Micki Krimmel with the team. Photo by Pulp Secret’s Charles Schneider.

The one and only Micki Krimmel was recently visiting New York for the first time in years, and we asked her to come and do a workshop with our team about building better community features for our audiences.

Besides being the only person I know of who has a photo of herself with Al Gore up on Flickr, Micki has been a web guru to countless people in her work at Participant (where she helped Mr. Gore build the massive grassroots movement at climatecrisis.net), Revver, WorldChanging, and most recently as a social media consultant and entrepreneur.

Out of our two hour brainstorming session about our networks and shows came a number of suggestions that would be great for anyone building an offering around video content on the web:

1. Everybody should be a community manager.

It doesn’t matter if there’s a person in your company with a title of community manager, or director of community. Every person on the team should be involved and responding and keeping the conversation going.*

*Clay Shirky’s book, Here Comes Everybody, is required reading for anyone in our space.

2. Whuffi can be more valuable than money.

Cory Doctorow’s novel Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom describes a future where all material needs are met, so people are incentivized by reputation and social capital - Whuffi. This is something that happens in communities all the time — people can often get things done by virtue of their social reputation or prestige that money can’t. Tara Hunt’s new book is all about it. [Micki added on her blog: “My point here was about incentives. It’s common for people to want to provide material incentives to people for participating in their community. People don’t talk to each other for prizes. They do it for other, more personal reasons. They do it for social capital, for whuffie, or as Clay Shirky says in Here Comes Everybody, Love.”]

3. The most scalable way to respond to people is openly and publicly.

Micki cited tools like Get Satisfaction as a way to respond to customer questions in a public, easy to access way, as well as elements in our networks like Indy Mogul and ThreadBanger that turn responses to viewer questions into content for the whole audience.

4. Consider ending every video with a question.

This is pretty self-explanatory, but a simple way to get audience responses that not enough video creators do. Ze Frank did it brilliantly. We recently ended our breakout Ultra Kawaii hit (2mm+ views), “Animal Idol”, with a question that’s garnered over 30,000 comments and counting across the web (according to TubeMogul, we’re still averaging over 750 comments a day on that episode, despite it being up for two months).

5. The easier you make it to participate, the more people will.

It’s easier to favorite or digg something than rate something, easier to rate something than comment or review — which is consistently why less people do each of those things. You could follow a question (see #4) with a simple thumbs up/thumbs down polling widget. Our new Nite Fite site is going to include a simple tool to poll people during and after every episode, and it’s going to be interesting to see if people use it more than they use comments.

6. People put something on their blogs because it says something about them, not because they want to promote a product they like.

Think about that one for a while.

7. The difference between your YouTube channel and your site is often like the difference between a public and a private space.

We talked about this for a while: for instance, how comments on a YouTube video tend to be about the creators, where comments on your own site tend more to be addressed to the creators. The difference between one place and the other can be like the difference between watching a movie in the movie theater with a bunch of strangers, and watching it at home with a group of your friends.

8. Don’t just reward the top participators.

Having all kinds of participation is valuable. Look for ways to welcome the newest people who post for the first time or join the community.

9. If you don’t have the tool, that doesn’t mean don’t do it.

Engage people with whatever tools you have. A great example from our own world is the Indy Mogul “Request an Effect” page, which addresses rule #3 above with a pretty basic tool: a blog post with a super long comments thread. However, with over 1000 comments page has gotten so hard to use, we’re probably not getting as much participation as we could (see rule #5) — if we replaced this page with a browsable, searchable forum of some kind where people could vote on favorites, it would get even more use.

10. Don’t worry about exclusive content for your site.

Content goes where it wants. What’s exclusive about your site is the community experience you offer — it can be a safe place, where you can get to know people with common interests. Making that the best experience possible is the real key to building unique value in your site.

Thanks, Micki! So I’m curious — anyone reading out there: useful? What would you add to Micki’s advice?

The sweet scent of victory. Yesterday’s Iowa Caucus was a huge one for the NNN political team. Our boy Obama won the Iowa caucus- and with her video gaining a million views in just over 24 hours, the Obama Girl herself gave her victory address this morning:

We’ll be watching out for our invitation to the inauguration. Meanwhile Veracifier had an unprecedented number of people reporting on the ground in Iowa- surely an internet first. Through our ground hounds partnership with the Uptake we posted multiple reports throughout the day, including most of the major candidate’s pre Caucus rallies:

and stories from across the state, like Hound Chuck Tomlinson’s take on the media blitz itself:

The Uptake itself streamed live video throughout the Caucus, and it was all done by the seat of our pants, with everyone surprised by both the quality and amount of reporting we were getting in from all of Iowa. Bring on New Hampshire!

When I worked in film, the dream goal was always to win an Oscar. When I worked in television, it was to win an Emmy. Now I spend my days plotting how to win a WEBBY!

The 12th Annual Webby Awards are swiftly approaching and the deadline to submit is going to be here any second! For all of you immensely talented creators, plotters, and doers of online video, your deadline for submission is JANUARY 25, 2008.

Once you submit, the International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences will select the nominees and winners for the 2008 Webby Awards, and hold the ceremony in early June (an event I swear you don’t want to miss).

Last year many people I know were nominated (eghem: JetSet now EpicFu, itsallinyourhands.com, and Big Fantastic…just to name a few), with several picking up the Webby. With that track record, and the year that all of us just had, I can only imagine the number of people I’ve met that will grab a Webby for themselves.

The categories were expanded from last year to accommodate the ever-expanding world of online video:

• Animation
• Comedy: Individual Short or Episode
• Comedy: Long Form or Series
• Documentary: Individual Episode
• Documentary: Series
• Drama: Individual Episode
• Drama: Series
• Events and Live Broadcasts
• Experimental
• How-To and DIY
• Music
• News & Politics: Individual Episode
• News & Politics: Series
• Public Service and Activism
• Reality
• Sports
• Student
• Technology
• Travel
• Variety
• Viral

The ONLY catch would be you actually have to submit to win. So here it is, I’m telling ALL of you how awesomely creative and talented you are, and that I think you have a chance. So make it happen!

I only have one piece of advice: You better be on your game when choosing your “five words.”

Good Luck!

To paraphrase an old blues, “it’s been a good year, but a long year.”

15 networks launched, YouTube’s #1 content partner, 100+ video views. Colleagues in New York and across the country, viewers and friend across the globe. Whew!

I’ve been lucky enough to be part of a number of once-in-a-lifetime experiences during my life. All year I’ve known Next New Networks is one of them.

It’s hard for any of us here at Next New Networks to figure that it’s only been a year since we ‘officially’ opened. Sure, for the founders we’ve been at work getting the company together for twice as long, but we started bringing on our colleagues last January and I, for one (though I know we all heartily agree), have to marvel at what they’ve all accomplished. Like any start up everyone here came into an office space that was literally being built while the work was trying to make sense of itself, and we were trying to explain exactly what the company was up to and what a specific job would entail (we’re still working on that). And even as the paint was going on the walls and the computers were being debugged, we were launching networks and cajoling communities of viewers to come take a look.

We couldn’t have even begun without an incredible group of investors and board members who’ve become Next New Networks’ friends, advertisers who’ve kicked the tires and bought a ride, and a large audience of loyal viewers who’ve spread the word in every way now known to humankind.

More’s coming, good stuff too, I assure you.

Thanks everyone –our colleagues, our investors and board members, and our audiences– for an awesome first year. Here’s to hundreds more.

Early last summer, Steve and Zadi from Jetset showed us all at Next New Networks just how easy it was to use Ning to set up a specialized social network. My partner Tim Shey was the only one of us to take the bait and one night in August he delivered on a vision we’d been talking about at Channel Frederator and popped up Channel Frederator RAW, another one of our ‘firsts,’ this time the world’s first social network just for animation.

We quietly started mentioning RAW on our blogs, and eventually asked for a few members, to see whether the thing had any legs. At first I thought I’d send out a wider invitation after 100 members, but things being as busy as they were I never got around to it. Over this past weekend I’d friended my 200th RAW friend and realized it was now or never. So, the previews are over, we’re on Broadway.

At 3pm ET today I sent out a note to a select list of filmmakers, artists, and fans, people in our community we’d been in contact with for years. As of five minutes ago we’d increased the size of our network by almost 50% and the action on the site has perked up 10-fold. More art, more video, and most gratifying of all, more conversation is going on between animation people across five continents.

Thanks Steve, thanks Zadi, thanks Tim. Most of all, thanks to our new members (some cool icons they have above, yes?). I hope you’re all enjoying yourselves.

Most of the time I’m not a first mover. Early, sure (blogging, Channel Frederator, VOD Cars), rarely first. But with my music jones I’ve tried to be on top of most everything and often just wanted to kill myself. Over the years, I’ve been a musician, a record producer, a music television producer and most of all a stone music fan. Pop, rock, jazz, R&B, hip-hop, you name it, I’m there. So, the digital revolution has given me a wonder of hopes and frustrations.

I’ve used ‘em all –the original Napster, Winamp, MusicMatch, the HangGo, the Airport Express, heck I’ve even ran SonicNet Radio for a while– and eventually just chocked on the exasperation. The inventors have caught up with my needs –selection, convenience, and (relative) quality for a reasonable price– and though I’m a little behind the true hipsters, I’m finally at (almost) fan nirvana.

Sonos was the first level of enlightenment (more…)

Twelve hours ago: It’s 11:21pm, Friday, July 20, 39 minutes before the official release of the new Harry Potter. I’m in line at the Maine Coast Book Store in Damariscotta, Maine (”We’re not online yet — someday!). I’m with over 300 fans (including my two boys and my wife)–most of whom are well over 16– waiting for our reserved copies of Harry Potter + the Deathly Hallows. I’d never been in Maine until six hours ago and standing in this small town with all this excitement is a fantastic introduction to the state. I’ve never stood in line for the release of anything and it’s thrilling to see that a book can motivate all these folks as much as a movie star. I can’t believe I left my camera at the hotel.

This post has absolutely nothing to do with the internet, or networks, or any of the stuff we do here.

I’ve been cleaning out my drawers lately which caused me to scan some of my stuff and throw it on my Flickr page. Some of it’ll eventually get linked to on my old branding agency archive, but who knows about the rest.

The picture above is from the 1939 World’s Fair in New York City. It’s from a random collection of photographs I found in a box at a junk shop specializing in then-uncool mid-century furniture. I couldn’t resist the hundreds of vintage prints of these amazing deco buildlings I’d really only seen in amazing stylized illustrations from the fair. I had no idea what I was going to do with the snaps –hell, I still don’t know what I’m going to do with them– but they were great just to have.

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In the late 70s I was producing jazz records and became friendly with Michael Cuscuna, soon to become one of the medium’s most revered producers and the leading reissue producer in history. (more…)

I completely dropped the ball on blogging about Pixelodeon after Fred tagged me to do it, but suffice it to say it was a great time and might just be looked back on as a watershed moment, when videobloggers, YouTubers, and some of the creative rebels in Hollywood all first started talking and realizing how much they have in common.

One thing I’m particularly happy about is that we played a small part in getting some folks we know at G4 excited about it, and they came down and covered the event. Here’s a piece they put up on (broadcast) TV that includes Next New Networks stars Zadi from JETSET and Casey and Rudy of Pulp Secret (and of course Galacticast) fame, as well as friends of ours new and old from the event.

I also really dug Micki Krimmel’s Pixelodeon video, shot on a little hand-held throughout the second day, which gives a better idea of the breadth of people and the feel of the event, and is a lot more intimate and personal than anything G4’s TV crew got. Sorry, my friends at G4, but a videoblogger had to win this one. It’s Pixelodeon! Plus, it has Fred.

Click To Play

And from our house, be sure to check out JETSET’s Pixelodeon recap, which has even more videobloggers and YouTube superstars.

You’re anxiously refreshing the page to immediately absorb any incoming critiques, comments, or cuss words. You’re the creative addict chained to the chair waiting for your digital ripple to transform into a tsunami, and I’m out looking for you.

Last week, upon Fred’s urging, we started posting “Vimeo Vids of the Day” on the freshly-launched Indy Mogul. I’ve always felt that Vimeo represents a fresh new sort of creators community that other video sharing giants can’t fully attest to. It’s a friendly, small town atmosphere. The church, the post office, the local pub, and bright blue picket fences lining every dark brown house.

Posting to bigger pages can feel like plopping down on a crowded street corner in midtown Manhattan, holding your hard work up for the world to see, and praying a kind soul comes by and says something constructive.

With that in mind, I’ve been spending a portion of every morning looking for the best, the brightest, and the most innovative of the Vimiaddicts (I think I just coined that … if not, I’ll still take credit). One of the first I came across was Brett Dougherty, a video blogger and film student from Syracuse University. I didn’t even know that much at this point, I just knew he had cut together a very real, raw, and interesting clip. A short couple minutes later and it was on the site. I sent a cursory note informing him we had written the flick up.

He quickly shot back telling me couldn’t really ‘express just how awesome’ my message was.

The cycle quickly began. Brett sent me yet another message proclaiming his excitement, practically making me blush with just how enthused this talented young buck was to get spotlighted on the site. In short order he signed up for a user account, added his email address to the mailing list, began commenting on episodes, and even called and left a personal voicemail to me on our hotline.

If Brett had been excited about my blog post, I was ten-fold thrilled about his quick leap over from featured artist to fan of our network.

The world needs more Bretts and I’ll be seeking them out every day, walking down Main Street Vimeo, smiling and waving to everyone holding a camera and sharing.