Tim Shey says, “Nice to start 08 with a bonafide hit. Big props to Amber, Ramon, Marc and the whole crew.” I say, Holy crap! BENNNNNN!!!!!!”

…:::UPDATE from BP’s Ben Relles:
“Ha! Would love to take credit but my my wife and I were having new relleses the day that video was made.

“All credit to Tom, Rusty, Boxser, Steve, Jared, and two spellbinding performances by Liam and Goldberg.”

YouTube says:
Honors for This Video:
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#37 - Top Rated (Today)
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#23 - Top Rated (This Week) - Comedy

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.

Everyone here knows that Justin Johnson is the cat’s pajamas. After all, aside from being our beta colleague (he started doing promos for Channel Frederator almost 18 months before Next New Networks formed) and mentor to us all, he was the defining catalyst for bringing Erik Beck and Steve Nelson into Indy Mogul (aside from being a primary contributor).

But it’s great when others around the media world recognize how wonderful people around here are, like Tilzy.tv’s Josh Cohen has done with Justin. Tilzy’s the only place consistently writing intelligent analysis of internet television (I emphasize the ‘writing’ because, while there are a lot of words spilled on the web, very little of it is actually written well). So, we welcome them into our world with great joy, whether they like what we’re up to (often) or not (sometimes).

Thanks for the Justin shout out guys.

My inspiration and friend Steven Heller has written what seems like his 1000th book on graphic design called Becoming a Digital Designer (with David Womack). He conducted a great interview with NNN founder Tim Shey. (Which was particularly inspirational to Tim, who’s been a Steve fan himself for years).

…..

Case Study: Small-screen Television

Timothy Shey, founder and head of network development at Next New Networks

Q: How did you get drawn into the digital world, and into design specifically? Did you train as a designer?

Tim: I grew up doing digital design, though I didn’t know it at the time.

As a kid in the 1980s, I would design and write software games on my Commodore 64, and was also pretty active on the BBSes (bulletin board systems) that were a precursor in many ways to the Web. Design then meant working in low-res pixel and ASCII art, but it was good training for what I’d end up doing in the nineties and beyond.

Design for me has always been about doing the best (more…)

For at least a week after his arrival at Next New, I never addressed our new Director of Audience Research. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to introduce myself, it was really more out of fear that I would call him the wrong name. Was it Michael or Michael-Thomas? Two first names! You see my dilemma? I’ve since confessed my confusion and I think we can laugh about it now.

Little did I know, Mike’s a car guy. He’s a big fan of Fast Lane Daily and even nominated himself to test drive any of the vehicles featured on VOD Cars. Though he and his wife are expecting their first baby in late March, he hasn’t let it compromise his taste in cars. He recently purchased an E46. It may be a station wagon, but it’s clearly not as tragic as driving a minivan. As Mike points out,”it’s better to drive a slow car fast than drive a fast car slow.”

As you can see, Michelle DeForest has quickly made herself comfortable in her new role as N3’s Development Coordinator. This New Orleans native (who fesses to not loving Mardi Gras) most recently comes to us from The Daily Reel where she wore many hats including writer, host and podcast director. Just three weeks into her stint, I can tell she’s hands on. Already she’s gathered a team to prepare for the annual SXSW Festival in Austin as well as networked with producers from across the country.

Oh, and she also can gloat about working with Leo…DiCaprio that is. Michelle was a crew member on Scorsese’s “The Departed.”

Steve Nelson has one of the coolest jobs at Next New Networks. This former intern was so into what we’re doing, he left Rutgers to become a full-time Indy Mogul. I gotta admit, the stuff I’ve seen him do around here is way more fun than hittin’ the books. I was having a hard time choosing my favorite clip, but I went with a sentimental favorite . Check out Indy Mogul’s P.A. in “The Egg.”

The Egg from justin on Vimeo.

For months now I’ve secretly wondered how tall our Systems Desktop Engineer, Dustin is. I suppose I never asked because I assumed he was tired of fielding that question. However, recently, my curiosity got the best of me. Though he stands 6′6” (at least the last time he checked), Dustin is one of the most inconspicuous people at Next New. Maybe that’s because he’s rather soft-spoken compared to many of the chatty ones here (myself included) . Both he and Matt Falconieri have been a tremendous asset to our team. We’ve all grown to rely on them heavily and they never let us down. Here are some facts I learned about Dustin after I hassled him for some facts about his life outside of Next New.

1. Yes he can dunk, but he avoids basketball like the plague.
2. He’s a home-grown talent, born and rasied in NYC’s Hell’s Kitchen
3. In his spare time he likes to rock climb and swim
4. He recently got a cool haircut, but insists his hair is “styled by his pillow.”

I’ve known Patty for a while now, yet I seem to be one of the few people in the office who was unaware of her musical ability. I finally caught on when I previewed this week’s Meth Minute in which her voice is showcased in Ultra and the Lazer Hearts. Seen here.

When she’s not singing, snowboarding or playing dodgeball, yes dodgeball, she can be found managing the whereabouts of CEO Herb Scannell, COO Jed Simmons, and our Senior VP of Media Sales, George Stewart. Patty’s used to multi-tasking though, she spent fours years at Sony where she worked with acts such as Britney and Beyonce (though she’s quick to point out, Britney was in her prime then). Periodically she still gets huge envelopes with Sony swag and makes us all jealous.

Alex is a good sport. Every so often I joke around with him about his lip synching in the Next New Networks version of Internet People, but he just laughs it off. Alex joined our staff as our system administrator in late June and brings with him a stacked resume including knowledge of JSP, PHP and CSS among other acronyms. He says technology wise, he’s done pretty much everything.
Born in Kiev, Ukraine, Alex came to the U.S. in 1990 less than a year before the Soviet Union collapsed. Now living in Staten Island, home of the Fresh Kill Landfill, he jokes, “so between the landfill and Kiev being less than 63 miles from Chernobyl, I slightly glow in the dark when the conditions are right.”