I'm not sure what is more intestesting, that MTV is doing this, or response of Mike Slocombe to the announcement.

From Digital Lifestyles-->

MTV Starzine: Driven By User-Generated Content
Mike Slocombe / 29 July 05

MTV is in the mood to get all interactive with its audience with the launch of MTV: starzine, a new online magazine designed to give "music wannabies the opportunity to realise their dreams of becoming an MTV star."

In a cunning work-avoidance exercise, the editors of the site are letting contributors create and design their own pages.

Wannabe webmeisters are invited to knock out their own layout, shovel in some draft copy and slap on some photographs to create their own page in the mag.

In another cunning ploy to keep users coming back for more, users will earn points for interacting with the magazine and the more material they shunt online and the bigger the audience, the more points they amass.

Sadly, points don't mean prizes here - instead, users with bagfuls of points will be rewarded by having their page pushed closer to the front of the magazine.
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For as many years as i've been doing this - it's always a shock when you find you've been nominated for an award. And when it's an Emmy nomination...with heavy weight competition, it's all the more humbling. Executive Producing a feature doc is never simple (what's that old line about not seeing how sausages are made) but this film was complex in a myriad of ways. Among them - the topic, which demanded a treatment that was both honest and engaging. Peter Gilbert was able to deliver on both of those counts. Our partners at The Discovery Channel committed 100%... and did everything in their power to make this a film that would be important for historians and students for years to come. If you haven't seen it, you should. There is a lot about Brown vs. Board of Education that i didn't know... and this film brings a new generation into this important moment in US History. Now - all we need to do is beat HBO and American Experience, and we'll have an Emmy to add the the mantle. Argh. How does that go... "it's an honor to be nominated." True enough, but... :)

CATAGORY: Exceptional Merit In Nonfiction Filmmaking
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With All Deliberate Speed • Discovery Channel •
CameraPlanet Inc. for Discovery Channel

Steve Rosenbaum, Executive Producer
Don Baer, Executive Producer
Peter Gilbert, Produced by

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American Undercover: Last Letters Home • HBO • The
New York Times, HBO Original Programming, The
Couturie Company in association with LIFE Books

John Hoffman, Executive Producer
Sheila Nevins, Executive Producer
Jane Bornemeier, Executive Producer
Bill Couturie, Produced by
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Death In Gaza • HBO • HBO Documentaries

Sheila Nevins, Executive Producer
Nancy Abraham, Supervising Producer
James Miller, Producer
Saira Shah, Producer

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Guerrilla: The Taking Of Patty Hearst (American
Experience) • PBS • American Experience

Mark Samels, Executive Producer
Nick Fraser, Executive Producer
Robert Stone, Producer

With the official launch of Current TV less than a week away, the press is gearing up to take a look at the new network. The New York Times has a big piece in todays paper..

There are lots of reasons to watch, and more than a few potential pieces of evolution that could be worthwhile. First and foremost, this is the first major new non-fiction network launched in a decade (Oxygen was the last). Lot's has changed in the world in terms of technology, tools, connectivity, and the engagement of the audience. The second thing is that Gore has been a very passionate advocate for user content - kindly crediting UnFiltered as central to the vision of a consumer based content network. The issues and challenges of engaging consumer content have been discussed in this space in the past, but Current has a unique set of challenges, among them the simple fact that Al Gore's participation generates a huge amount of anticipation for the network (a lots of conservatives who will look to every piece of programming as some sort of secret code from the democrats). Gore has said publicly, that this is not a political network, and i believe him. But as the former Democratic Vice President of the United States - the network will have to work hard to convince people of varying political perspectives.

The bottom line is that Current TV will make user-content mainstream, and that's an important step for the evolution of media.

This was 'live music week' as part of our NYC city summer.

First - Tuesday, 7/19 ELVIS.

Central Park Summerstage was ninty-plus degrees. The crowd was huge. And Elvis was his dynamic, diverse, amazing self. A great show (and a great gift from my family to me as a birthday present).

I've been to a number of his shows, and he always has a way of mixing in new stuff, some old favorites, and a few country tunes from Almost Blue or his other non-rock excursions. His guest on this tour was EmmyLou Harris - so there was a good deal more of the country genre (maybe even than the crowd expected.)

He performed with The Imposters (drummer Pete Thomas, keyboardist Steve Nieve, and Davey Faragher playing bass).

He opened with Red Shoes and Radio, Radio through to Country Darkness and It's Needle Time from Costello's latest, The Delivery Man.

Guitarist Larry Campbell was mesmerizing.

The venue was very mellow about technology (no one had camcorders, but lots of people had phones).

I'm not sure why but the guy next to us kept reading his phone book, picking a name, and then calling them so that he could tell them he was at the show and hold up the phone for a few minutes. Is it meant to create community, or jealousy, or both? Not sure, but the whole 'virtual concert' phone thing is real.

Oh, ok, yes, we did shoot a few pictures on our phones, and record a bit of video, and take a family picture. But hey - it was an 'event'. But live isn't dead, no where near. It's the best way to experience music by far... and summerstage is a great place to be right in the middle of new york.

The live Elvis show came on the heals of our Sunday trip to Bethel New York in the Catskills.

Now, most everyone on the planet knows that Bethel is the actual place that the Woodstock concert took place. But what you may not konw is that there is rising on Max Yasgur's farm a pretty amazing music venue called the Bethel Woods Center for the Arts. Our long time friends David and Lou Ann Carlucci invited us to take the 90 minute drive and get a personal tour of the site (David is President and Executive Director of the venue).

We started at the marker of the original concert... and that was pretty cool. And then we went through the gate and into the property. The view is dramatic. The 'shed style' amphitheatre is rising from inside a natural bowl on the side of the hill. This is a project that is cutting no corners - 63 million in costs at this time.

The plan is that the venue will open next summer, with the the New York Philharmonic will open the season in June 2006. And there is a promise of a number of big rock acts as well.

Co-Op world - 8am Thursday.

everyone said that day three was when 'it all comes together' and that was certainly the case for me.

(photo: Yochai Benkler on the TED stage... building a case that what happened in open-source software is on the verge of happening in content creation. )

Yochai Benkler's work is both staggeringly complex and brilliantly simple. He's taken a scholarly look at the underlying drivers of peer production... pointing out the there are both social and business components of the way that open source software is created, maintained, and embraced that point to a revolution with far reaching impact. Which is not to say that the impact isn't far reaching already. He showed a slide comparing the Apache open source web server to Microsoft and other commercial web server software applications. The success of Apache towers over the commercial software.

What Benkler suggests is the peer production is both emotionally and economically satisfying - that peoples motivations for contribution and participation are far more complex and variable than simply what they are paid (or could be paid). The implications of his thinking for other creatively driven industries (film, tv, journalism, print, publishing, radio...) seem both apparent and inevitable. He's published a number of his pieces on his web site and if you can, read Coase's Penguin - also very pertinent.

The second speaker of the morning was Jimmy Wales - who's Wikipedia is another one of those amazing 'it can't be done' creations.

It's almost like the first time, as a kid - you saw a magical levitate a girl over the stage. You saw it - but it just doesn't compute.

Well both Yochai and Jimmy are in the space (Yochai as a connector of dots, Jimmy as someone drawing dots). What makes Wikipedia so interesting is that in hindsight, the idea that a group of self-selecting individuals could make a encyclopedia that is deeper, better, more quickly corrected, and accurate than a commercial enterprise is STAGGERING. If you don't believe me, test it out. Pick an obscure subject... try it with Britannica or any other commercial encyclopedia, and then go to wikipedia. It's just BETTER. And part of what makes Wales so interesting is that he's both in charge of the revolution, and in many ways being pulled along by it. Much like the 'community' of eBay... Wikipedia is driven by content (auctions or articles) over which they have no control. The space is there... but the input is entirely depended on the community having control. Says TED: " With a vision for a free encyclopedia online, he assembled an army of amateurs, gave them a wiki, and is creating a self-organizing, self-correcting, ever-expanding, and addictive encyclopedia of the future." all true.

And then - Clay Shirky. Somehow this trio of thinkers all seemed to have planned their talks together (though know they didn't). Shirky's world view is all about collaborative content creation... he began with images from the Coney Island mermaid parade, and how though Flicker and tagging he was able to get a street level view of events... the emergence of citizen journalism (or just shared information). As Shirky tells the story, the emergence of open networks as opposed to institutions clearly puts the advantage to quickly organizing net based networks. He told a story about sequencing SARS, with the Chinese government setting large, institutional systems will Canadian scientists used an open source solution to share the work and speed the solution.

Benkler. Wales. Shirky. Together their examples, stories, and stats all tell the same single story. User-content and peer production solutions will emerge as the single most powerful and unique development that we've seen in the new connected networked world. The impact on knowledge, science, art, and communities is fast moving, and world changing.

wow.

Here's a just a few of the hundreds of pix -

Lunches were held at Kebble College (which also was the site of the dorm style accommodations for the bravest of the bunch). This amazing dinning hall so much out of Harry Potter, and the hight of the ceilings made the rooms so live with the sound of conversations - you basically had to shout across the table.

Jimmy Wales, the founder of Wikipedia - took the audience through the journey that has created such a dynamic and successful content site.

Jimmy Wales, as Chris Anderson looks on.

In one of those strange 'round the world' coincidence, Kevin Anderson from the BBC had just read my talk from the Media Center conference. Anderson recorded an interview with me that should be on the BBC later next week.

In the lobby of the theatre, during the twice daily 'conversation break'. And yes - that is Seth Godin... who was one of the many TEDsters who had three minutes to take the stage.

While i've always known that the Brits don't like ice (warm beer is their stock and trade) we were in Oxford for 4 very hot days. And since air-conditioning seems to fall into the 'ice' category... we were forced to resort to cold drinks... wine and beer mostly. (they chilled the beer in deference to their american friends). Here Pam relaxes at the 2nd night party at the Historical Society... and yes, that is a T-Rex behind her.

Wednesday July 13

The second day of TED - and shear volume of ideas, passion, and extraordinary individuals is dizzying. It's not possible to blog every talk, or all the ideas that are kicking around. And I suspect that I'm not alone in experiencing certain talks more deeply than others - either because they help me engage things that I care deeply about, or because the directly challenge ideas I've had.

The idea that type is visual speech was one of the ideas that Erik Spiekermann glued to the side of my head. I've always felt that type was important and emotional, but always figured that it was esthetic, not narrative. But Spiekermann is a towering figure in the world of type- and his passion for information architecture was pretty amazing - even if it was at times hard to comprehend.

But the morning's talk by Iqbal Quadir is the one I'll NEVER forget. Grameen Phone. I'd met him that morning at breakfast, and he didn't want to talk about what he did. He wanted me to wait till the talk. And it was worth it. Because the idea that a Cow is like a Cell Phone isn't something that makes sense until you hear Iqbal tell it. What he's done is masterful, and world changing. He has created GSM cellular service in Bangladesh. And while wiring a country of XX million may be impressive, he invented a business model by partnering with a Bangladeshi bank, and actually loaning the capital equipment to local business people (mostly women) who in turn retail the use of the phones in the local villages.

He was a investment banker in NY who had an 'ah ha' moment when his computer network at his NY office went on the firtz. As he tells it - his mind wandered back to a day in 1971 when he was a kid. Back then, his family was living in a rural village to escape a war that was ravaging the big cities.

His mother sent him to a nearby village to fetch medicine. He walked eight miles only to find that the pharmacist was out. He spent the afternoon walking home. Back in NY, that story had him think "connectivity is productivity."

He raised money (after a ton of no's) and then built GrameenPhone - creating both a new economic system and a communication system. It's simply brilliant - and he's an inspiration. I love his story. And I hope we'll be able to find a way to get it on film.

Barry Schwartz gave a talk about the Paradox of choice - which I totally related to. You should read his book, the point of which is that Choice can create dissatisfaction -since the more variations there are, the more of a chance that you made the wrong choice. It's got me thinking about how to narrow choices, and make decisions with less looking over my shoulder - which I think was the point of the talk (or at least the point that I took away from it).

I can't even begin to tell you what the talk about William McDonough was about. it was amazing - his Cradle to Cradle vision of ecological design systems is just one of the 20 things he's done to implement environmentally sensible architecture. He's currently designing a city in China. who's written extensively about new shadow cities around the world

The surprise was - I expected a 18 minute talk about terrible conditions, the need for Western intervention, and aid. But Far from it. Instead, his take was respectful, suggesting that what was happening was neighborhoods--which he described as "dominate most of the cities of the developing world--are vibrant and energetic, but horribly misunderstood."

the pictures, his travels, and his attitude were a refreshing understanding that things in the world - while not picture perfect - are all part of a eco system that can evolve and change, but not with hand wringing. In fact - Nuewrith said that there are real political activists and leaders growing in those shadow cities.

Anyway - a overwhelming day - with more ideas than I can record here. and at least two amazing films that should be made...

wow- I'm exhausted.

Finally -- it's about time! -- CBS Digital dropped the virtual gauntlet, and kicked things up a notch! Words like "philosophical shift" and "cable bypass" are being bandied about. Late this summer CBSNews will get some digital upgrades. According to Adrants:

"In a move that acknowledges the shift in news consumption from TV to the web, CBS News has announced plans for the launch of a 24-hour, broadband news network which will become the centerpiece of the network's news delivery platform. The new CBSNews.com site will include broadband video, a weblog, called 'Public Eye,' written by Vaughn Ververs and on-air reporters will produce online segments throughout the day."

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