20 Comments Add your own

• 1. Contrarian  |  January 9th, 2008 at 5:56 am

  Amazing.

  This blog seems to emphasize form over substance, and this is another example of that.

  “Lifecasting.” Yeah, there’s already 570 channels and nothing on, but we’re supposed to waste our time watching that crap?

• 2. tdc  |  January 9th, 2008 at 6:07 am

  somebody get that young lady a mic flag!

• 3. JoeMo  |  January 9th, 2008 at 7:42 am

  OMG! live streaming, geez thats never been done before!

• 4. Rick  |  January 9th, 2008 at 8:36 am

  The thing that always strikes me about these stories is that they always seem to feature sexy cute twentysomething women.

  Apparently, the internet isn’t that different from local TV after all.

• 5. Cory  |  January 9th, 2008 at 9:00 am

  Sure, lifecasting isn’t new, but lifecasting from news events is.

  Imagine an event taking place in your market with 20 people live streaming from it via their cell phones.

• 6. Contarian  |  January 9th, 2008 at 9:13 am

  Yeah, I can imagine.

  And…?

• 7. Charlie  |  January 9th, 2008 at 2:48 pm

  Okay, so let me get this straight: she’s LIFEcasting. So, does that mean I’m LIFEviewing? What’s that say about someone’s life that it’s more interesting watching hers than living their own?

• 8. Steve Safran  |  January 9th, 2008 at 5:01 pm

  @Contrarian: When you watch home videos of your family do you say “This crap isn’t nearly as good as Seinfeld“?

  @Charlie: You’re not more interested in someone’s life. You’re simply interested. Just the way I get Facebook updates about my friends. If I could watch something they were doing that I thought was worth seeing, I’d choose to do so.

  The web is not TV.

• 9. Cory Bergman  |  January 9th, 2008 at 5:35 pm

  An example: There’s a big fire in downtown Seattle. 15 people stream it live via phones, from 10 different perspectives, way before news crews can get there. Most of them are narrating what they’re seeing.

  Seems to me, whoever figures out how to “route” and aggregate those live streams in an intelligent, event-based manner will be very, very successful.

• 10. Contrarian  |  January 9th, 2008 at 6:46 pm

  Honestly, guys, you get so worked up over the ability to DO things that you forget that content is more important.

  I don’t care about this person’s “life” experiences at CES. If I want to know what’s being shown, there are many experienced tech writers who will give me a much better report on that than this “lifecaster.”

  And 10 streams of a fire may sound exciting to a news person, but I doubt the public cares that much.

  Safran, you have it backwards: Does anyone else want to see MY home videos? No, and I wouldn’t subject them to ‘em. These people have an ego big enough that they would, however.

• 11. tdc  |  January 9th, 2008 at 7:48 pm

  i think what contrarian is saying is the girl needs a mic flag and one of those columbia embroidered fleece jackets with call letters stitched in.

  otherwise than that, i can’t imagine what he sees different from much of the crap i recall being put on tv as “quality”.

  maybe a station umbrella if she’s working in inclement weather?

• 12. tdc  |  January 9th, 2008 at 7:56 pm

  and a third arm for holding the umbrella.

• 13. Steve Safran  |  January 9th, 2008 at 8:51 pm

  @Contrarian: I’m betting your kids’ grandparents would want to see those videos. And maybe a few friends, too. I put my family videos online. They get a 100 share. That’s the point: small audiences, vast amounts of information.

  Vs. Thinking Alert.

  I get regular updates from friends via Facebook as to what they are up to. Quick, text blurbs. If I could watch, occasionally, as a friend showed what he was doing, I’d be fascinated. This has nothing to do with ego. You want ego, try asking for a salary. These people simply put their lives out there and if their friends want to watch, so be it. Does no harm.

  Everyone will not watch everyone. But everyone will be shared with someone. Don’t think mass audiences: think masses of small audiences.

  This woman doing her job does not infringe upon your ability to get information from the show in other ways, especially from those “experienced” tech writers. (I might note that my favorite tech blogs are only a year or two old - and one is even less. Do those folks qualify as experienced enough?)

  She presents another way of getting that information. But if the way that will suit you best is to wait until she has a live truck, three cameras, a sound guy, and a pre-packaged, 1min 14 second piece to toss to, you have come to the wrong blog.

  And definitely don’t get into the “my, what big egos they must have” game in video, web, journalism or otherwise. You won’t win that argument with anyone - contrarian or not…

  It’s my experience that those with the biggest egos always want the last word.

• 14. discreet_chaos  |  January 9th, 2008 at 9:30 pm

  I haven’t watched the video, but didn’t she go to work for Wired?

• 15. Brink  |  January 10th, 2008 at 9:59 am

  “It’s my experience that those with the biggest egos always want the last word. ”

  Oooh, neat trick, Safran! That way, you “win,” either way!

• 16. Charlie  |  January 10th, 2008 at 10:02 am

  Ouch. I’ve been schooled.

  Honestly, I sorta agree with Contrarian. Where’s the content. There’s a family connection in home video–personal history.

  I know you’ll probably pick up the sledgehammer on this one, but there’s one consistent metric across radio, tv and online: compelling content.

  If it’s interesting, has value, impacts my life–it works. Otherwise, it’s a cool she-geek idea. I watched her stuff and, frankly, I must not be in the demo. So, I showed it to my kids: 14, 11 and 9. 9 and 11 watched briefly but lost interest (no clear story; too random). 14 watched longer. But, that’s because he’s boy and thought she was a little hot. He soon lost interest when his IM heated up.

  I like the idea. I just think it’s a solution looking for an application.

  Okay, I’ll brace myself for the next schooling…

• 17. tish grier  |  January 10th, 2008 at 10:55 am

  hmmm…I’m sitting with some of the “contrarians” on this one. Seems to me like this is just the *next* twentysomething cutiepie looking to break into mainstream media by exposing her life to the world.

  Which leads me to ask: would you watch a “lifecast” of a 30-40something geeky female with a bad haircut and glasses–if she got all the great interviews, too? I doubt it.

  In our ever-increasingly weird society, there’s a sector of people who seem to get off on watching young people broadcast their lives all over the Internet without ever thinking of the consequence to the life of any of these young people–just because it’s “content.” On the low-brow end, we have Stickam (remember that?) and on the high-brow end we have “lifecasting”. The Stickam kids end up getting viewed regularly by pervs as well as peers, while the the “lifecasters” if they’re really lucky, might end up with bigtime tv or other mainstream media careers (’cause there ain’t a lot of money in new media, if anybody’s wondering…)

  And what’s going to *happen* to all this online video anyway? Where’s it going to end up? Who’s going to view it later on? Could it come back to bite you in the you-know-what with your next employer?

• 18. Sarah Meyers  |  January 11th, 2008 at 1:14 am

  @discreet_chaos- no I don’t work for Wired. I own popsnap and the Sarah Meyers brand. I did work for Gawker though.

  @tish- I’m not looking to get big in Hollywood. I’m looking to build an interactive media experience online that will overwhelm you with great content. I just want to make really good content and do the best I can online.

  I’m not going to be the next Amanda Congdon.

• 19. Sarah Meyers  |  January 11th, 2008 at 1:15 am

  Oh and BTW it’s PopSnap.net the guy won’t sell me popsnap.com

• 20. Brink  |  January 11th, 2008 at 5:19 am

  “the Sarah Meyers brand”

  Oh my. So much for journalism.

Leave a Comment

Subscribe to the comments via RSS Feed