IP Democracy: Thank You Robert Scoble, But There's One More Thing
For reasons unknown to me, uber-blogger Robert Scoble has this extensive critique today about a conference that another uber-blogger, Om Malik, is hosting in mid-November called NewTeeVee live. He finds it severely lacking in substance, thinks some of the best companies aren't represented and believes the panel format is not conducive to great discussions.
But there's one other point (among 40 numbered points) that's missing from Scoble's critique. NewTeeVee is a derivative event, almost identical in format (and even overlapping a bit in terms of speakers) of another event being held on October 29. How do I know that? Well, the event on the 29th is my conference, The New Video Summit, held in conjunction with Jeff Pulver's Video-on-the-Net show. (See agenda below.)
It's the second New Video Summit that I've hosted. The first was held in San Jose last March (you can watch the video here) and Om Malik was even gracious enough to be a moderator for that show.
But my point is not to pile on with the critiques (lest Scoble come after me) or risk alienating my kind, brilliant friend Om Malik, but to call out the glut of events that center on web-based video that are all aiming at the same speakers, the same topics. No sooner did I host The New Video Summit last spring, than another publisher rushed out a similar conference called "The Web Video Summit," also held in San Jose. This same publisher is hosting a repeat event in New York in December.
Yet another firm, this one a research outlet, is trying to reposition one of its big events as an "Internet Video Summit," and, you guessed it, the topics and speakers look the same. On top of that, running concurrent with Jeff's event is Digital Hollywood, which tries to look like my event and Om's event, but is not nearly as cool.
What's going on? Do we have "pack conferencing" the way we have pack journalism? When I started my little show (the Pulver people technically call it a workshop), I had no idea of the, well, if not imitation it would spawn, then the synchronicity of concepts that would suddenly give birth to at least a half-dozen look-a-likes. Does nobody have an original idea?
Here's where I'm with Scoble: There are tons of topics, trends and new kinds of companies worth exploring in the new video sector. For the next New Video Summit (slated for March in, yup, San Jose), I'm going to come up with a whole new angle, a whole new mode of discussion, that will once again add up to a boffo event. Scoble, if you've got more ideas, pass them my way.
(In the meantime, I'm with Paul Mooney, who notes in a comment posted to Scoble's diatribe that "the cool kids will be in Boston" at Video-on-the-Net--and the New Video Summit -- from October 29 through November 1 
)
| The New Video Summit Agenda |
| 8:00 to 9:00 Registration and Breakfast |
| 9:00 to 9:15 Welcome - Cynthia Brumfield, President, Emerging Media Dynamics |
| 9:15 to 9:45: Keynote - Herb Scannell, CEO and Co-Founder, Next New Networks |
| 9:45 to 11:00: Panel One - A View from Madison Avenue: Will Web Advertising Pay Off? |
| Paige Albiniak, Contributing Editor, IP Media Monitor (moderator) |
| Ben Weinberger, CEO and Co-Founder, DigitalSmiths |
| Manish Bhatia, President, Global Services and U.S. Sales, Nielsen Online |
| Amir Ashkenazi, CEO and Co-Founder, adap.tv |
| Peter Naylor, SVP, Digital Media Sales, NBC Universal |
| 11:00 to 11:15 – Networking Break |
| 11:15 to 12:30 – Panel Two - Web Video is Cheap and Easy to Make -- Or is It? |
| Daisy Whitney, Contributing Writer, TelevisionWeek (moderator) |
| Eyal Hertzog, Founder and Chief Creative Officer, Metacafe |
| Daphne Kwon, CEO, ExpoTV |
| Peter Clem, Vice President, Broadband Programming and Production, Scripps Network Interactive |
| Mike Hudack, CEO, President and Co-Founder, Blip.tv |
| 12:30 to 1:30 Lunch |
| 1:30 to 2:00 Keynote - Jeremy Allaire, Founder and CEO, Brightcove |
| 2:00 to 3:15: Panel Three - Is the Small Screen Still the Big Time? Web Stars Jump to TV Sets |
| Peter Csathy, CEO, SightSpeed Inc. (moderator) |
| Lindsay Campbell, Host, WallStrip |
| Morgan Webb, Host, WebbAlert |
| Warren Chao, Co-Founder and COO, My Damn Channel |
| 3:15 to 3:30: Networking Break |
| 3:30 to 4:45: Panel Four - Here, There and Everywhere: TV Leaves the Living Room |
| Hiawatha Bray, Technology Columnist, The Boston Globe (moderator) |
| Ted Malone, Vice President of Product Marketing |
| Tara Maitra, Vice President, General Manager of Programming, Tivo Inc. |
| Dmitry Shapiro, Founder and Chief Innovation Officer, Veoh Networks |
| Dennis Miller, General Partner, Spark Capital |
| Michael Gordon, Chief Strategy Officer, Co-Founder, Limelight Networks |
| 4:45 to 5:00 - Closing Remarks - Cynthia Brumfield |
| 6:00 to 8:00 - Reception |
Posted by Cynthia Brumfield on October 14, 2007 9:35 AM to IP Democracy