News for the Week of June 4, 2006
What you might call "teeny TV" got a lot of play in kid-tech news this past week - its TV and video the way our kids will be consuming it, on cellphones in Web sites, probably well before we feel any interest. Here's what it's looking like:
'Video snacking'
Short, lightweight, tightly shot - maybe the McDonald's of TV programming, or moving eyecandy. That may be what TV on cellphones will look like. At least, the $64,000 (or $64 million?) question conventional TV programmers are looking at right now is how to do their thing on teeny screens and make money in the process. So far, "there are only about 3 million people out of the almost 200 million cellphone users in the United States who now watch video on their phones," the New York Times Magazine reports , but everybody knows that's changing fast, and video-enabled cellphones are already ubiquitous in Europe and Asia (with shows like the UK's "SeeMeTV").
The next MySpace?
The Times took an in-depth look, particularly at MTV's thinking and development process. MTV may be "most likely to succeed," as the youngest of the network-programmer lot (at 25 already!), but of course it's looking over its shoulder at young but popular "TV" aggregator Web sites like YouTube.com and Heavy.com (the other hot story these days, beginning to nudge aside social-networking). The thing that's interesting, here, is that - while TV producers are watching the competition to see how it does programming for mobile TV - they also need to watch what "regular people" (aka teen homemade video producers) are creating for YouTube.com and other video-sharing (or social-producing or media-networking!) sites. The kind of programming that results will probably be a lot more like the "video snacking" some observers are calling it. The Times says MTV looked at some of the competition's European programming, at best crude and in some cases downright pornographic, and knew it'd have to do something a little different - so far it's pretty much talking heads in the music world. It'll be interesting to see how PBS does mobile TV!
Watch out, YouTube!
In other video-of-the-people news, Yahoo looks to be pointedly taking on YouTube and maybe going one better with "Yahoo! Studio," where "everyone can feature their work alongside some of the most well-known names in television and movies . share a single video, or create a whole channel full of your work and be discovered by like-minded, artists, businesses, and fans," says Yahoo. "We'll be watching!" The San Jose Mercury News reports on this . See also the BBC on "viral video" - looking specifically at YouTube.com, Break.com, and GetDemocracy.com, and how do-it-yourself video on the Web is taking off. And the San Jose Mercury News earlier looked anecdotally at how teens and 20-somethings are using YouTube (as both consumers and producers) .
In Other News...
- Major parent poll. Where their kids' use of the Internet's concerned, parents' greatest fear is sexual predators, a new study by CommonSenseMedia.org found. "Still, they perceive other dangers to be more likely to occur: 80% are concerned about sexual predators online; 39% think that they are likely to happen to their kids, according to the study press release . Among media in general, the Internet is seen as the most risky - 85% of parents thinks so, vs. 13% for TV. In other findings: After sexual predation, parents are concerned about kids' exposure to values parents don't agree with (72%), kids' exposure to ideas they're not ready to see (70%), lack of outdoor time (71%), computer viruses (76%), and experimentation with porn (55%); 82% said there was "no excuse for not knowing enough to protect your kids"; 98% said they trust their own instincts where the Net's concerned; 53% say their kids have accidentally found inappropriate content in a Web search; and 78% feel social networks are not a safe way for kids to meet new people online. Here's coverage of the study at USATODAY.
- Cyberbullying & social networking. The Times of London went in-depth this week on this new venue for bullying - in the UK, specifically in Bebo and MySpace . It describes a few particular vicious cases (including one mom finding out about an egregious attack on her 13-year-old daughter from her 17-year-old son) but tries to provide perspective. "Although largely harmless, the boom in social networking sites has been accompanied by the spread of 'cyberbullying,' a trend that some experts believe is fast getting out of hand and may be being exaggerated in the UK by Bebo's focus on schools [Bebo has 4 million users in Britain]. In a recent survey of 500 teenagers carried out by Microsoft, more than one in 10 said they had been bullied online."
- MN's twist on game legislation. Most state laws about violent videogames involved fining retailers if they sold adult videogames to kids. Minnesota's new law fines kids. Just signed by Gov. Tim Pawlenty, the law, SF 785, "imposes a $25 fine on minors who purchase games rated M for Mature or AO for Adults Only," GameSpot.com reports . "The bill is scheduled to go into effect August 1, but it could be pushed back or struck down entirely." Later in the week, the Entertainment Software Association announced it would sue Minnesota to overturn the bill, arguing that it's unconstitutional, CNET reported . Meanwhile, you'll be hearing more from Washington too about violent and sexually explicit videogame. The subject has "resurfaced on politicians' agenda as the November election draws near, " CNET reports .
- Online dating, fraud & the law. There are some themes, here, that might be of interest to parents of social networkers (especially those who use online dating sites!). Online news magazine Slate.com recently looked at the state of online dating . Kind of an older, earlier version of social-networking (though Slate includes MySpace in this category), it has a similar, possibly greater, level of fantasy associated with it. "Everybody is blond and skinny in cyberspace. And that can be a problem. Consider the number of marriages ending because one of the parties just met their one true love on Yahoo Personals," says Slate, suggesting that people don't want this aspect of "e-commerce" regulated because they like the fantasy, the privacy (courting in the privacy of one's own home), and the anonymity.
