Broadband Jungle Blog

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!

It’s Your Show: Vagina Etiquette for Starlets

It’s Your Show, launched by Carson Daly on NBC’s tidy portal last August, actually did deliver on its promise to bring creative chaos to the peacock’s net operations. It has also had terrific impact on the budding community of web filmmakers and web performers. 

Someone had to step up to the plate and teach the YouTube-crowd how to build a story, frame a shot and sustain creative momentum past the Mentos / Geyser climax, and Daly might just be that guy.

The site’s concept is straight and simple and could easily breed an entire generation of story-savvy web shooters: Carson’s IYS-team issues very specific story challenges with the help of low budget 60 second clips. Viewers download a toolkit that includes cleared music, sound effects and some visuals and off they race to create the next Soap Opera, Mockumentary, Doctor Drama or Fashion Show.

Sounds dangerously close to running a free story development department in the public space? So be it. The site fills a tremendous need to showcase new talent and does it in a very organized and entertaining manner. Challenges expire bi-weekly but submissions are archived and accessible while creators retain all rights to their work.

No wonder every aspiring improv troupe between Orange County and Hoboken seems to be submitting clips in the hope of gaining an audience and winning anywhere between 1000 and 100,000 Dollars. Not to mention a slot on Carson’s Faves and the occasional TV special the Last Call host presents to Middle America.

So, Hustle—don’t just sit there: A new challenge is always waiting and you, too can create the next Vagina Etiquette for Starlets, a delicious spin on the art of late-night infomercials from challenge # 19: “Sell Sell Sell.” Unfortunately, It’s Your Show doesn’t believe in embedding their clips just yet. We therefore resort to watching this link on YouTube …

Forbes on YouTube

Your future’s so bright, you’ve got to wear shades? If anyone, that’s YouTube’s wunderkind-CEO Chad Hurley smiling from the cover of the October issue of Forbes. The old school flagship runs with seven (!) articles on the Internet video phenomenon.

Video Fixation is the cover story by Scott Wooley, and he recounts the fine line Hurley and partner Steve Chen have been treading on their way to becoming broadband revolutionaries.

You Tube for Grownups by Cesar Suero has all the stats and provides a map to navigate the site for the uninitiated. More than Words examines the fledgling video search industry, while Can YouTube Grow Up And Stay Cool? by Peter Kafka deals with licensing issues and upcoming solutions like the arrangements with Warner Music and NBC.

The Yahoo! Current Network arrives

Current TV co-founder and figurehead Al Gore yesterday announced the launch of a multi-channel VC2-themed collaboration between Current TV and Yahoo!, lavishly called the Yahoo! Current Network.

So far, four channels went live today:
Yahoo! Current Traveler, featuring the familiar mix of Current TV contributors with the occasional celebrity video thrown in. U2 front man Bono’s delicious launch present is a series of segments depicting “A Day in the life of The Edge”, showing an initially reluctant guitar player being woken by his singer in Miami.

Yahoo! Current Driver is celebrating the thrills of horsepower-hungry, gas-guzzling subcultures in surprisingly unashamed manner, considering that the network was founded by ‘Ozon-Man’ himself, as FishbowlLA so endearingly called Al Gore after An Inconvenient Truth opened in the spring.

Yahoo! Current Action takes on the extreme sports crowd that’s otherwise been abandoned outside of x-games season. Skateboarders, FMX fans, surfers and snowboarders will find everything they need here.

Yahoo! Current Buzz seems to be a compilation channel for now, with an occasional nugget from the Current TV archives thrown in.

News about an upcoming Current TV broadband collaboration with one of the Internet’s pioneers had been posted on the news podcaster’s website since early summer. Evidence pointed more towards Current TV shareholder and Yahoo! nemesis Google, on whose board the former vice-president resides. Google even hosts a branded viral clip segment on Current TV that’s now been moved to every hour on the half hour.

All in all, a great move for the cable network to increase their broadband foothold, but there’s a lot in it for Yahoo! as well, especially with their once very ambitious video content divisions all but abandoned up until now.