May 3, 2007 4 Comments

Big Sparks Thursday at ONHollywood

Justin Kan Remember my “Extend the Conversation” post? It seems this is a bit of a theme lately. Tomorrow, at ON Hollywood, the session I think will be most attended will be “Can Democratization Kill Professional Mainstream Media?”

The panel will feature Dan Farber of ZDNet and CNET fame (met him today for the first time, long time fan), Justin Kan, founder of Justin.tv (met him today for the first time, long time fan), Bill Cleary, founder of Cleary & Partners (met him today for the first time, and a new fan), and Andrew Keen, author of the upcoming book, THE CULT OF THE AMATEUR (met him today for the first time, and I’m intrigued).

Farber’s a skilled and intelligent journalist and overall good talker, and I think he’ll drive an interesting session. Kan, Cleary, and Keen (especially) will drive HUGE fireworks from the conversation. I know it. Cleary gave Renee Blodgett and I a preview of what he planned to talk about, and how he would approach attacking Keen’s position. Keen gave us a great conversation about his point of view in his polemic about why blogging and user-generated media is pretty much all garbage. And Justin, after just hanging out with the guy for a while (did you see me on Justin.TV?) will definitely represent the mindset of people within what Renee called the Geek-o-Chamber (if this is someone else’s phrase, I didn’t know it).

Keen’s book, which I first learned about through Amanda Chapel’s blog post, is a hand grenade thrown into the maw of bloggers, podcasters, Flickr photo rockstars, and more. Basically, your blog is poorly written and needs editing. Your videoblog isn’t as interesting as well-produced TV. Your attempt at citizen journalism is putting professional journalists out of work, and that’s bad.

Can you see where this will be a fun conversation?

Farber’s a hybrid traditional media/publications guy – slash – new media podcaster guy. Kan is living TV. Cleary is an anthropologist who likes pulling “man on the street” interviews for fun, and Keen’s got the powder keg boot-to-the-teeth book of 2007. This is going to KICK ASS.

I told Keen that next year, he could walk around San Francisco wearing a tee shirt that reads, “I’m the guy who wrote that book,” and people would know which guy and which book.

Let’s see how accurate my prediction is.

JD Lasica and Renee Blodgett

(oh, and a pic of JD Lasica of Ourmedia.org, with Renee Blodgett)

Related posts:

  1. Sleep Deprivation Sparks Idea
  2. At ONHollywood
  3. ONHollywood- Do We Need Editors?
  4. Thursday and Sprinting?
  5. Core: Week 2 Thursday

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  • Anonymous

    As one person who found Justin.TV uninteresting and incredibly self-centered, I look forward to hearing what happens in this panel.

    No matter how compelling justin’s fundamental message may be – I lost it in hours of trivial.

    I don’t think that new media will *kill* mainstream media. And I don’t want it to. I want the new to make the mainstream better.

    Coverage of VT was enhanced by seeing the cell phone video and by reading a student’s IM log. But no way was that kind of material *enough* it just added to what folks are calling the mainstream.

    Looking forward to your coverage. Glad the moderator seems committed to an active facilitative role.

  • Barbara Gavin

    As one person who found Justin.TV uninteresting and incredibly self-centered, I look forward to hearing what happens in this panel.

    No matter how compelling justin’s fundamental message may be – I lost it in hours of trivial.

    I don’t think that new media will *kill* mainstream media. And I don’t want it to. I want the new to make the mainstream better.

    Coverage of VT was enhanced by seeing the cell phone video and by reading a student’s IM log. But no way was that kind of material *enough* it just added to what folks are calling the mainstream.

    Looking forward to your coverage. Glad the moderator seems committed to an active facilitative role.

  • http://shey.net Tim

    Thanks, Chris. Looks like an interesting panel… glad to have you out there and writing it up, it’s better than being there in person. Our CEO, Herb, should be there, by the way, if you’d like to look out for him and say hi.

  • http://shey.net Tim

    Thanks, Chris. Looks like an interesting panel… glad to have you out there and writing it up, it’s better than being there in person. Our CEO, Herb, should be there, by the way, if you’d like to look out for him and say hi.