I was told by a confidential source a few days ago that ICQ’s founders are launching their own television site and now I see that TechCrunch has written about it.

Knocka.TV is described on its site as:

“…the latest from the inventors of ICQ, the web’s first Instant Messenger. Building on our success with bringing people together on the web, “We’ve created a new form of Television!”. It’s social and real. It’s hyper-interactive and creative. Best of all, it’s democratic. Knocka lets the People decide what’s on TV, playing only original videos from the best web video producers in a professional TV broadcasting style.

The People Have Taken Over.
You decide what’s on Knocka.TV…
…and what gets Knocked Out.”

It seems like Knocka.TV will use a similar voting process to Digg where members submit videos and then the community votes and decides which videos will rise to the top and be broadcasted. The site has not yet entered private beta but you can submit your email to be an early beta tester. Knocka.TV is also currently searching for original Web Video Producers to submit content and you can apply on the site for that as well.

Since ICQ was one of the true originators of the idea of an online community, this latest venture seems like a natural extension of their role as community builders. I have signed up to become a beta tester and can’t wait to check it out. 

Matt Danzico, a reporter, has recently announced that he is going to travel around America 2.0 style. He has created this website and is asking all the people watching his video to spread his message:

“Around the America in 2.0 is an Internet-based film project created to explore trust and connectivity. The primary objective of the project is to rely solely on users of video sharing websites, such as YouTube, for food, shelter, and transportation during a trip around the United States.”

On July 16th of 2007, a brief video clip was spread throughout the Internet community asking viewers to transport Matt Danzico from one online user to the next across the entire country within a period of 80 days. During the trip, which begins September 15th of 2007, Matt will create a weekly online television program documenting both his experiences as well as those of the volunteers participating in the experiment.

The purpose of this trip, as Matt says:

“We also hope to disprove the notion of a lack of trustworthiness amongst America’s Internet community. We here at Around America in 2.0 strongly feel that the news media’s insistent concentration on negative aspects of American society has had a substantial affect on Americans’ perceptions of each other, not to mention the rest of the world’s perception of Americans.”

This has got to be one of the most original 2.0 ideas I have heard in a while. It plays on extending online relationships to offline ones and seeing how much these online relationships are actually worth in reality and what online communities really mean to us, the users. 

I wish you much luck Matt!

Here’s Matt’s video:

Thanks to everyone who tuned in today to see my live interview with Chris Brogan on blogTV. We had a few technical issues, but overall it went great! A special thanks to Chris for giving us all a few tips on what it takes to be a great podcaster and answering our questions.

Technorati tags: internet tv, chris brogan, blogtv, podcasting

I hope you’ll all tune in to today’s show at 12pm EST. For any of you who would like to chat with us during the show, you can do so, by tuning in to the show’s site.

Thanks. “See” you all there!

Technorati tags: chris brogan, internet tv, podcasting, blonde 2.0 show, chat, blogtv

Tomorrow, Monday, June 25th, at 12pm EST, I will be doing a live interview with Chris Brogan, co-founder of Podcamp and also community developer for Network2.tv and Video on the Net. During the interview I will be asking Chris various questions about podcasting, why one should podcast, and how can one become a successful podcaster. Anyone who’s looking for a few podcasting tips and an understanding of the podcasting industry should definitely tune in. You can watch the interview here below on the blogtv live player. Hope that you’ll all tune in.

Technorati tags: chris brogan, internet tv, podcamp, network2.tv, video on the net, podcasting, instructional, blogtv

Checking out the new blogtv embedded client together with Chris Brogan.

Technorati tags: blogtv, internet tv, chris brogan, blonde 2.0

BlogTV has just released its new new live embeddable player. The new player enables broadcasters to showcase their live shows on any web page that is located outside the blogTV site. So for instance, if you are a blogger, you can broadcast directly from your own blog. How cool is that? Another great feature is the co-host split screen view. When broadcasting, the player shows a live video stream of the show’s host and co-host, accompanied with the live chat feed.

I was fortunate enough to be one of the first 10 people who got access to this amazing new product, and was very impressed. By letting users showcase their broadcasts directly from their blogs, I believe blogtv has really tuned into the Web 2.0 community’s needs and has proven itself as a fierce competitor in the personal broadband broadcasting arena.

Technorati tags: blogtv, internet tv, broadcasting, blogging, web 2.0, personal broadband broadcasting

On Saturday, my friends Jeff Pulver and Kfir Pravda broadcasted two short live shows from TLV and Frankfurt airports on blogTV, en route to PodCamp in Stockholm. However, since not many viewers tuned in, this made them think about the different means of increasing internet TV viewership. Here are the tips that Kfir points out as crucial:

1. Announce your show early enough, through blogs (such as mine :-)), Twitter and such.
2. Define a concrete topic for each show, so people would know what they are getting.
3. Find hosts that have good chemistry, so nonscripted situations will flow and be as funny as the rehearsed ones.

Kfir and Jeff will continue to broadcast throughout the week with various interesting & creative people from PodCamp, so tune in.

Technorati tags: internet tv, viewership, jeff pulver, kfir pravda, blogtv, podcamp, tips, broadcasting, blogs, twitter

Chris Brogan, co-founder of Podcamp and community developer for Network2.tv and Video on the Net, has uploaded his new (very interesting) show on blogtv. Here he explains to companies how to use the new media community tools available today in order to spread their message out.

Chris talks about the importance of every business to have its own blog. He says that not only organizations should hold blogs, but also indiviuals within these organizations should promote themselves and create their own personal brand. After all its individuals who make up the organization. He speaks about the fact that In the future there will be a lot of value in people as a brand.

When asked how to make the blog more relevant, Chris emphasizes the importance of always showing faces and names on your blog - make the blog as personable as possible. This is important for the community. Make sure commenting is allowed on your blog. This allows you to interact with your readers. Adding photo sites such as flickr and any other rich media is also a great way to build a relationship with your readers.

When asked how to get the information out to people, Chris discusses the relevance of offering RSS Feeds. By allowing your readers to subscribe to your feed, you can get all the information you want to convey out to people and they don’t need to remember to go back to your site.

Chris also points out that attention tools such as Twitter and Jaiku are great ways of promoting your blog posts or any other rich media you’ve created. He also speaks about the importance of branding yourself on virtual worlds such as second life and using podcasting platforms such as blogtv or ustream to deliver your message. Video hosting sites, such as youtube for example, also present an interesting platform to send out your information.

This show is filled with great tips on how to use all these new social tools we have to brand ourselves as individuals and as companies. A must see for anyone trying to use new social tools effectively.

Technorati tags: chris brogan, podcamp, network2, video on the net, blogtv, media tools, social tools, community, blog, flickr, rss feeds, twitter, jaiku, promotion, branding, second life, podcasting, ustream.tv, video, youtube

TechCrunch posted today that a new study by Motorola has found that 45% of Europeans now watch television online. Motorola’s Karl Elliot told the BBC: “Viewers across Europe are no longer satisfied with fitting into schedules dictated by broadcasters and are turning to the choice and flexibility offered by TV over the internet….We are witnessing a nation of citizen schedulers who are in control of their entertainment, allowing them to watch what they want, how and when they want it.”

Some who commented on this TechCrunch article argued that they do not believe this could be such a high percentage. In any case, whether it’s 45% or even a bit less, the message is still clear - people are saying: I want my internet tv! If you’ve been following my blog for a while, this must not come as a surprise to you.

Jeff Pulver has recently written a very interesting article entitled: “Internet TV may pose threat to Cable Companies by Decade’s End”. In it, he writes:

“In the near future, I expect cable companies may start to suffer a similar parallel fate as the wireline phone companies. This eventually will mean billions of dollars of revenue loss without any notion of being able to replace the lost revenue. And I expect we will start to see this trend happen first in the 16-24 year old demographic.

How does this happen? It happens because there is a portion of the existing 16-24 generation which does not watch traditional broadcast TV and they are not watching Cable TV. What they are watching is TV content on the internet. And when these kids leave home and go off to college, they are not signing up for cable TV service in their dorm rooms. Instead they are continuing to watch their favorite TV shows thanks to BitTorrent or are going online to the network websites to catch up with a missed show or in some cases they are also going to iTunes and purchasing the shows to watch on their video iPods and computers.”

Kfir Pravda also warns the cable companies:

“It seems to me that these industries are kind of dinosaurs, looking at the meteor coming and thinking that everything will be ok. Just like some of the big production companies, missing the fact that people create good content for a fraction of the money they are spending.”

Lastly, Jim Johnson points out that:

“Michael Eisner has a teen drama airing on MySpace. The BBC recently launched iPlayer. NBC, NewsCorp, and Comcast have signed an agreement to provide shows online. The BBC is the latest European network to provide online programming.”

Need more proof?

Technorati tags: techcrunch, tv, motorola, bbc, internet, internet tv, jeff pulver, cable, bittorrent, itunes, ipod, kfir pravda, jim johnson, michael eisner, myspace, iplayer, nbc, newscorp, comcast