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On YouTube, Amateur Is the New Pro – NYTimes.com

Posted by on 2012/06/29 in Musings | Leave a comment

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On YouTube, Amateur Is the New Pro – NYTimes.com.

“A history of the entertainment business could be framed as a series of experts asking, “Who the hell wants to watch that?” When the answer is “more people than you think.”

What you call TV on the internet?  “TV.”

There is the kernel of another story in this article and that is the one about how the approach to making videos for YouTube changes as their creators become more popular.  They are inclined to increase production values and focus on more mainstream topics.

At the moment, there is this belief that because the videos are shown on the web, that magically changes their nature in some way.  That is a mistake made often when new technologies or channels are introduced. Almost all the same sorts of things were said about public access cable channels 30 years ago.

Video is video. In other words, “if you cat has kittens in the oven, you don’t call them biscuits, do you?”

What this article gets right is the nature of the interaction between the audience and the creator. This is the revolutionary element to all this.  We now have a two-way delivery system for media and this is the thing that changes everything.

This two-way interaction creates a sense of intimacy that has not existed before in the history of recorded (or printed) media. It a way, it takes us back to the pre-electronic world, where we were always in the same room as the person speaking or singing.

People look for connections to their favourite artists and performers and YouTube, as well as other online distribution channels can make that happen. That is an area worth exploring.

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