It was two years ago, this June, that Next New Networks actually started in the apartment of Fred Seibert, who had been incubating the idea with Emil Rensing (they had Channel Frederator and VOD Cars up and running when we met). In Fred’s apartment that day, a partnership was born as Tim, Jed, Fred, Emil and I all agreed that a company super-serving communities or targeted niches with “networks” on the internet (we later called them “micro-networks”) was a worthwhile pursuit, and worth raising VC money to do so. It wasn’t much later that our lead VC, Spark Capital, led by Dennis Miller, got on board, and then others, and by the end of the fall we were up and running.

During the time we’ve been operating we’ve accomplished a lot. We championed a new distribution method, “super-distribution” (as Fred said when we first used the phrase, “Who doesn’t want to be super?”), and that meant that our networks’ shows would be seen not just on their own URLs but on as many as twenty other partner platforms from YouTube to Veoh to Tivo where people were going to watch new kinds of video, and breaking the hegemony of the TV networks. And now many others, including the big networks, are on the super-distribution bandwagon.

While we were championing new distribution models, we were evangelizing to ad agencies and clients that they too should get “super” and embrace the idea of having their ads go to where the audiences are and innovate with us in distribution and ad integration. Movie studios like Lionsgate and Paramount were the first in, as well as car endemics and then non-traditional advertisers like the sewing machine company Janome, who saw loyal communities like Threadbangers DIY fashionistas as smart investments and came on board as sponsors. We’ve got more to do but we’ve put a lot of time into moving advertisers from “huh?” when we first started talking super-distribution to “uh-huh!”

And we identified key talent, next generation filmmakers, who can do some combo of directing, producing, writing, hosting and marketing — or simply do it all. People like Erik Beck at Indy Mogul, Rob Czar and Corinne Leigh at Threadbanger, Ben Relles at Barely Political and Mike Spinelli at Fast Lane Daily. Passionate folks who love what they do, and it shows. It’s these kinds of people who helped us launch 16 networks, some of which thrived and continue, and others that didn’t and wilted away. But that’s ok — that’s entertainment — and we’re happy where we are today with close to a dozen strong and more to come.

All of which leads me to reflect on our needs for the future. This spring we closed our second round of funding, bringing in great investors like Goldman Sachs and Velocity Interactive, to join Spark Capital and Saban Capital who participated in both rounds. With a newly bolstered board, I was named Chairman to go with my CEO title, and that’s given me an opportunity to think even bigger about our company. And to that end, I decided, with the board and my partners’ approval, to look to bring in a CEO to run the day to day of Next New Networks.

Thus far, we’ve been video-centric, built our network model, and got distribution and advertising up and running. Now, I want to see us go beyond video by building up our web capabilities in key categories, and move the company to make our sites and new offerings even more robust for communities to gather and interact. Hence, I plan on bringing in someone as CEO who has “been there, done that” in building a web business, and who will work with me as Executive Chairman.

More to come. I’ll keep you posted.

Wesley over on the Indy Mogul blog posted this video of Indy Mogul being covered on CNN Headline News’ News to Me over the weekend.

The blog commenters said it best:

GEORGE: Amazing guys I love this site and it is almost unreal to see it be on NATIONAL TV after only a year. 2000000 views a month is insane, and I’m sure it grows every month.

PUNKANDSKA66: You realize you guys haven’t even been around for a full year. Think about what indymogul will be like at this time next year.

Congrats, Erik and the Indy Mogul team!

It was a great weekend for politics here at NNN. This weekend we were all over the moon to see our very own Amber Lee Ettinger aka Obama Girl make a cameo in the opening of Saturday Night Live’s return episode after the Writer’s Strike. To quote Barely Political’s creator Ben Relles it was ‘beyond exciting’. Great job Amber and Ben.

And as the icing on the cake Noam Cohen in the New York Times did a great piece on Josh Marshall today and his winning of a George Polk Award. As soon as bloggers are considered, we know Josh will be up for a Pulitzer.

Josh- Our Man of the Year

Veracifier’s star Josh Marshall and TPM won a George Polk journalism award yesterday for their reporting on the federal prosecutors firing scandal in 2007. Traditional journalism accolades such as the Polk underline that bloggers like Josh are proving the success of old fashioned gum shoe journalism through the medium of new media. A huge congratulations to TPM. We continue to be proud to be associated with them.

Back in June, in one of my many favorite episodes of Thread Heads, Rob and Corinne responded to a request video from viewer John Paul, where he asked for their help making a baggy shirt fit like a custom-tailored shirt.

Little did any of us know at the time, “John Paul” was John Paul Flintoff, a writer for the UK’s Sunday Times, and a month later, after we had also featured another viewers’ use of the “pinch and pin” shirt tailoring method in the Viewer Appreciation Week episode, Mr. Flintoff got in touch with the ThreadBanger gang and asked for an interview. The resulting article was published in yesterday’s Sunday Times, and it’s a great ode to the DIY movement that ThreadBanger represents, which he rightly ties into a raise in awareness we all need to have to stop being such a trash-generating culture and learn to live more lightly on the Earth. Flintoff writes,

But soon we’ll all have to become more self-sufficient – to undergo what Rob Hopkins of the fast-growing Transition network calls the Great Reskilling. We must learn to grow and cook food, build and restore buildings and infrastructure, process sewage, create a healthcare system that does not rely on petrochemical-based pills, and puzzle together a no-growth economic system. And, I modestly submit, we must learn to make and repair our clothes.

Just goes to prove again that you never know who’s watching, and the power of answering viewer requests. Thanks, John Paul, for a great video submission in the first place, and we’re glad you dig ThreadBanger.

Read the full article: Climate change: A stitch in time

Raleigh-Elizabeth Smith’s depiction of the Democratic candidates going at it like children with Tim Russert in middle just cracks me up.

as seen on Veracifier

02 November 2007
Obama Says Hil Plays the Victim, and all the Democrats Fight
By: Raleigh-Elizabeth Smith

Scene: An angered America momentarily eschews apathy for that interlude of quasi-interesting politics known as the “campaign season.” The sides polarize; neoconservatives debate their decently lousy options (a Mormon or a man that used to live with gay men) brandishing crosses and flags of Israel, left-wing liberals put their bleeding hearts aside to bicker over who’s is bigger after all. And all of it happens on T.V.

Enter stage right: Barack Obama, new and interesting Democratic candidate who is losing momentum in the polls to political heiress and former first lady, Hillary Clinton.

Enter stage right: Hillary Clinton, clad in a suitably-masculine suit, power heels, and poofy “I’m not a girl! I’m not!” hairdo, accompanied by her intern-loving husband.

Camera pans to Tim Russert, sitting in the front passenger seat of a Honda Odyssey (it’s fuel efficient!). While Dick Cheney drives full-speed ahead on a Middle Eastern highway, Russert plays mommy to the bickering, hair-pulling, finger-pointing children in the back. I mean, the Democratic candidates for President. Roll film.

Ian Mount of the Wall Street Journal wrote up Indy Mogul this weekend in their Weekend “Picks” section — here’s an excerpt:

Twice a week the site, called IndyMogul.com, hosts a new instructional video on basic filmmaking techniques and what it terms “BFX” — backyard special effects. In a typical recent video, host Erik Beck responds to a video request from a graduate film student looking for a way to create realistic on-film rain. After explaining that cinematic raindrops need to be larger than real ones if they are to appear on film, Mr. Beck demonstrates how to make a $50 “Hollywood rain machine” out of wood, a garden hose, twist ties and eyehooks. The final effect is remarkably realistic.

Congrats to Erik, Vanessa, Justin and the whole team.

Great way to cap off a week when Rob and Corinne from ThreadBanger were on Rachael Ray, Faran from Girls Gone Styled was profiled on ABC News’ i-Caught, Oksana Baiul hosted Fast Lane Daily, and Josh Marshall interviewed John Edwards, not to mention Internet People continuing to round the globe, showing up on places like Yahoo’s The 9 and VH1’s Best Week Ever. Whew!

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.

We’re very happy to announce that beginning tomorrow, Wednesday, June 6, we’ll be adding A Comicbook Orange, a spinoff show from Casey McKinnon and Rudy Jahchan, the creators of Galacticast, to Pulp Secret, our network for comic book fandom and culture. Here’s a little preview:

Casey took the gutsy move not too long ago of quitting her day job and focusing full-time on building up the production company, and both of them put untold hours every week into making Galacticast continually great, and we couldn’t be happier to be their partners on their first project since taking the big leap. We hope you’ll all check out the first episode tomorrow, and let us know what you want to see on A Comicbook Orange.

For fun, here’s one more teaser.

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.