more you can charge advertisers for a 30-second commercial. That's why Super Bowl commercials cost so much and why so much time and effort is dedicated to their creation. The number of people definitely tuned to that channel at that time on that day means the potential for big business to whomever buys that time. Everybody knows it, and since supply < demand, the prices keep rising. In a way, it all depends on what you're trying to do with your videoblog. Are you trying to make money, or are you trying to express yourself artistically or to people that know you and get something of personal value by watching your videos? -- Bill C. http://ReelSolid.TV http://blog.fastcompany.com/experts/directory.html
