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What’s on Web TV? | csmonitor.com

What’s on Web TV? | csmonitor.com.

What’s on Web TV? In just five years the genre has already begun to transform the way we tell stories. By Gloria Goodale | Staff Writer for The Christian Science Monitor/ April 20, 2009 

Hollywood, Calif. The scene outside the first Streamys – a new awards show for the best in original, episodic Web TV – a few weeks ago was a muddle, with a clogged red carpet and confusing entrances. Inside was little better, with overamplified and indistinct sound. But these ragtag production values belie a message being heard around this company town: serialized, high-quality video – longer than five minutes – is exploding across the “digisphere.” More important, perhaps, the movement is ushering in new story forms and techniques – shorter and more collaborative.

“It’s a paradigm shift,” says Chad Cooper, vice president of marketing, sales, and content at OVGuide, the online video search engine. Television network executives underestimated this market, he adds. “It’s still early but it’s happening faster than anyone expected.” An Internet analyst, the Diffusion Group, predicts the serialized, longer form will account for nearly 70 percent of ad sales by 2013.

Of course, network TV is now streaming on sites such as hulu.com, TV.com and Joost.com. But the original, direct-to-the-Internet creations – beyond laughing babies and pet tricks – are, if not exactly coming of age, then reaching an important plateau of early adolescence. In slightly more than a year, websites with original “webisodic” material have grown from under two dozen to more than 100, according to OVGuide.

A market that didn’t exist five years ago is becoming a serious Hollywood player. “It’s what’s next,” says Richard Shore, head of content acquisition and production at digital studio RedLever. A film and TV veteran, Mr. Shore says he jumped into the new business because the new story techniques with faster character development and real-time fan feedback “excited” him.

The distinction between old and new storytelling modes will begin to fade as early as year’s end, he adds, when the first wave of Internet-enabled TV sets begins to roll out. This convergence, he says, will produce a single, much-expanded entertainment environment – all fueled by technology – better broadband connections, high-powered cellphones, and cheaper cameras and editing tools. But also in no small part by a bevy of professional writers who got a taste of the possibilities for episodic Web storytelling during the bitter 2007-08 writers’ strike.

Study shows viewers develop relationship with TV characters - Lifeline

Study shows viewers develop relationship with TV characters - Lifeline.

Study shows viewers develop relationship with TV characters By: Joe Borlik Issue date: 4/22/09 Section: Lifeline

If you watch a TV show enough, it may feel like the characters on the show are your real friends. The Journal of Broadcasting and Public Media conducted a study on parasocial relationships that determined for some people, it's not uncommon to feel as though a real friendship has ended when a Television show goes off the air.

Jeffrey Weinstock, professor of English who teaches ENG 324: Popular Culture in America, said the most intense relationships between viewers and characters are created by genre programs such as science fiction, fantasy or horror. "People talk about these programs online and they feel like they were made for them," he said. "I was sad to see Twin Peaks go, I still feel like I have a relationship with the characters."

 Weinstock said he can understand having a relationship with TV characters because people become invested in the characters they watch. He said it is easier to develop relationships with characters on dramas or sitcoms because it is easy to relate with them. "I watch a lot of 'South Park,' but I don't have a relationship with any of the characters because 'South Park' doesn't try to represent itself as the real world," he said.

Watch PBS online? You can if you visit its new video portal - Los Angeles Times

Watch PBS online? You can if you visit its new video portal - Los Angeles Times.

Watch PBS online? You can if you visit its new video portal In allowing viewers to stream an array of its best-known shows, PBS is joining on-demand video sites like Hulu.com and YouTube -- places for younger consumers who aren't wedded to watching TV on a TV. By David Sarno April 22, 2009

The Public Broadcasting Service turns 40 this year, and on Tuesday it gave itself a gift that just might make it feel young again. PBS' new video portal allows online viewers to stream an array of its best-known shows over the Web.

The new site gathers more than 130 episodes of nearly 20 programs, including marquee fare such as "Frontline," "Nova" and "Masterpiece Theater." PBS says thousands of hours of programming should be available to users by the summer. In giving its shows away online, PBS is joining on-demand video sites such as Hulu.com and YouTube -- places for younger consumers who aren't wedded to watching TV on a television. Those two sites, both commercial, have been touting themselves as advertiser-friendly viewing destinations where video surfers can go to browse among a variety of familiar titles. But on these sites, familiar can mean that you saw it decades earlier.

Major media companies are still wary of posting their best material online, leaving YouTube and Hulu thin on the most popular shows but overgrown with cultural castoffs such as "The Lone Ranger," "Alf" and "Coolio's Rules." PBS' initial selection of about 20 programs is small compared with the pulpy catalogs maintained by the other sites, but full-length episodes of nearly every show in PBS' prime-time lineup have been put online. In addition to acting as a clearinghouse for PBS content, the portal will function as the hub of a nationwide network of online affiliates, all of which can share programming through a single Web infrastructure, whose cost PBS would specify only as "in the seven figures."

 "I think this is really good of PBS," said Jackie Kain, senior vice president of new media at Los Angeles' KCET public television station. "We're all trying to create a local identity as it relates to a national identity," she said, referring to the way each station will create a unique mixture of original and borrowed content. "We're all part of a system."

Future Tense: Engaging kids with social media

For the podcast: Future Tense: Engaging kids with social media.

Engaging kids with social media MP3 - iTunes Minneapolis' Roosevelt High School teacher Delainia Haug has tapped the power of digital media to create a learning community -- called DigME -- in her school. Using a variety of digital media, students are studying and producing content across four separate subjects.

I know the idea of a digital carrot-and-stick to motivate students is not necessarily new. But what Cynthia Lewis at the University of Minnesota's College of Education and Human Development notes is that many students in this generation -- who we think are entirely comfortable with digital media -- often have few skills that they'll need, especially in college. In fact, this program seems to be showing the students that they can go to college.

It's unclear what the impact of a digital media program is on increased student achievement; this is the first year of the program and there were no plans -- this year -- to study the effect on progress. But Lewis keeps an eye on what the kids are up to and if the fact they're updating their wiki pages late into the evening is any indication, motivation will translate into success.