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!

We’ll be out in force at NewTeeVee’s NYC Screening this Monday, and hope to see you there if you’re in the area.

We sponsored one of the Pier Screenings this summer out in San Francisco and had a great time; we’ll be sponsoring again and helping out with the event, and are really happy the NewTeeVee gang’s come out to our part of town. Should be a great time, with lots of NY’s finest online video people, including the event’s co-producers, Blip.tv, and a judging panel with our friends from The Burg, Vimeo, and Barely Political. Watch the nominated videos on a big screen and vote for your favorites, with the winners getting some cool prizes from the sponsors. And more importantly, the last one I went to had free popcorn and beer.

Register for free here.

Some of Next New Networks (and new media’s) best friends are at Apple, especially Pete Alcorn and Scott Simpson at iTunes.

Pete and Scott were the first big supporters of what Emil and I were doing a couple of years ago with VOD Cars and Channel Frederator. They promoted us to popularity at every turn and when we launched NNN this year they’ve been there whenever one of our new networks goes online.

So, we put together special Freddie Awards for each of them last January, but when they couldn’t make the show we decided to wait. Pete came by for a visit last week and I couldn’t have been prouder to give the award to anyone in the world.

Thanks Pete. Thanks Scott. Thanks Apple.

The N3 team came together this evening at BANC (read: BONK), for a much needed happy hour/mixer thing. I was pleasantly surprised to see that our turnout included both office denizens and network talent, compressed into one small corner bar with an open tab.

Oh well, concessions must be made (get it?) for these exceedingly important instances of human ingenuity and engineering.

Check out the full photo gallery on Flickr.

Just had to post this because it’s so darn cool. Our friend Lan Bui of Noodlescar greatness made this killer video of photographs he took during this weekend’s Comic Con. Keep an eye out for NNN peeps like Zadi from JETSET and Casey and Justin from Pulp Secret, and frequent JETSET correspondent (and Noodlescar host) Bonny, Lan’s muse and partner in crime.

Click To Play

p.s. Happy belated birthday, Lan! (You can see Bonny with cupcakes in the early photos.)

Well, as live as we get… we’re not Justin.tv (though putting a camera on Casey for a day would have been a fun idea), but we are posting updates from San Diego Comic-Con ‘07 every day on Pulp Secret, the first network devoted to comics.

Our full team coverage of the biggest comics and pop culture event of the year includes daily reports from Pete, Justin and Alex from THE STACK, and they’ll also be doing a special Pulp Secret Team-Up episode guest-starring Casey from A COMICBOOK ORANGE. Steve and Zadi from JETSET are there shooting a report for next week, and from Next New Networks HQ, Ian is out shooting, editing, and posting the reports like a true super-hero, and Erin is also along helping field marshal the troops on the ground. We’re also giving away a fully-loaded video iPod (with a complete collection of Pulp Secret videos) to one lucky Comic-Con attendee — if you’re at the show, ask them for a postcard for a chance to enter.

The team’s first report is in — stay tuned to Pulp Secret for more.
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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.

Earlier this afternoon, an event occurred near Grand Central Station (42nd Street and Lexington Ave. to be exact), here in New York City.

Moments after learning of the event, we realized how close we were to the possible danger and action.

Being a new media company, our cameras were ready. We rushed out to capture what we could, as safely as possible.

Here it is – nearly untouched and completely unbiased. Next News Networks anyone?

(Reblogged by Ian Jenkins)

The very successful EconSM conference, put on by PaidContent, happened back in April, which seems like maybe 10 years ago in Internet time, but video from the event is starting to surface now. We’re happy that the first video from the conference, embedded below, features our very own CEO and co-founder Herb Scannell, along with CEOs from Demand Media, Bebo, Netvibes and Six Apart (talk about good company!). You may have read quotes from him at this panel saying the era of hits is over, but you get a bit more of the context here. It’s about a 60+ minute video, but Herb fields the first questions pretty close to the top.