Broadband Jungle Blog

DISTRIBUTION 2.1 Panel at Cine Gear Expo

I'm a panelist at Cine Gear Expo Master Class Seminars this weekend on a panel moderated by Mark Vega from Omelet:

DISTRIBUTION 2.1
Delivery Channel Fragmentation Leads to Niche Audience Infiltration

Don't miss this amazing master class seminar!
Sunday June 24, 2007, 1:00 pm to 4:30 pm
Location:
Kodak Screening Room (click for map)
Eastman Kodak Company
6700 Santa Monica Blvd.
Hollywood, CA 90038

(class fee $85.00)

Moderated by Mark Vega, Principal OMELET, a new marketing studio that is ½ work-for-hire ad agency and ½ intellectual property incubator

Entertainment content today is being delivered for a profit across distribution platforms believed technically and economically untenable only a few years ago: DVD creation on demand, user-generated content on social networking websites, camera phone film festivals, mobisodic comedies.

This doesn’t mean that feature film or other long-form content is dead. It does highlight, however, the need to pay even closer attention to the audience you’re trying to reach as a storyteller. Where do they reside and where do they consume their entertainment? Only 15% of the United States uses Tivo and digital devices so we’ve got a long way to go before the user-generated content, on-demand content universe becomes the norm. This Master Class Seminar will introduce key voices to a conversation around understanding how to make delivery channel fragmentation lead you to the audience you’re trying to capture.

Panelists:
David Tenzer, Entertainment Project consultant, 23 year packaging agent veteran CAA
Eric Spiegelman, VP Biz Dev, This Just In, an original content comedy venture between HBO and AOL and VP Biz Dev HBO Labs
Thomas Rigler, New Media content strategist, co-founder of Internet TV guide community GoGooroo.com, and host of the Broadband Jungle Blog
Mike Sarner, Filmmaker of In The Crease and former film acquisitions executive at MGM
Mark Netter, VP Biz Dev, zannel.com (mobile content on zillions of channels)
Graham Streeter, Filmmaker of Cages and former news reporter/producer

To purchase a seat to this event please click this link.

Welcome to GoGooroo Blog

It took us 2 months into our public beta to finally launch the BIG blog. Go figure.
Anyhow--we've been more than pleased by the warm embrace we've received from the blogging community and trade journalists around the globe. Take a look.

A big shoutout goes to Kristen Nicole at Mashable to get the ball rolling. Looks like there really was something missing in the marketplace and a lot of video fiends out there were suffocating under the weight of all their bookmarks. I know we did.

So here's the goal: We're determined to create the most useful and user-friendly platform for all these great and inspiring broadband video channels out there. In spite of our efforts, a lot of them still get lost in the shuffle. We believe in niche programming, and we believe in monster blockbusters to keep the industry's momentum going.

Not so sure how we feel about television, though--it might be the golden age of TV writing, but the platform itself seems tired and stale. We'll just have to see how far the broadband revolution goes. Creatively we certainly are experiencing an eruption of visual content not seen since the advent of cable, maybe even television.

Don't get me started about the movies -- broadband video might be what independent producers have been waiting for since the creatively insane ran the asylum in the 1970s. I do believe that. It could also mean the end of distribution and exhibition as we've known it for the past century. If you're pumping HD on demand broadband into your home theater, who's going to drag their butt into a poorly run theater anymore?

GoGOOROO is clearly a company with a global mindset. It's no coincidence that we launched parallel in  the US and Europe, and we have big plans to add more localized portals as we build this community. We also have aspirations to take a leadership role when it comes to syndicating and hosting video content for our viewers.

While we're currently indexing every channel known to man, we're also determined to create and curate some of these great new channels nobody had thought of. We're big on collaborating with other video portals and aggregators, because we're all Davids in the same boat struggling with Goliath.

And that does include Michael Eisner, a recovering Goliath. He's new to it just like we all are and that's probably what he likes about creating Prom Queen with the skills he learned in the good old TV days.

Anybody who claims they have it all licked, whether it's production, advertising, distribution, finance or storytelling is simply telling a lie. Nobody has a clue and we're all learning and making it up as we go along, just like it should be.

Gary Carter, CCO of the company who brought us American Idol, expressed it extremely well at January's NATPE conference:

“Technological development is a story which runs through human history and which shapes and is shaped by it. And part of that story is the rise (…) of what we call ‘media.’ This is about us, in a very deep and a very profound way, and it’s about the way in which we as a species are driven by creativity.”

That said--follow the Gooroo and have a great time!