Some of Next New Networks (and new media’s) best friends are at Apple, especially Pete Alcorn and Scott Simpson at iTunes.

Pete and Scott were the first big supporters of what Emil and I were doing a couple of years ago with VOD Cars and Channel Frederator. They promoted us to popularity at every turn and when we launched NNN this year they’ve been there whenever one of our new networks goes online.

So, we put together special Freddie Awards for each of them last January, but when they couldn’t make the show we decided to wait. Pete came by for a visit last week and I couldn’t have been prouder to give the award to anyone in the world.

Thanks Pete. Thanks Scott. Thanks Apple.

Halley Suitt and Steve Garfield stopped by Next New today with Steve’s friend and collaborator David Tamés and hung out with me and the N-Bot for a while (photo by Steve, plus here’s another). It was fun to show Steve around especially — he’s sort of the vlogfather of our operation, thanks to his infectious advocacy for the medium of videoblogging, which has gotten untold numbers of people to pick up their cameras and make something.

I’ve known Steve for a while now thanks to his number one fan Amanda and his work on Rocketboom and Vlog Soup, two of the first videoblogs I saw that started to look like a new kind of popular entertainment, maybe even a revolution. Halley I’ve known just about as long, though I first met her when I was recruiting bloggers to work with ClubMom and she was CEO of Top Ten Sources (and nicely put ClubMom’s founder Andrew Shue on the front page). Now Halley’s mentioning a new company called ZINDICATE on places like LinkedIn and TechCrunch, and judging from the company she’s keeping, I think it’s safe to say Halley’s going to be bringing those smarts to online video. Good — we need it!

No one wants to go it alone. Well, maybe Steve Jobs and the occasional sociopath/visionary — but we have a hard enough job to do without meeting like-minded people in our space. So it’s been especially nice for us to get to know the team at Wallstrip over the past six months or so — we’ve shared a lot of information and knowledge as we both tried to chart a path for our properties in the super-distributed media world, and we’ve been pretty open about how much we admire Howard, Lindsay, Jeff and Adam here, and the influence their work on Wallstrip has been on our networks.

While I was off on some trip or another, Wallstrip founder Howard Lindzon came by to shoot an episode of his weekend videoblog at Next New Networks, which went up today (and is embedded below, for those of you who can see it). You get to meet our CEO and COO, Herb and Jed, and see Emil and the team shooting an episode of Fast Lane Daily.

Howard’s a great guy, and his willingness to go out and make friends in the business is a huge part of his success. It’s a treat whenever he drops by, so I’m sorry I missed this visit. He’s still looking for a name for his weekly video blogs (I guess this week it was “Please Don’t Strip”?), and while the title of this blog post is probably too corny and convoluted as a pun, it’d be an accurate title, for sure.

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.

I’m going to let Tim give an official wrap-up of Pixelodeon because he’s much happier party-er than me, but I’ll just let you all know I’ve had a ball as of Day 1. Steve & Zadi of JETSET, Jay, Irina, and Ryanne have put on an amazing event –better organized than a first year has any right to be!– where videobloggers of all stripes are gathering in Hollywood and figuring out where to fit into the media firmament of the future.

From our NNN party Friday night, here’s two of our stars, Zadi Diaz from JETSET and Erik Beck from Indy Mogul. Up above, that’s Tim and Erik. And check out a few photo galleries that have already sprung up here, here, here, and here.

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.

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.

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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I should have linked to this sooner, but the latest round of VLOG DEATHMATCH brought in a huge field of participants - 20 in all. The challenge: make a music video. No restrictions.

Twenty vloggers entered… but only one will leave at midnight tonight with the right to put the coveted “V.D. Champion” badge on their site (which always seemed a mixed blessing to me anyway).

Right now, it seems to be a showdown between Irina Slutsky’s pretty amazing nerdcore battle rap (which actually features the line, “by the time he’s done with video compression/ i’m already on to my next vlogging session”) and The Burg’s remake of the Buggles hit that launched MTV (which Fred here should get a kick out of).

But if a few thousand of you NNN blog readers vote right now, you could put anyone into the lead. Maybe Chuck Olsen will take the race? Deathmatch organizer Bill Cammack and Action Girl? Coolest of the bunch may be Michael Verdi’s Second Life-shot entry, Wreck & Salvage’s Francopop video, or Jackson West’s funky camphone piece — but really, there’s not a bad entry in the competition. I just had a blast watching them all.

Meanwhile, here are the two lead entries, for your consideration, after the jump.

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Photo by Mike Ambs

We’re big fans of Project Pedal, an upcoming documentary (and current videoblog) that will chronicle a two month bicycle trip across North America, after having learned about them on one of the first episodes JETSET did with Next New Networks.

When Mike Ambs reached out for a little help kicking off his trip, which starts next week, we were really happy for a chance to support the project. So we’ll be sponsoring the Pedal Push kickoff party this coming Saturday, May 26 (here’s a link to RSVP on upcoming.org) at the Little Radio Warehouse in LA. If you’re in the area, please come out and meet some of our favorite people.

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