Fast Company TV Archive

What’s going on in the news/daily show videoblogging space? Check out this list of activity over the last couple of months:

• CBS’ Wallstrip closes
• Mobuzz closes
• CBS’ Moblogic closes
• Leah D’Emilio leaves Mahalo Daily; apparently show reduced to 1x/week Youtube recap
• WebbAlert closes
• Scoble leaves FastCompanyTV

I’ve heard a lot of chatter that daily news review shows are having trouble growing their audiences because the news is typically always a day behind. In today’s "real time" required market, it makes sense that people aren’t interested in checking out the news they already read on a blog the day before. Yet some of the shows listed above are interview and segment shows, not daily video shows and they have also closed up shop.

I’ve also noticed several videobloggers willing to shill for any company that will pay. While overall online advertising is down, video advertising is supposed to be the one area of growth. I assume that most advertisers would rather spend their money on Hulu than on a small daily video show.

Are there any daily news/interview online video shows that are able to consistently generate a large audience and/or revenue?

Edelman VP Steve Rubel wrote a post yesterday where he discussed why text is still the "king" of the Web. The article is worth reading because the points Rubel makes are solid. He says text is scannable, you can SEO the heck out of text, easier for workers to slack off reading text vs. video, easier for mobile access and lastly, text is easier to share versus video.

Rubel also discusses blogger Robert Scoble’s disappointment that his videos don’t show up on Techmeme but his text posts do. Scoble went on to say that his videos typically don’t generate a lot of inbound links or conversations on the new crop of chat services. I took a look at why Scoble’s videos might not generate the same attention as his text posts.

This week he’s posted some good articles about how to find a job. But the question is, why don’t his videos get the same attention as his text posts. I’ve posted 400+ videos and typically find similar results. When I post demo videos from a meetup, they don’t get many views. When I post interviews, they typically do better but rarely "awesome" in terms of traffic or discussion. However my videos where I am in the video itself discussing a subject do very well. It’s typically hard to make an interview or demo that exciting – but I feel they are important so I continue to provide the content.

In Robert’s case, part of the issue is brand fragmentation. Robert works for FastCompany magazine and runs the FastCompany.tv online video section yet he posts many videos on his own blog. I imagine that his FC audience is a bit different than his blog audience and perhaps the blog audience isn’t interested in his discussions with various CEOs and other technology executives. By linking to the video content, readers would also have a chance to engage with additional content on the FC video site.

In looking at the FastCompany.tv site, a slight rework might be in order. There are three main sections of video content on the site: ScobleizerTV, WorkFastTV and FastCompanyLive. WorkFastTV hasn’t been updated since October and FastCompanyLive hasn’t been updated in a month. Yet all of this fresh material only lives on his blog. I just don’t understand why FC allows this pattern to continue. It makes the FC site appear stale when there’s no reason for it. If the WorkFast is no longer being produced, move it off to the right so it’s not the first thing viewers see when loading the site.

From a technical standpoint, there are a variety of changes they could make to the Drupal installation to help with better site optimization which I think would also help in increasing discussion, linking and overall traffic. I also think the site could be improved to make the experience a bit warmer – remember, with text it’s quick-in, quick-out. With video, you are going to sit on the page for a longer time, make the experience something that makes the user want to hang around.

My suggestion would be to keep all videos on FastCompany.tv and point to them from Scoble’s blog. From my perspective it feels like an overall video strategy would help Robert get his video views up and also increase the amount of discussion that takes place around the videos. The strategy will help to reduce the brand fragmentation and increase the views because readers and viewers will know where to look for videos.

While I typically try to stay away from discussing an individual, in this case I think this discussion can benefit anyone trying to run multiple sites with video and text.

Update: I was able to catchup with Gary Vaynerchuk from Wine Library TV and asked him about the move today. He said, “I love REV3 and the people there and sometimes you need to adjust to the market and see what works and doesn’t and I love those guys and wish all of them super well and hope they Kill it and do nothing but awesome things! As for Wine Library Tv I will continue to Crush it on winelibrarytv.com everyday!”

Update 2: On the TWIT podcast last night, Mahalo CEO Jason Calacanis said regarding the staff size at Revision3, “30 (staff) is kind of high for that kind of company.”

Revision3 has announced some major show changes today. Epic-Fu will no longer be carried by Revision3 at the end of December and the Wine Library TV show will be removed as of today. Several other shows have also been cut. CEO Jim Louderback also noted that they are working on a variety of new shows that may hit the lineup soon. Wine Library TV joined the lineup back in June with a slimmed down version of their daily show. Louderback notes the huge popularity of Diggnation as one of their “winners”.

Mashable is also reporting that some staff members at Revision3 were fired today including their head of business development Damon Berger. It’s important to note that we will never know the real reason for these people being let go.

In other online video news, Robert Scoble has announced that he is “restructuring” his WorkFastTV show which is broadcast live from the Revision3 offices. No further details have been provided about this restructuring. I think the show has made some good overall progress since I provided my initial commentary and suggestions for improvement this summer. I’d like to see them make the site a bit more friendly. Remember that with video you could be sitting on the site for quite a while, make the appearance relaxing and engaging.

Have you considered a career working with Robert Scoble? Are you having sleepless nights wondering what it would be like to work at Fast Company TV with the master of FriendFeed Robert Scoble? Well then, have I got the job for you! Here are the job details from Director of Social Media Lynne Johnson:

Looking for a senior or executive level editor passionate about the intersection of social media and journalism.

The ideal candidate will be able to jump start conversations in our community. The person will work closely with the president of Mansueto Digital Edward Sussman, Lynne D. Johnson (FC Director of Social Media), Robert Scoble, our managing director of FastCompany.TV, and the print team of Fast Company magazine.

The job is fun and high profile and right on the edge of what’s happening in publishing. We are looking for someone who can spit out loads of story ideas about innovation, the web, social media, sustainability, and other core FC topics — and then make them a reality.

Contact email: lynne@fastcompany.com

To be honest, it looks like a pretty strong social media opportunity. Their office has one of the best views of lower Manhattan out there!

Fast Company TV launched back in March and when I reviewed the initial launch, I had some comments about the technical side of the house. Most of my comments still stand today, especially the one about getting a better video player. It would be great to see segmented shows where I can jump to sections that I might be interested in or comment inside the video or tag the video where needed.

WorkFastTV is a live show that Fast Company TV added to the lineup last month. The show features Robert Scoble and Shel Israel and a variety of guests. This week they had author Timothy Ferriss on the show. Shel asked for feedback on the show, so here’s my two cents.

They are partnering with Revision3 on the show so they have great video equipment. The set is actually quite nice as well. Robert says it’s plain but it’s ok as-is. I think putting up posters or photos would be a distraction more than anything.

Here are some other critical thoughts:

• Don’t show the guest until you introduce him or her – it creates a lot of awkwardness when you show the guest, then refer to the person in the 3rd person as if they weren’t there.
• Cut the intro banter down – people are coming to hear your guests, not you (no offense!) – the intro on today’s show was way too long and it didn’t work. Test your jokes ahead of time! And never talk about the budget – no one cares :)
• Work on your chemistry – there really seems to be no chemistry between Robert and Shel. The two of you should be spending many hours a week together working on the chemistry (maybe you are already). When I compare your show to the GigaOm show, that show started off boring but Om and Joyce had chemistry from the beginning – I hope they bring that show back because it was quite good at the end.
• Until you have the above worked out, I’d almost suggest a GigaOm style layout and have Shel run the computer
• Play a commercial in the middle of the show – this will give a play for SAP plus it will give you 30-45 seconds to reset – this is an important piece of time for both the advertiser and for the show guests
• I don’t know if the chat you have after the live show is over is recorded or posted somewhere, but it should be. The user questions and the guest’s responses are great content that I’ve missed now because I wasn’t in the Kyte chatroom.
• Last thing is to figure out if the show is a business show or a geek-tech show. If business, drop the stickers and keep the suit. If geek tech, keep the stickers and lose the suit. It feels like a weird mix – like spaghetti and ice cream. Great on their own, not so great in one bowl. If you stick with the suit on Scoble, Shel should be in one too.

With Robert’s connections, he will be able to get great guests for the show and I am sure the show will be tweaked over time. I look forward to learning from the show’s guests over the next episodes and hopefully learn how to work faster.

Here’s the interview with Timothy Ferriss:

Fast Company TV has launched this morning. The initial rollout will have two channels: Fast Company Live and Scobleizer TV. I’ve embedded Robert Scoble’s welcome video below in which Scoble sits on some rocks and explains how the network will work. The site is sponsored by Seagate, the same sponsor from the PodTech days.

Fast Company Live will let Scoble use his mobile device to send in live video from his travels using what appears to be Qik as the technology provider. The site claims a new video will be added each day — not sure if it will actually be live. Scobleizer TV will be more like his previous work with PodTech and will not only focus on technology innovators, but also business innovators. Scobleizer TV will use HD cameras and high-end equipment for production.

You can interact with the videos by traditional text commenting or by linking to a YouTube video comment. They should be working with Viddler to implement their new in-stream video commenting feature we wrote about last week. Small annoyance but there is no volume control on the videos. Also, there doesn’t look like a way to stream a feed of videos which should be added.

I met with Fast Company TV’s development team last week in NYC and they were very excited about the launch. The site is built using Drupal as is the new Fast Company Web site (and CN is as well). From what I can tell so far, it’s a good implementation of the CMS. The search isn’t working yet though the Drupal search function isn’t up to par in general. Scoble says the search will be implemented later this week.

Here is Scoble’s welcome video: