Thanks, Mark. You were there - was I over the top? Was he a bit too self promotional or was it me?
Ryan Born
· 6 months ago
OMG - I hope you actually used the BS word...I think sometimes people want something to be true so badly that they believe it's actually a fact and speak to others are if it's so...I wasn't there, but if you caused drama - all the better. Regardless of who is right a who is wrong, a little drama between adults is certainly acceptable and it likely made the discussion more memorable for those in the audience.
marksuster
· 6 months ago
Drama it was, believe me. I think he had never had bullshit called on him before.
dave mcclure
· 5 months ago
word.
rob leathern
· 5 months ago
Shutting down self-promoters and keeping the discussion fresh and interesting is what the moderator is meant to do... But sometimes their job is complicated by inappropriately matched panelists. The only other bs tho is not saying who this person is :)
marksuster
· 5 months ago
LOL. You made me laugh. Here's the link to who was on the panel. The speaker is a person was a professor at UCLA. I'll let you do the rest ;-) http://bit.ly/yXqLt btw, totally agree it is the moderators job - often they don't step in.
the other panelist
· 5 months ago
Mark, your tips above are great-- they should be mandatory for all panels I attend... I should use them myself. (Yes, I was too promotional of Babelgum, I was trying to make up for the fact that I didn't give them proper credit when I showed their clip. My bad.)
And now just to continue the controversy, can I suggest you add this tip to the above?
"Don't check your blackberry every second you're not speaking."
If you hadn't been checking yours so voraciously, you might have heard what I actually said-- which was that the future might be good for PROFESSIONAL web content makers like The Guild, Gemini Project, The Onion, etc. I NEVER ONCE said that about UGC. I did say I thought UGC wouldn't just die, but that's because it's now part of our global culture, not b/c it's Oscar material.
You also got my 2 points wrong above. First, if Google somehow didn't put ads around the Susan Boyle clip, then maybe that's a human error? (How could they not be doing so with Idol and Got Talent content? Seems obvious, right?) But even if you exclude that screw up, then I would say that the Idol/Got Talent franchises received WAY more than a million dollars worth of advertising from that clip. And it was advertising that a giant swath of the population embraced. Not just Avril Lavigne teens, but every demo!
Finally, I never said UGC was in any way better than Real Housewives. I said Professional Content was usually better-- higher quality-- and that it was a great alternative to that crap. TV has polarized into crap reality and expensive dramas, leaving room for Professional producers to score on the web and mobile with Professional comedy content. As you saw from the 150 people who laughed and smiled at the film I showed, people do like to laugh, and there is and always will be emotional, cultural and financial value in that.
marksuster
· 3 months ago
Fair play. I appreciate your comments and your willingness to write them here. Just for the record, I had my Blackberry connection set to "off". I didn't have pen and paper so I wrote my notes on my Blackberry and updated them as people spoke. I appreciate that this doesn't look good but there wasn't any pens/paper and the moderator had told me that the panel was to be about mobile application so I was surprised to find out that it was about online video. Thus I took last minute notes on my Blackberry.
With regards to your film, I thought it was awesome. I even went back and recommended to to my colleagues who went to your site and watched it. The bummer I think is that great short films like this still struggle to make money online. Your advice to the group was "keep your expenses down". While I agree that this is right, it doesn't help when 80% of your expenses are salaries and you end up working for 5 years with low pay. The only answer in my mind is to find alternative business models for distributing content and charging for it. That's why I really like what Topspin Media is doing for musicians. And why I like to see some online video firms like CrunchyRoll, ViiKii and Justin.TV increasingly looking to charge subscription revenues.
Regarding who said what exactly and how and what we meant - I'm happy to bury the hatchet. I had a bit of fun on the panel and my biggest points to readers is that panels should be 1) non promotional 2) honest 3) educational and 4) fun / controversial. I think we gave the audience that. Thanks again for your comments.
All Comments
And now just to continue the controversy, can I suggest you add this tip to the above?
"Don't check your blackberry every second you're not speaking."
If you hadn't been checking yours so voraciously, you might have heard what I actually said-- which was that the future might be good for PROFESSIONAL web content makers like The Guild, Gemini Project, The Onion, etc. I NEVER ONCE said that about UGC. I did say I thought UGC wouldn't just die, but that's because it's now part of our global culture, not b/c it's Oscar material.
You also got my 2 points wrong above. First, if Google somehow didn't put ads around the Susan Boyle clip, then maybe that's a human error? (How could they not be doing so with Idol and Got Talent content? Seems obvious, right?) But even if you exclude that screw up, then I would say that the Idol/Got Talent franchises received WAY more than a million dollars worth of advertising from that clip. And it was advertising that a giant swath of the population embraced. Not just Avril Lavigne teens, but every demo!
Finally, I never said UGC was in any way better than Real Housewives. I said Professional Content was usually better-- higher quality-- and that it was a great alternative to that crap. TV has polarized into crap reality and expensive dramas, leaving room for Professional producers to score on the web and mobile with Professional comedy content. As you saw from the 150 people who laughed and smiled at the film I showed, people do like to laugh, and there is and always will be emotional, cultural and financial value in that.
With regards to your film, I thought it was awesome. I even went back and recommended to to my colleagues who went to your site and watched it. The bummer I think is that great short films like this still struggle to make money online. Your advice to the group was "keep your expenses down". While I agree that this is right, it doesn't help when 80% of your expenses are salaries and you end up working for 5 years with low pay. The only answer in my mind is to find alternative business models for distributing content and charging for it. That's why I really like what Topspin Media is doing for musicians. And why I like to see some online video firms like CrunchyRoll, ViiKii and Justin.TV increasingly looking to charge subscription revenues.
Regarding who said what exactly and how and what we meant - I'm happy to bury the hatchet. I had a bit of fun on the panel and my biggest points to readers is that panels should be 1) non promotional 2) honest 3) educational and 4) fun / controversial. I think we gave the audience that. Thanks again for your comments.