Today the BBC is collaborating with the site by sponsoring the feature called “the 12second challenge”, a daily question that users reply to. Users get to reply to the question “Economic downturn – how bad can it get? Give some examples.” The replies may then appear on BBC TV.

Further, 12seconds.tv today announced to its users plans to involve them in extensive coverage of the US election day.

In an email to the service’s users, the 12seconds team writes:

Citizen Journalism is pretty important for the health of a democracy. For this reason, we’re going to put a lot of effort into Election Day. Where appropriate (and legal) we’d like 12ers covering reactions, parties, exit polls and emotions on November 4th all over the world. We’re assembling a team of people and will feature their content on Election Day.

News Manager Olivia M calls out:

So here’s where I turn to you guys for help! If you see examples of fellow YouTubers doing great work in journalism and reporting, please let me know. If you’re a citizen journalist yourself, tell me how YouTube could better serve you. I want to hear how you guys envision news on YouTube and what you’d like to see. My ultimate mission is to make the site a go-to destination for news on the web.

A good ambition, for sure. But after 18 text replies, Olivia hasn’t yet got back to the users commenting her post. And with comments as this one, dated May 26, I feel it’s urgent that she should, if she wants this effort to be taken seriously:

We are very concerned about YouTube’s implementation of geolocational censorship in Thailand and elsewhere. How do you intend to distribute real news to its intended audience without being compromised by YouTube’s secret agreement with Thai government? Freedom Against Censorship Thailand (FACT)

Wishing Olivia and the YouTube the best of luck with the initiative, and hoping to see a bit more interaction with the users.

It is of course too early to write a review, other than that it’s a good thing that SVT has understood that they can’t dictate the viewers’ options, but need a more open attitude. Most importantly, SVT needs to understand that they can’t have a YouTube channel that works as a branch of the press department, with trailers of upcoming shows only. There is a need for an active editor: someone who can find the gems in the daily production and publish them.
If they don’t do that, the viewers will do it themselves, and then the point of the channel is lost for SVT.

I’m inclined to agree. This first effort is a start, but it doesn’t take them a very long way. Yet I can’t even imagine how this step is perceived in the concrete bunker in which the SVT is housed. To many people there I’m sure it’s a revolution, and I suspect they are not all happy about it. Old organizations are usually not the fastest movers.

Congratulations André!
- Thanks! Never in my life did I think 1000 people who support me and are genuinely interested to know more about my projects would sign up. But at the same time I knew I would never give up.
How are you going to celebrate?
- By tattooing Geek Movie Director on myself, for real! Also I’ll make a special video for members only.
Tell me more about the tattoo. Where will you put it?
- It will be my life-long promise to one day become the obvious geek movie director. I’ll place it somewhere visible, probably on my arm.
What’s your background? What got you into film-making?
- It started when I was born 7 weeks early, in an elevator. I spent a lot of time sick in bed while growing up. There I fell in love with story-telling through the superheroes in comic magazines. Then, when I saw Jurassic Park at age 11, scared and squeezed in between my parents, I knew I wanted to become a movie director. To take people places, to make them experience emotions and adventures they might not experience in their daily life.
What does the term Geek movie director mean to you?
- For me it’s about combining my love for nerd culture with film-making. Examples of “Geek Movies” would be Star Wars, The Matrix, Spiderman and 300.
In which ways do you consider yourself ground-breaking in your movie-making?
- I’m not really trying to break new ground, it’s more about finding new ways to realising my dreams through my creativity. The internet has opened up a way for me to distribute and finance my films. That’s why I’m going to make a superhero series that will be viewed for free, world-wide, through YouTube, Facebook and Dvoted.
What will Extraordinaires be about?
- “Extraordinaries!” is about normal people without super-powers, who become the super-heroes of our time through extraordinary actions. A superhero tale you can really relate to!
You’ve said that the series will be created together with people you meet on Facebook. How will that work? So if I chat with you on Facebook, you might put me in the series? :-)
- Definitely! The internet has opened the doors to a whole new way of making film. “Extraordinaries!” is a low-budget project, and it will be created together with people from around the world in front of and behind the camera. If you join my fan-club at andrehedetoft.com or befriend me on Facebook, anything could happen!
When will the first episode be online?
- Production starts today, and the first episode will be out in January. Though you can already follow the pre-productioon through weekly production diaries online.
Finally, what do you wish for the most at the moment?
- Sponsors for my production diaries, so that we can really make a series to blow people off their chairs!

Read more about André and his projects on his blog. Also check out the Extraordinaries teaser below.

There are two ways to explore the stories, either by clicking the “play the story” button, in which case you get the full multimedia experience with a satellite image background, music and text, photos and video clips telling a step-by-step story. Unfortunately many of them are over-done, having music with lyrics in the background while you’re supposed to read small and quite blurred text which disappears too quickly. The most engaging story is The bible on the beach, though that one raises a lot of other questions. Nowhere do we get to know if this is a fictional or true story. If it’s true, there are a lot of objections to be made. If not, that should be made clear.
The Guerilla gardening story also works okay.

The other way of exploring the stories is by clicking the dots/signs on each story’s map. That doesn’t work well at all. The navigation leaves a lot to be asked for. It sometimes, for instance on the “Tree Survey”, brings you away from the map of photos/video clips once you click to view one of them. In other places you still get to see the map with the geotagged photos, but if you’ve zoomed in you lose the zoom once you click on a photo and have to re-zoom (and re-zoom you have to, since the standard view of the map is so much zoomed out that the photo dots are on top of eachother). If you use the Next and Previous links there are no indications on the map which dot represent the photo your looking at.

However, it is an interesting experiment, and a first step towards using geotagging in story-telling. The main flaws in the second way of story exploration are actually due to less than perfect site building, not the way the students have carried out the projects.

With some more training, this could mature into something quite interesting. But it is important to remember that a web audience usually wants to be active – clicking the forward arrows in the multimedia needs to work flawlessly. And clicking your way around a map needs to work without the map reloading and zooming when you haven’t asked it to.

As for the “citizen media” aspect, I see no way to contribute to the site, though it says you can comment as a registered user. That doesn’t seem to include the general public, or the link is well hidden. But I guess the citizen journalism part is referring to the students not being trained journalists.

there’s a bit of a kerfuffle going on right now in light of revelations that even as she has been producing stories for ABCNews.com, she has also been performing in infomercials for DuPont, one of the largest companies in the world.

Congdon herself mocks or atleast laughs at the whole thing in her blog.

ABC and HBO both approved the DuPont spots. And under the “blogger” title, which is what I am, hello? I am not subject to the “rules” traditional journalists have to follow.

Isn’t that what new media is all about? Breaking the rules? Setting our own? I see nothing wrong with doing commercials, which is what they, quite transparently, are.

I definitely think Terdiman has a point when he sends a bit of advice Congdon’s way:

That attitude is more one of someone intent on being a performer, not a journalist. And while bloggers generally don’t have to answer to anyone except themselves and, to some extent, their readers, Congdon is in a totally unique category: She is a blog-bred personality who has crossed over to the mainstream. If she was video blogging for ABC.com, that would be one thing. But her work appears on the news site, and that makes her part of the news team.

So, while she is a nice person, and seems to have good intentions, I think Congdon may well want to think about whether she wants a future in journalism. If not, then she’s fine. But if she does, she may be burning bridges which she can’t cross again.

More on Amanda Congdon’s career: From Rocketboom to the newsroom

So what’s going on? Has YouTube decided to wait before announcing the awards? Has the reporter got something wrong? Does anybody have information?

Gore said Current TV was designed – to democratize the medium of television and open it up to voices, so people can join the global conversation.
Mainstream television, he says, is a one-way conduit, and – a conversation that shuts out individuals begins to get a bit stale.
Gore and his co-founder Joel Hyatt bill Current TV as – television for the Internet generation of tech-savvy 18-to-34 year olds who demand interactivity and, it seems, have short attention spans.

In connection with the launch, Current TV announced a contest where three winners get to have lunch with Al Gore in London. It’s about shooting what Current TV calls a pod – a 3-5 minute ”non-fiction video that tells a story, profiles a character or place, and/or shares an idea” – and uploading it to the current.tv site.

A third of the content on Current TV is made up by pods like this. The content is very segmented – here’s a sample hour:

As you can see, Current TV also partners with Google. And they’ve put extra effort into making people with a background in journalism contribute to the site and tv channel through its Current Journalism program.

”Welcome to UK and Ireland”, writes US current.tv blogger Amanda Zee, who reports that the UK team has been working hard to make the launch.

I’ve only been over here for four days, but the team at Current UK has been working toward this for months, seemingly non-stop. No matter what time I’ve been in the San Francisco office, there’s always someone in the London one available to answer questions — and if you do the time-zone math, you’ll know just how crazy that is. Hopefully now they’ll have a chance to enjoy what they’ve made.

In addition to the movie spoof award, MTV, Yahoo and Burnett are developing a section on the site where viewers can comment on the user-generated submissions, as well as post photos and videos. Content from the site will then be integrated into the live broadcast on a “World Wide Web Wall.”

Users will also get to vote for categories such as “Best Kiss” and “Best Villain”.

Reporters without borders issued a statement voicing their concern about the law being a threat to free speech.

The sections of this law supposedly dealing with ‘happy slapping’ in fact have a much broader scope, and posting videos online showing violence against people could now be banned, even if it were the police who were carrying out the violence

Happy slapping is when a gang beats up someone, films the event and spreads the film – just for “fun”. This is what the law is meant to prevent, but as it is written, it will effect citizen journalists doing important work.
Reporters without borders goes on to talk about how important ordinary citizens are as “recorders” of the authorities’ activities around the world, naming Egypt as a recent example where bloggers have revealed scandals involving security services. Video recording played an essential part in revealing the widespread use of torture.

In the field of human rights, it is them and not professional journalists who have been responsible for the most reliable reports and information – the information that has most upset the government. Reporters Without Borders thinks it would be shocking if this kind of activity, which constitutes a safeguard against abuses of authority, were to be criminalized in a democratic country.

Odebi, a civil liberties group in France, has collected some of the response to the news.

In Sweden, anyone can actually be a journalist in the sense that there is no required education you have to have in order to call yourself a journalist. You need to work as a journalist to be a member of the journalists union and get a press card though.
I am not sure how this works in France, but I am assuming they have some kind of journalist card to define who’s a professional journalist. If not, it would be interesting to know how they distinguish between citizen and professional journalists. And what about journalists who blog on their free time? If I, for instance, would film a French police officer beating up an innocent person, and I would blog about it here, would that be against the French law? I don’t blog here as a journalist, but as a citizen.

(via Beta Alfa)

(via Beta Alfa)

I see this as the next step from the successful video clip toplists such as “Klipptoppen”, “Bebistoppen” and “Resatoppen”.

We see exciting opportunities in video communities, video searches and video advertising. With this acquisition, we can increase the dynamic content of our services, primarily on our portals, but also in search services, such as eniro.se. Bubblare.se is a popular site in Sweden and will generate additional traffic to Eniro´s other services.

(via Media Culpa)

Previous posts about Bubblare.se:
And the winner is… – Bubblare.se awards best video clip with a “Guldbubbla”
Bubblare.se announces award to best video clip
Bubblare.se’s top eight viral videos for 2006

It’s interesting to see that the site has journalistic ambitions.
– We like to think of it as an experiment to further explore the potential of citizen reporting, says Chris Haller of eParticipation.com, the company behind iCommunity.tv.
The focus is said to be local news, but there are also a bunch of entertainment/music clips with local connections. You can subscribe to the channels for different cities or news categories.
From the front page presentation:

We believe that Youtube.com offers more than diet coke+mentos and the beer cannon. This website is dedicated to giving citizen reporting a video platform, by adding location to news footage hosted on Youtube and distributing it through various local news channels.

We are getting an audience large enough where we have an opportunity to support creativity, to foster creativity through sharing revenue with our users. So in the coming months, we are going to be opening that up.

Nicholas Carr at Rough Type points to other reasons than supporting creativity possibly being behind the move.

This is a smart strategic move on YouTube’s part. It’s an even smarter move on Google’s part. As for the users: Don’t quit your day jobs, guys. The money’s in aggregation.

So far, no details have been announced as to how the revenue sharing will work. I4U News points out the gray-zone of what is original work, for instance lip-sync videos.

If you get paid for something you definitely need to have your copyrights in order.

In a press release, speaksperson Elisabeth Somp writes (my translation):

The use of new platforms for information is a logical step in Stockholm Film Festival’s ambition to spread knowledge about and inspire communication around film. Myspace is one of the most visited web services in the world, where members can build networks and meet others with the same interests from around the world.

Currently the page shows clips from last year’s festival.

Last.tv matches videos based on artist names. Besides retrieving premium music videos, this also turns up live performances, bootlegs, interviews and fan interpretations. This is unique content which would never be aired on regular music video channels.

I’m a big fan of Last.fm, and while Last.tv doesn’t offer any interactivity apart from a forum link to last.fm, and not even an RSS feed, it’s a great complement to Last.fm. Though at times it’s a bit random – I just got to watch Superman vs. Clark Kent. Sure, great fight, but .. no music! And what in my Last.fm profile could have trigged that one?

Yesterday I wrote about the decline of MTV. Interestingly enough, Last.tv also mentions the music channel.

We have two major complaints about traditional music video channels. MTV, to name one, spends significant parts of its airtime broadcasting regular programming. We think a music video channel should play music videos.

YouTube with its vast array of (music) videos serves as a good solution to the broadcast media problem. Your choice in videos when you want them. Having to select music videos is at the same time a major inconvenience. Last.tv automates selection and provides effortless continuous play.

The money will be shared in proportion to the number of pageviews the user’s clips have generated. The site has only been up for a few days, but it’s growing rapidly every day. Among others, Djurgården’s (Sw. soccer team, my remark) fanclub Järnkaminerna has chosen Tubearound for their exclusive channel for movie clip uploads.

This is provided that the site indeed makes a profit. Tubearound hopes that the promise of sharing the money will help draw users from YouTube and other similar services.
If the name Andreas La Torre Ek sounds familiar, it might be because he founded Mymilliondollarbody.com, a site where you could buy ad space on a person’s body.

Previous posts about Swedish YouTube clones:
Bubblare.se announces award to best video clip
Yet another YouTube clone in Sweden
Bubblare.se’s top eight viral videos for 2006
Swedish YouTube clone goes tv show

I think we have replaced MTV. MySpace is more convenient. You can search for things, while MTV is just delivering things to you. On MySpace you can pick your own channel and go where you want. That’s why TV viewership is dropping among the MySpace generation.

MySpace currently has 140 million members.
Anderson’s statement follows speculations that MTV might cancel their flagship show “Total Request Live” due to a gradual decline of ratings. Total Request Live reportedly has some 300 000 viewers.
Yes, it sure is a changing world. Young people no longer want to be passive consumers of entertainment.

Take a look at this guy. His name is Zak George, a 28 year old dog trainer who travels around the States and performs with his dogs, who’s learnt to catch frisbees. And, he’s got some pretty good questions for the YouTube community.

The Internet and YouTube in general are really gonna make the renaissance look like the Dark Ages. That’s the era that we’re in right now.
I’d like to know where you see the future YouTube going and how it’s going to impact the world globally.
Why do you tube?

Not everyone seems to take him seriously though, judging from a majority of the 3000+ comments his video has got. But there are people taking him seriously enough. There are 20 video replies, and a discussion – and quite a bit of ridiculing – going on over at YouTube.

On the same theme, Stephanie Kinnear at Pasadena weekly writes:

We are entering a new era of citizen involvement. Think of it as a high-tech Neighborhood Watch. Kids with obscenely expensive cell phones are looking out for the little guy, and that’s a good thing.

(via Social Media)

Guldbaggen and other film and tv awards disregard online video, despite its big share in many peoples film consumption. That’s why Bubblare.se has introduced an award for those who make their own online videos.

Bubblare presents five nominees, all of them videos uploaded to Bubblare.se during 2006. Clips to be considered for upcoming Guldbubblan need to be produced in Sweden, internet format, creative and entertaining, viral. And, of course, uploaded to Bubblare.se.

The award will be presented during the Guldbaggen ceremony – but outside the building. Now how’s that for symbolism…!

(via BetaAlfa)

What Joost is is basically tv on demand with interactive features. You can browse through the different channels while a program is running in the background, you can chat with other viewers (someone will have to explain the idea of the chat to me though – the way I get it you chat with other people watching the same program, but since it’s on demand you won’t be seeing the same things at the same time…?), add a ticker for any RSS feed you like, and some other stuff.

I’ve been trying the service out for a while, and apart from content that doesn’t really excite me, it looks promising. The content issue isn’t really an issue at this stage, though they’ll of course need better material when they get off beta.

Uploaded clips that are good enough will be shown on tv.
[...]
Web and tv becomes one, that’s the future and the question is more about which medium fits which material the best. For our target audience, the internet is an important medium.

Ladda upp tv is pretty much all over the beta version of ZTV’s new site, the full version of which will launch in 38 days.
ZTV also has a video casting for people who want a job at the tv channel. They encourage you to send in your video clip applying for the job. Notably, one of the competitors, Ola Lustig, is also one of the finalists for Aftonbladet TV7’s weather presenter job. Yep, there’s definitely a future in tv for this guy, somewhere or other.

2006 was notable not just for the sheer amount of online video but also for the quality of content that emerged. Sure, there was the torrent of porn, drunk college kids dancing, and parents posting cute videos of their kids. But there was also footage of the Mount Lebanon Hotel bombing, blogs highlighting environmental issues, video commentary on news and politics, and new made-for-online broadcast shows. More than ever, Internet video provided a platform for new voices and perspectives, giving even amateur filmmakers entrée to mass audiences traditionally garnered by established media outlets.