As Allen Stern noted on his blog, earlier this week The Media Kitchen held the Digital Media Venture Conference, introducing their clients to innovative VC-funded startups that are changing the media plans of tomorrow. The Media Kitchen’s Darren Herman approached us about helping them create an icebreaker video to kick off the spirit of the day, and we jumped at the chance to work with them on it, as Darren and The Media Kitchen have been big supporters and cheerleaders of our work.

After a bit of brainstorming with Darren and MK’s president, Barry Lowenthal, we came up with the video embedded above (here’s an HD version), featuring Gary, Indy Mogul’s incomparable puppet co-host (mostly because he’d be available for all the shoots) in a whirlwind tour of some of the better-known companies in Silicon Alley. All glory due to the amazing Justin Johnson, NNN’s superstar associate producer and first hire, who wrote, directed and produced the piece in a couple days’ time with no budget and a supplemental crew of one, which to me is just incredible.

Special thanks to Barry, Darren and Nicole DelVecchio from The Media Kitchen, David and Marco from Tumblr, Richard Blakeley from Gawker Media, Jake and Amir from CollegeHumor, Erik Beck, Derek D, Rob Czar and Corinne Leigh from Next New Networks, and Lindsay Campbell and Julie Alexandria from CBS Interactive for being such good sports, and to all the other people from NNN and Frederator who helped out as Rock Band partygoers or Gary stand-ins (especially Ben Ross). And special props to Kyle Fassenella, who DP’d and contributed all the amazing steadicam work; Rachel Garcia, for coming up with the idea to have Gary be the star; and Liam Collins, our super-nice VP of Finance and Business Affairs, for playing against type as the jerk who tells Erik to get back to work.

There’s a bit of a discussion raging online right now about whether the a la carte nature of online video has economics that can support an industry, prompted by a research report by Craig Moffett over the weekend called “And Now for the News…The Emperor Has No Clothes.” Mark Cuban reproduced many of the best parts and expanded on them in a blog post of his own.

What’s got everyone talking is a sobering (for some) calculation by Moffett that implies that TV producers will have to reduce their costs by nearly 90% to be profitable in the new medium (Cuban thinks it’s even more). But many of the things Moffett and Cuban are responding to are the things we built into the business model of Next New Networks. Not because we’re visionaries, or have the answers to this challenge everyone’s facing, but because it was the only sensible way to launch a new media business in this landscape.

For one, our programming costs average in the hundreds of dollars per minute, which is one tenth or less cable television’s programming costs. We launch networks with the minimum necessary programming to build an audience, which may be as little as two minutes of programming a week — with the goal to add more programming as audience and advertiser demand grows. But most importantly, we made a decision to focus on communities that will embrace our programming. If you make something people love, questions like production value and how much money you spend become less important — what matters instead is, do they love you? Do they keep coming back every week? And do advertisers see undeniable evidence that you’re creating something that speaks to the people they want to reach?

I think our co-founder Fred Seibert addressed all these concerns really well in an interview he did with Beet.TV last week. Check out the embedded video below for his take on our take, which highlights some of the creative ways we’re trying both new and tried-and-true advertising models in our programming, and what he calls “struggling optimistically forward” towards a model that can support great video online. Will it look like TV? Who knows. We always like to say it will be better than TV.

Update: Fast Lane Daily won the People’s Voice! Congrats to them and to all of our nominees and honorees!

Big congrats to everyone from the Next New Networks universe nominated for Webby Awards today:

• Sports: Fast Lane Daily
• How-To DIY: ThreadBanger
• Variety: Epic-Fu
• Viral: I Got a Crush on Obama (Barely Political)

Three of our other networks made the Webby Awards Official Honorees list, representing the top selections of submissions for the category. Channel Frederator’s “Internet People” (the first episode of The Meth Minute 39), Veracifier, and Indy Mogul’s Backyard FX all got honors along with some really great company in each of their categories.

A special congratulations to Steve and Zadi at Epic-Fu for their second nomination in two years — last year, when the show was called JETSET, they won the People’s Voice for Music/Variety.

All of the nominated programming is eligible to win the awards, which will be announced May 6. They’re also eligible for the People’s Voice Awards — and everyone on the Internet can vote, so please visit their site and vote for your favorites.

Congrats, everyone! And congratulations to our fellow nominees as well, especially in the Online Film & Video categories, including our friends at Wallstrip, Hometown Baghdad, Drawn by Pain, Super Deluxe, College Humor, Afterworld, and G4 TV, alongside great company like The New York Times, The Onion, National Geographic, HBO, and NPR. It’s been a great year for video online.

or, What online video can learn from the coffee business.

There’s a pretty incredible thing happening in the coffee business here in New York and other cities all over the country — independent, locally-owned coffee shops are springing up that are giving Starbucks a run for their money by paying obsessive attention to quality of their product and creating a better, more unique experience than an international supercorporation possibly can.

I first noticed this in my own neighborhood when I wandered into Cafe Grumpy at a friend’s recommendation, or, more accurately, his obsession — he wouldn’t stop talking about it. Cafe Grumpy (their name is a poke at Starbucks baristas) (deleted, see Caroline’s comment below) started out in Brooklyn, then began conquering Chelsea with their ultra-fancy single-brew Clover coffee machines, which people obsess over; fair trade sourced and locally roasted coffee; and super-rich, hand-poured espresso drinks — no more expensive, and often cheaper, than the mass-produced ones at Starbucks — where they draw little designs with the foamed milk, part of a fun new trend called latte art. The coffee was noticeably tastier than most other cups I’d ever had, the place was cool and welcoming, and being the silly old hipster I am, I was soon hooked enough to start walking several blocks out of my way to stop in on my walks between home and work.

Sam pours up a cafe latte at Cafe Grumpy, from their Flickr stream.

But Cafe Grumpy’s just one example. Joe is opening shops all over the city, there’s the tiny Gimme Coffee in Soho and Brooklyn, Gorilla in Park Slope, and a couple Ninth Street Espresso locations, one of which broke off on its own as Everyman Espresso. In Los Angeles, there’s Groundwork coffee in Venice and Hollywood, my frequent hangout Kings Road, Intelligentsia (invading from Chicago), and the Latino-owned Sabor y Cultura. San Francisco’s got Ritual Roasters and Blue Bottle. In Austin, there’s the amazing Jo’s Coffee, creating some of the best new jobs for hipsters since Waterloo opened, and in Washington, D.C., there’s Tryst (their slogan: “no corporate coffee. no matching silverware”) and the fast-growing, famously black-owned Mayorga with over ten locations already. Many of these businesses are opening franchises in local airports and train stations — the places you’d expect to see yet another Starbucks — benefiting from programs to attract local businesses. And like Starbucks or Whole Foods’ Allegro team (a bunch of whom I met randomly last week in Austin, and who seemed uniformly passionate and smart), these businesses take personal pride in sharing the sourcing of their coffees, even visiting the growers and posting photos of their trips on Flickr.

(more…)

Photo credit: Scott Beale / Laughing Squid

A belated congrats to our friends Kent Nichols and Douglas Sarine, of Ask a Ninja fame, who will be writing, and Kent directing, a remake of Attack of the Killer Tomatoes. I was lucky enough to be standing with Kent when the news broke on The Hollywood Reporter, not because we hang out all the time (although I wish we could), but because of a happy coincidence, as Kent had stopped by our SXSW party that night. I’m sure I was one of the first of many people to freak out and congratulate him that night and the following days — making the jump from web auteurship to a feature film deal is a huge achievement.

Kent and Doug are heroes of ours, and we’ve gotten friendly over the past year or so, especially after both they and Fred spoke at Pixelodeon last year, delivering two of the renegade keynotes of the festival. They’re legendary in the web video space for being one of the few web productions that’s in the black, attracting a year-long sponsorship / revenue sharing deal (which they just renewed) with Federated Media, and smartly merchandising and licensing with an Ask a Ninja book, t-shirts and clothing, and DVDs. What I love about Kent and Doug is that they aim high and know the value of where they are right know, and the knowledge they have. They’ll be keeping the Ninja going, showing the common sense that in Hollywood translates to cunning business savvy. As Kent writes on his blog:

This move is about career. Going into movies gives us access to the top of the Hollywood food chain. Show business is still an aspirational place — web shows want to be cable shows. Cable shows want to be broadcast shows. And broadcast shows want to be films. (And I guess now, films want to be Broadway musicals, but that’s a different story…)

By going to straight to features, the entire showbiz world is still open to us. We’ll be able to move freely up and down the aspirational chain without being pigeonholed as the web guys. And actually we’ll be even more valuable since we have a deep understanding of the new media landscape.

Kent’s right. This is awesome news. And if anyone thinks otherwise, The Ninja will totally kill them.

Along with what looked like a couple thousand other curious people from the online video, advertising, and marketing worlds, a group of us attended YouTube’s “Videocracy” advertiser upfront here in New York City Wednesday afternoon. A pretty massive production at NYC’s Terminal 5, it was also YouTube’s first real event of notice since the Google acquisition. YouTube pulled out all the stops, including an introduction from founders Chad Hurley and Steve Chen, testimonials from Tom Brady and Anderson Cooper (who showed up in person to talk about the YouTube-CNN debates), and a number of presentations about YouTube’s advertising initiatives, from their internal ad targeting and campaign creation system (called “Ginzu” — it slices, it dices…) to case studies from advertisers like HP, General Mills, and New Line, to their work with the IAB and sites like MySpace and Facebook to develop standards for video advertising. There’s a good recap on Ian Shafer’s blog. And of course — an eclectic mix of entertainment from some of YouTube’s biggest stars, including the Blendtec guy, singer Esmee Denters and Soulja Boy, who performed his ‘Crank that‘ song onstage that inspired tons of YouTube dance videos this year, which played in the background on a big screen.

YouTube set up a nice area for Rob and Corinne from ThreadBanger to meet advertisers and give demonstrations in the How-To pavilion of the event (near our friends from Make Magazine) - and incidentally, ThreadBanger’s featured on the front page of YouTube today for their special Valentine’s Day episode, so we’re appreciating two days of love.

While Rob and Corinne worked their magic (with Soulja Boy, I kid you not, crashed out on a nearby couch), we spent a good amount of time catching up with other people at the event, which included lots of agency and consumer brand contacts, execs from companies like Revision 3, Vuguru, and 60 Frames, and innovators of online video like Andrew Baron and Orrin Zucker. There was a moment when I looked around and realized the group of people standing together off to the side of the stage near me included Tay Zonday, Ian from Smosh, Lisa Nova, Michael Buckley and William Sledd — many of the individuals with the most subscribers on YouTube, standing for the moment incognito chatting together on the main floor, despite the millions who have watched their videos on the site. I thought of other upfronts I’ve attended, where the network stars would be carefully brought in and out of the crowd, and realized I’ll probably be looking back on that moment a few years from now as either the beginning, or the end, of something. Exactly which? Ask me next year.

update: Media Kitchen’s Darren Herman — whose advertising work I’m a big fan of — was at the event as well, and has posted some smart thoughts.

Lincoln Bjorkman, EVP, Executive Creative Director, Digitas.

John McCarus is the VP, Brand Content at Digitas. He was nice enough to ask our head of media sales, George Stewart, to come by his DTOX creative conference, put on for the creative staff at this leading interactive agency. I spoke on a distinguished panel that included singer/songwriter Vanessa Carlton, videoblogger David Junior, my former colleague David Gale from MTV, and Dina Kaplan, COO/founder of Blip TV. What a wonderful event. It’s rare an agency, especially one that already specializes in digital, to want to constantly introduce themselves to outside points of view. It was an honor to be included.

John McCarus,
VP Brand Content, Digitas.

While the rest of the blogosphere is breathlessly covering CES, Jackson West over at NewTeeVee took some time to highlight the incredible work The Uptake and Veracifier are doing, along with other videobloggers like Steve Garfield and Debate Porridge, covering the primary election season, something we wrote about here last week. Our own Marc Boxser is quoted:

“We are probably, for video coverage, in 2008 … what 2004 was for blogs,” Next New Network’s (NNN) Mark Boxser told me over the phone. Boxser, who manages Veracifier for NNN, further pointed out that the site had the second most-viewed channel on YouTube yesterday, with hundreds of thousands of views spread over multiple updates, beating CBS.

A screenshot of Veracifier early Wednesday morning, already the third-most viewed channel on YouTube.

The great angle in the article is the way everyone is partnering to cover the stories, highlighting an example where Steve Garfield wandered around with a Nokia cellphone, streamed stories live, then Chuck Olsen edited Steve’s footage into a story that was both broadcast live on TheUptake’s Mogulus feed and released as a Veracifier “Ground Hounds” report. Jackson quotes Mary Matthews from Debate Porridge: “It’s not a competition with us,” she said. “[Not] yet, anyway… If [online media makers] go the way of television and the advertisers, and be beholden to the money, then it’s just going to be television on the Internet.”

I think it’s a long way off before things get competitive in the way anyone might fear. If the growth of blogs as news media says anything, it’s that featuring the best reporting and commentary, wherever it comes from, and serving your audience above everything else is the way to win online. And many, including the gang here at Next New Networks, would argue that’s the trick to programming good news content in any medium.

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!

Apple’s iTunes team published their lists of the Best of 2007 Podcasts this week, and we were happy to have six of our networks named to their top lists — which, as far as we can tell, is more than any other media company.

In the Video “Classics” category, our founding networks Channel Frederator and VOD Cars were named, along with lots of other great online shows and networks including our friends at Ask a Ninja, Diggnation, Wallstrip and Rocketboom.

In the “New this Year” category, honors went to ThreadBanger, Veracifier, Ultra Kawaii, and Bleacher Bloggers. Other new podcasts that made the list included The Onion News Network, Boing Boing TV, Mahalo Daily and iFanboy — so we’re in great company. Congrats, everyone!

Congratulations to our teams here working hard to make the best podcasts in the world! And thanks, Apple!