It's amazing to find friends who i've known in their former lives re-emerging as leaders in the nascent web-video world.

I had lunch last week with Dina Kaplan, who i worked with back in the day at MTV UNfiltered. Dina was even then a passionate advocate for the voices of people with a story they wanted to tell. As we talked about those early days, Dina reminded me of a few of the stories she'd done... and one by one the memories came flooding back. In each case, they were stories that came from people who'd had their lives changed by really difficult events. And it was clear sitting hear that those stories had stuck in my mind... and had an impact on how i see the world and in one case how i think about my kids.

That's a pretty big deal -given how much media i've made and consumed in my life that i can't remember, or that hasn't had an impact on me. UNfiltered, for those of you who haven't seen it - was a wildly early attempt to create viewer video (or now UGV as we call it). And Dina was a producer on the series on MTV. You can see it HERE.

The story that both Dina and I remembered most dramatically was this one, a story about a young man that committed suicide at age 15.

The story was called in to our #800 (remember those?) and a young girl asked to tell her story, and tell of her best friend who committed suicide. It was a scary story for MTV, since teen suicide is such an emotionally explosive story. Then there was the issue of just what kinds of pictures she could find - given that this was a story that had already happened. What could she film? Well, as you can see.. she found a lot. Home video. Interviews with friends. Family pictures.

What she didn't do was tell us "Why." For conventional media, this would have been a major no-no. But for UNfiltered, it was part of what we believed in. People should tell their stories, with their voice, and tell the parts of the story that they felt comfortable telling. "Why" wasn't answerable. The story was about how badly sean had hurt his friends, and how angry they were.

It was heartbreaking. It still is.

Dina - after a stint in the news business - is one of the founders of Blip.TV. It's mission is impressive. And the deals that they're doing are equally so. Video Blogging is the driving force behind whole generation of new storytellers. And Dina and her partners are a critical part of that future.

Sitting there - and knowing that UNfiltered was part of the spirit of the Exploding of television... I couldn't' t help but think that it was sure about time that old media made way for new. Bravo Blip!