Jeff Jarvis provides more evidence that the future of “television” is being remade on the web, mostly by amateurs, hackers, and struggling artists.
Online video in 2006 feels like the Web in 1994. It’s all pretty rough, but a lot of it is very creative. Much of the stuff that’s being created for the web by the mainstream media has a raw, experimental quality that we’re not used to from big organizations.
Jeff’s story of producing his segment for CBS versus producing a segment for Amanda Congdon’s webcast hints that the eventual impact of web video on television will be greater than the impact of the Web on print.
One of the most significant parts of all of this is that amateurs can produce higher-quality video than is possible with standard Grown-Up TV production techniques. The technology is necessary but not sufficient. Production processes have to be re-invented for the low-overhead, small-screen, short-subject, random-access, bandwidth-thrifty web. We’re still in inventing a new grammar of online video, just as Desi Arnaz (yes, Desi!) invented multi-camera production techniques late in the early days of television.
I’m finishing up a report on the market for online video in the news business. I have also begun to take a look at best practices for online video.
Originally published on my blog at JupiterResearch.