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.

Ahoy, bilge rats! In observation of International Talk Like a Pirate Day 2007, Next New Networks will be beginning and ending all office correspondences with pirate terminology. So grab some grog ye salty dogs, because today the pirates have landed!

Arrrrgghh!

Last year, Birthright Israel enlisted our good friend Dan Meth to create a video card people could send around for Rosh Hoshanah, and the very funny YouTube hit “Hebrew Krunk,” featured in this week’s Channel Frederator, was born.

It’s fun to see them up to the same tricks again. This year, Birthright created a pitch-perfect remake of “Crush on Obama” with new lyrics, called “I Gotta’ Love You Rosh Hashanah,” and as expected, it’s getting popular on the YouTube right now.

Great work… I like when she sings the “R to the O to the S to the H” part at the end. Happy 5768!

So, it’s been 75 hours since “Internet People” went live, and as of now there’s over 1,800,000 views and 10,000 comments across our super-distribution network*, with no sign of any slowdown. We’ve been featured, discussed, favorited, subscribed and dissed, all across the internets. YouTube’s already got a bunch of response videos, and ClutterMe’s collected most of the original videos of said internet people.

Creator Dan Meth’s gone underground hiding from all the accolades coming his way, and everyone at Next New Networks is ecstatic about how well the launch of Channel Frederator’s first original series has gone.

Thanks, everyone in the universe.

* Including Channel Frederator, YouTube, MySpace, Break, Ziddio, Veoh, Dailymotion, and Yahoo! Video, among others.

We had a pretty good idea that when we launched our first Channel Frederator original series (and the first original animated series distributed by Next New Networks) that it would go viral pretty quickly. But, here we are less than 12 hours later with over 200,000, thousands of comments, and five star ratings. I think it’s far to say that creator Dan Meth will himself now join the exalted ranks of the internet people.

A few of the comments:

“I’ve seen all these videos… I don’t know if I should feel great or terrible.”

“noooooo!!! not chuck norris!”

And then, there’s the response video from our friends at Indy Mogul:

Dan Meth is one amazing filmmaker. Thanks bud.

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.

To snoop or not to snoop?

It’s the big fat dilemma my newly vidblogging siblings have so rudely placed on my ethical plate.

You see, I’ve been tinkering with online video for the past 7 years … when YouTube was just a glimmer in some soon-to-be-filthy-rich adolescent’s mind, HD didn’t extend much past the Hollywood back lot, and “my space” was something girls told me they needed way too often.

When I began to toss crudely edited clips of my personal life up on the sprawling tubes of the interweb, I wasn’t quite sure what to expect (I called it “Docutainment” at the time). Not like I had millions of fascinated fans, a couple dozen at best, but frankly it was quite a bit easier to just shoot stuff that was going to happen anyway, rather than fabricate a scenario and plunge headfirst into the world of fiction. Friends can be actors without knowing any lines, and there’s opening credits when you wake up in the morning (you can only see them if you look really hard).

My vidblogs grew over time from just ‘look at this fun stuff we did at the bowling alley, internet!’ to something deeply personal, real, and really public.

(more…)

Fred Wilson’s another of the venture capitalists I admire for walking the walk in new media with a thoughtful, dependable blog reflecting his work, his life, and his interests. He reminded me of a post Herb made a while back with his sketch on the modern Google:

“Big companies are not the best places to innovate and guess what, Google is a big company now.”

“…as great as YouTube is, YouTube IS NOT the future of TV on the Internet. There will be different segments of video online…”

I think I would have enjoyed this post even if it hadn’t picked up Jeff Pulver’s old post asserting Channel Frederator was worth watching.

Wondering what all the fuss over Net Neutrality is about, and whether you should get involved? The good people over at SavetheInternet.com have put together a new video that pretty clearly explains their take on the issues and stakes involved.

The first attempt by big corporations to charge tolls for a fast lane on the Internet was roundly defeated due to popular outcry, but now the coalition of organizations and citizens behind Save the Internet are looking to make net neutrality a law. Please visit their website if you’d like to sign the petition and spread the word.