Raleigh-Elizabeth Smith just made the jump from NNN intern to Veracifier Community Manager, though that’s a story for someone else to tell in this space. Raleigh is a veteran of the same college radio station that started me off working in media, and it got me to thinking what a great impact that particular version of the medium has had on my personal media world.

Just at Next New Networks, in addition to me, CEO Herb Scannell, producer Alan Kaufman, and legal consultant Roy Langbord worked in their college stations (there might be a few more I don’t know about); heck, it was a meeting I had with Herb as he was graduating that started our professional friendhip. And tons of others I’ve worked with regularly over the years (I know I’ll leave a lot out) include my former partner Alan Goodman, NY networking maven Bill Sobel, even my wife, in addition to dozens of screenwriters, movie directors and producers, and executives.

Laurie Sullivan at NewTeeVee has a post today about The Professionalization of Internet TV, where she calls out the work many of us are doing, including our friends at Revision3 and Vuguru (I need to get to know some of the other people she mentions better) as the beginning of what could be a $5.9 Billion industry by 2011.

Next New Networks, ON Networks, Revision3, 60 Frames, Vuguru, Telegraph Ave Productions, WatchMojo — what do these companies have in common? They all use Moore’s Law and low-cost distribution over the Internet to disrupt the studio model, in the process building audiences that can rival a small cable channel. They are professionalizing internet TV.

And this business is going to get bigger. iSuppli, a market research firm, projects that professionally produced video will will bring in nearly $5.9 billion in revenues in 2011, up from $423 million in 2006.

I have to personally thank NewTeeVee for their great intelligence, especially as we had a board meeting today, and this was a nice thing to show around! Full article.

Well, I’ve had my Jesus Phone for about 3 minutes and it’s already changed my life. I’ve lost 5 pounds, resolved the $3,700 discrepancy that’s been in my check book for the last 3 years and finally gotten through to Roy using the built in lawyer-to-reality converstion tool. It’s a great device. Lightweight. Slim. Arguably pretty. Well balanced. I’ve got my key stock portfolio synced to the stocks widget so that when my craptacular portfolio continues to slide, the phone can call the poor house for me.

Automatically.

I’ve got the secret RSS reader setup to download episodes of VOD Cars. I’ve got my horoscope all wired in. (Thanks, Mark) and I’m pretty sure I can use it to call my dad (on his cell, of course). I’m even blogging with it.

Yes, that’s right, fair reader. Jesus Phone can blog. I’m blogging with it right now. See how easy that virtual keyboard is to use? Feels like I’m typing nothing at all! Also, inserting images using the built in camera is a snap. Here. Take a look at this action shot from a meeting I had in my kitchen a few minutes ago:

You may think that calling the iPhone “Jesus Phone” may be marginally, if not completely, sacrilegious. Well, let me assure you that I’ve thought long and hard about this and include some helpful comparisons for you between these sons of gods.

As you can see, it’s very easy to confuse these Earth charged deities. While respect and admiration for the two is obviously deserved… worship, on the other hand, should be reserved for one of them.

In conclusion, Libya is a land of contrast.

On the eve of the arrival of my Jesus phone, I cannot help but feel a certain nostalgia for Motorola. Back when I was a wee lad, I recall my grandpa having a motorola radio in his car and office and all the trucks. Then, at some point in the early 1980s, the radio was replaced with a Motorola cell phone in his car. (The lock code was 4820 — and it took less than 1 trip to the boat to decrypt it.)

When it came time for me to start purchasing cell phones, I went the Motorola route. I had a Motorola flip phone. A MicroTAC. A MicroTAC Elite (one of my favourites). A StarTAC (with LED display). A StarTAC (with LCD display). A Razor. A black Razor. A blue Razor V3i. A red Razor V3i. A gold Razor V3i. A blue Krzr. A black Krzr. (There may have been a short lived Nokia and Sony Ericsson flirtation somewhere between StarTAC LCD and the first Razor…)

As time went on, cell phone revisions came more quickly and my desire to hack the phones to, you know, make them suck less, rose. My current phone, the black Krzr has a HEAVILY modified firmware courtesy of: Yours truly.

Tomorrow, a new dawn begins on the mobile phone landscape globally. Yes, the iPhone. Not because the phone is such a revolutionary game changing piece of hardware (although, that is part of it) but because it will, for the first time, open the Internet on hand held devices to entrepreneurs that will be unrestricted by mobile carriers. Thank you, Apple. But, with every dawn, there’s a sunset. This sunset ends my brand loyalty to Motorola. Sorry, grandpa.

Without further pontification, from the home office in West Hempstead NY, the Top Ten things I will NOT miss from the days of my Motorola Razors…

10: Always being asked if it’s “ok” to go online. Yes, for the love of God, it’s ok.

9: Always being informed, with great delay, how many bytes were transferred after going online. Why is email from Tim always 921 bytes more than Fred? Why does my phone think I care?

8: Slow to respond number entry when trying to dial. How hard is this to make work right?

7: Having to press 6 buttons to get to my inbox. Can that happen in 1 press? Maybe 2?

6: Waiting for Java. Memo to Sun: Give it up.

5: “Message Too Long! Message Truncated!” Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait…

4: WAP Decks controlled by “the man”. You don’t get to make media choices for me.

3: Expensive replacement cartridges (Oh wait, that’s what I’ll NOT miss about Gilette Razor…)

2: iTap.

1: Unbearably slow call waiting controls

Can’t wait until tomorrow…

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.

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.

We’ve been impressed by what our friends at Joost have been putting together in massing content from big and small. Yvette Alberdink Thijm, EVP of Content and Strategy for Joost, who I’ve known for years going back to Nickelodeon/ MTVN (before she added her second last name of consonants!) has been leading the charge in lining up partners like us in Joost, a p2p platform that promises program providers a quality video experience and flexibility to monetize independently or through Joost. Yvettte’s unique, her Dutch roots are great for an international company like Joost, and her understanding of content and flexibility in business deals has made her many friends. We’re happy to be one of them.

Today, we announced that a bunch of our networks — Threadbanger, Pulp Secret and Channel Frederator — will be launching on the Joost platform with more to come as we roll ‘em out. So see us around the world on Joost and check out our press release for details.

Today’s Wallstrip makes it official: CBS has acquired the online show, and signed producers Jeff Marks and Adam Elend to a two-year deal to executive produce online content for the network on the web, as well as star Lindsay Campbell to continue to host the show.

We’ve gotten to know Adam, Jeff, and Howard over the last few months and often hold them up as an example of the kinds of things we’re looking to do with all of our networks. Pairing them with Quincy Smith and his very smart moves at CBS’s interactive division is a masterstroke, and I’m looking forward to seeing a lot of great things from them, as well as how they look in their new CBS blazers. (sorry, Jeff, for stealing your joke.)

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This week is the week that all the broadcast networks convene in NYC for the “upfronts” to present their new Fall lineups and wine and dine advertisers to put their money down on their new shows. Shrinking audiences has been a dynamic of broadcast networks since the coming of age cable, beginning measurably in the 90’s. But this year there’s new shrinkage. Apparently, there are 2.5mm less viewers coming to broadcast this Spring then last, and there are all kinds of suspects from daylight savings time to DVR’s to the shows’ quality themselves. Last year shrinkage was felt at the upfronts, when UPN and the WB, resulted in the CW, and one less network. Recently, it was reported that that merger actually netted a shrinking audience as the CW resulted, much of the time, in less viewers coming to the one new channel than each of the old networks. And before that — shrinkage took the form of less nights of original programming as ABC, CBS, and NBC all have given up on programming on Saturday nights and run mostly repeats of that weeks’ top shows.

So where does shrinkage stop? At Next New Networks, we salute the broadcast networks for shrinkage and we encourage them to come clean and declare shrinkage the way of the future and learn to love it like we do. That’s what we’ve done — creating micro-networks, and shrinking shows down to minutes. Get with the program(s) guys and love your shrinking world. We do.