You hear it all the time. YouTube serves up hundreds of millions of videos per day. Video blogs are more popular than ever. And mainstream TV, with it’s so-called reality junk food shows like Jersey Shore, and endless reruns of Jerry Springer, is becoming redundant, is often repulsive, and ultimately will be rendered obsolete within a matter of a few years.

Not so fast. TV isn’t going anywhere.

Yes, the Web has brought about a revolution in the way people consume video. Filmmakers are taking to the Internet to promote, release, and sell their feature films. Indeed, lots of people nowadays spend far more time getting their news and information from the Internet and far less time watching their 6pm local newscast.

Just 8 years ago, I can remember struggling to post videos online – the file sizes were immense, the quality was poor, and the pipe simply wasn’t big enough to handle the amount of data that video created. We’ve come far in a very short amount of time. Online video truly is a revolution, but it’s not a replacement for television. Not at all. And here’s why:

Convergence is Here

A few years ago, convergence was the big buzzword. All the major media folk were talking about how mainstream TV was going to merge with the Web and what a threat that would be to the industry. They predicted that within 2 or 3 years we wouldn’t be able to tell the difference between what we were watching online and what we were watching on our 60″ plasma. Nobody would have to watch ads anymore and television as we know it would be dead on the table.

Well that hasn’t exactly happened. While it’s true you can watch YouTube videos on your big screen now, and tools like Netflix and AppleTV are bridging the gap between traditional consumption of media and Web-delivered media, there’s still a big distinction with conventional, ad-driven television, and the cable companies and media moguls like it that way.

With that said, though, there’s a different kind of convergence happening with television – and it’s one that I like a lot. You see, one of the things the media empires didn’t bank on was social media. They didn’t guess that within 5 years of their convergence debates, the floodgates of anyone, anywhere, anytime publishing would open wide.

Social TV

Television merged with social media is a whole different beast. It’s not TV online. It’s TV inline. We are still watching our favourite shows, commercials and all, and why? Because our friends are watching them too. Just look at what FourSquare was able to do with the SuperBowl. Or what the Vancouver Olympics achieved, with real-time commentary and conversation via Twitter. And look at the Oscars - same thing via multiple streams – blogs, Facebook and Twitter played a huge role in that event. The real time stream of conversation means I can watch television now with 100 million of my closest friends. It’s like a virtual bowl of popcorn, that we’re all able to dip our hands into while we gather around our respective boob tubes.

But it doesn’t even take a major network event to see the real benefits of the social channel when it comes to TV watching. Check out the cast and crew of the best sitcom on TV, The Big Bang Theory who are on Twitter. Every week, not only do we see photos of the cast rehearsing posted, but we get to sit down with the cast, crew and fans at 8pm ET every week and watch the show with them. We can follow the conversation in real time. We can laugh together, and post our favourite quotes. No longer do we have to wait to relive the episode at the water cooler tomorrow. The water cooler is online now.

And in the spirit of merging social with the show, Anthony Bourdain, beloved host of the hit travel/food show “No Reservations”, has hijacked his own Twitter account (it used to be run by his “people”) and the other night, live-tweeted the entire episode of his show in real time as it was airing. His witty and often crass sense of humour, and comical banter with other viewers, was not only wildly entertaining, it made me realize one very important point that will please every broadcaster in the world. 90% of people who PVR shows skip through the commercials. But if the host of the show is conversing with fans WHILE the show is running – people will be far more inclined to watch the show when it airs…and that includes the commercials. Can you say #winning?

This, my friends, is the future of television. It’s not going to be some hybrid mashup of laughing babies, William Shatner and Kenny from South Park. It’s going to be real people, in real time, really experiencing all that television still has to offer.

So don’t you worry, TV. You were my first love, and you will remain that way.

[photo credit: hellabella on Flickr]

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Back in TV school, I was taught that when framing up a shot, it’s really important to look at the background. Even if the framing of a shot is perfect, if something weird is going on in the background, it can ruin everything. It could be a cable from a light running across the floor. It could be a person goofing off at their desk, or a strange looking shadow. It could also be a case of bad juxtaposition – when a stair rail, or a picture frame “cuts” through the back of someone’s head. If you don’t focus on the background, then the perception of what’s in the foreground can be completely lost.

I think a big part of the problem with the reluctance of many people to adopt social media is that many people are not spending enough time focusing on the background.

How’s your DOF? There’s an expression used in film, video and photography known as Depth of Field. Specifically, it refers to the amount of distance between the nearest and farthest objects in the frame that appear in sharp focus in an image. So, if you have a shallow Depth of Field, it means that you’ll see one object clearly in focus, while all other objects in the background appear out of focus. On the other hand, having a deep depth of field means that everything in the picture appears to be relatively in focus, whether it’s up close to the foreground or far in the background.

Shallow depth of field is often used for dramatic effect. It’s a very attractive style, because it allows the eye to focus on one thing, blurring everything else in the background. Deep depth of field can be very attractive when shooting landscapes – it’s a wide-angle shot where everything is crystal clear.

Part of what freaks people out about social media is that by nature, it is exposing. There’s no shallow DOF in social media. It’s all quite deep, in fact. Successful social media is not about companies interacting, it’s about humans interacting. And that means there’s going to be an endless mix of dimensions, tastes, activities, comments, questions, and information. Some of it may be junk to you. Some may be of incredible value to you. But the fact is, social media is vast, and deep, like a photograph where you can see for miles and miles and miles. And that scares a lot of people.

Consider your online interactions for a moment. Who are the people you relate to best? Are they the ones who only show you a little bit of themselves, and keep the rest a closely guarded secret? Or are they the people who present a clear picture of who they are, from all angles, flattering and not-so-flattering?

Social media has deep, deep Depth of Field. The people and companies that are most successful in the medium are those who accept that. Their lens is not focused on one one object. It’s focused on the vast expanse and potential of each interaction they have.

Juxtapose this! I remember one of my profs in TV school equating juxtaposition to that classic gag that comedian Steve Martin made famous. He always said “You don’t want to be the guy with the arrow through your head”. When framing up a shot, you need to be totally conscious of what’s happening behind your subject. If there’s a picture frame, or stair rail, or any object, appearing to stick out of, or cut through the back of someone’s head, it makes them look silly. And nobody wants to look silly.

If social media is all about genuine relationships and real conversations and actual human beings, then it stands to reason that occasionally, even the best intentioned people are going to look silly. It doesn’t matter whether you are the CEO of a Fortune 500 company, the owner of a flower shop in rural Iowa, or a PR flack trying to build your professional network and generate leads, when you choose to engage on social media platforms, you need to be prepared to open yourself up to the possibility that someday, what you say in the foreground, and what’s going on in the background won’t match.

But that does not necessarily have to be a bad thing. Some of the most fascinating and dynamic people I know online are that way because they accept that the image everyone sees in the foreground is completely subject to what’s happening in the background. That means, if someone is having a bad day in the background, and that surfaces, so be it. If someone is super busy and just trying to keep up in the background, it might mean they have to reframe things. All of this is real life, and all of it’s more than okay. We need to be accepting of everyone’s juxtaposition.

What I think is at once amazing and frightening about social media is that it’s totally raw. The people who use the medium most successfully are completely in focus at all dimensions, and they are not worried that sometimes things are just going to line up in funny ways. They deal with it, and move on.

I am hopeful that as more people begin to understand this new medium, they will be more inclined to present the wide angle view of themselves. For often, what’s in the background is far more compelling than a shallow little dot of focus.

What say you?

[photo credit ohector on Flickr]

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The man on the right side of this picture, the one sitting in the chair with the camera….he gave me my first break.

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Wow – people are really all a-buzz about mainstream media’s latest foray into the world of social media, eh? I’m seeing lots of different viewpoints and some great conversations. In fact, I’d say that social media is really showing it’s stuff right now – the community is out in full force, in one way or another, trying to figure out what it all means.

I have been a media producer, in some form or another, for going on 20 years. In my time, I’ve produced media (television, radio, print, advertising, marketing campaigns) for everything from high profile, mainstream media outlets to large corporations to mom and pop shops and local community cable. I feel fortunate that I’ve been able to witness first hand what is likely the single largest transformation in the way people communicate since the invention of the telephone.

With that said, I wanted to present my take on recent events within mainstream media and some of the social media community’s reaction to these events. I present here the dispelling of a couple of myths about mainstream media, based on my observations over the past several years. Please keep in mind that this is my opinion only. The purpose here is to state my position on the matter, and open up honest discussion about it. I invite you to dispel what I’m dispelling.

Myth #1. Mainstream Media Doesn’t “Get It”.
I’m seeing a lot of defensive behaviour coming out of the social media crowd in the past few days. They are right on top of celebrities like Oprah and Kutcher, accusing them of ruining Twitter, using it as a broadcast medium only, and the one that really gets me – not understanding the “nuances” of social media.

It’s true that there are things people can learn about effectively using social media as a tool, and there are plenty of good, interesting, smart professionals out there helping people to figure it out. But anyone who thinks that a multimillion dollar corporation like Harpo has not done their homework before diving into social media with both feet is coming at it from the wrong perspective. The beef incident from a few years back, if nothing else, should prove that Oprah’s people most definitely have learned to do their homework. As for Kutcher and the rest of them, they’re all businesspeople too, with images to uphold, and a flurry of agents and publicists who have to damage control their careers if they say or do something stupid on the public stage.

Mainstream media doesn’t get it? I beg to differ in a big way. In fact, they may get it a lot more than many of us. We’ve been stuck for a long time in the same rut with social media, talking about the same stuff over and over. They are in part, starting to move the medium forward.

Myth #2. Mainstream Media is Missing the Boat.
Ooh! I love boat analogies. And my husband came up with a doozy last night. He said “Big media is an aircraft carrier. It takes a long time to turn a ship like that around.”

Let’s look at mainstream media in relation to the average social media superstar. Oprah has hundreds of millions of viewers for her TV show. According to Wikipedia, she gets 70 million page views per month on her web site. Social media superstars, even the really popular ones, are not working anywhere near that scale. Most are in the tens of thousands, and a few elite are in the hundreds of thousands.

What does that mean? Oprah’s driving an aircraft carrier. So is CNN. Your average social media superstar is driving a speedboat. He can turn on a dime. I’m not saying he’s not putting a great deal of thought into strategy and planning and image and all the rest. Of course he is. But big media is strategizing and planning and considering image too. The difference is, they are doing it on a much larger scale. They aren’t missing the boat. They are just driving a way bigger one than the rest of us. And once they get it turned around – and it’s about 3/4 of the way there in some cases – then the game is going to change for good.

So – I guess what this all means is – are you ready for things to start changing? Instead of defending the models that have been created over the past few years, how are you going to adapt your model to the changing tides? Or maybe you don’t think big media changes things at all. They’ve just shown up at the party, and are going to mix with the crowd.

What’s your take?

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I met someone for the first time recently. They asked me “What do you do?”.

The story of what I “do” has changed over the years. I used to just say “I work for [insert company name here].” Then after a while, I started to identify more with the actual work I was doing. “I’m a TV producer.” “I’m a web designer.” “I’m a technical writer.” “I’m a professor.”

When we started the company, my description started to become more complex. “I’m a partner in a production company.” Which always prompted the response, “Oh? What kind of production?”, to which I’d have to go into a long-winded explanation that well, we do tv production, but also web video, corporate video, and oh – yah, we develop web sites too, and do marketing…..

The problem I was having is that I could no longer easily sum up what I actually “do”. I was “doing” too many different things. Then the other day, it hit me. What I do is irrelevant. It’s a task list. It’s what I am that matters.

So what AM I? Simple. I’m a storyteller.

All day, every day, I’m telling stories. I’m telling them here, on my blog. I’m telling them in 140 character increments, on Twitter. I’m telling them when I meet my friends for drinks or coffee or dinner. And I’m helping my clients figure out how to tell their stories too, whether it’s through a new web site, a video, a TV show, a marketing campaign, or all of the above.

It’s all storytelling.

So how does this tie in to the notion that it’s not about the tools? Well, the fact that it’s really all about storytelling rather proves it, I think.

If what we’re all doing out here is telling stories (our own, our clients’, others’ -it doesn’t matter), then really, the tools become irrelevant. Sure, it’s important to know how to use the right tools, and use them the right way to ensure the story is told well. But the tools themselves are secondary. It’s the story that really matters.

When all’s said and done, it’s the story that people will remember – not what you used to tell it. I’m wondering if it’s time to reconsider how much effort we are spending talking about the tools themselves, and if perhaps we should be spending more effort figuring out what our story is and how we’re going to tell it.

Thoughts?

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