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Marc just reminded me of a clip that the guys from molbog shot during the awesome “The Next Web” Conference, which was held in Amsterdam last July.

In the video, the interviewer asks people what their definition of the next web is. The camera guy sadly didn’t have access to a silent recording environment, so you’ll probably have to watch this clip at least twice to be able to understand all the things people say.

I’m in the clip too, discussing what I think the next web is and will be. Funnily enough, my visions of what the web links up very nicely with what Steven Pemberton (of W3C fame) had to say.

So, without further ado - I give you the clip and before you ask, no, I have no clue as to what I was on that caused my excessive movement…

Let’s be honest, TV as a single medium is dead. No TV station with more than 5k viewers nowadays can afford to only provide it’s viewers with one means of access to its content.

Thanks to recent advances in technology, it has become very easy for people to turn into guerilla filmmakers and there has been an explosive grow of content. Nowadays, just about everyone can create just about everything. While the quality of such user-generated content might not be on-par with what the “big guys” are producing, this development certainly shows that consumers don’t want to just sit down and have the TV channel hit them with their “fix”, no, users are looking to take part in the whole process.

While the situation in Europe isn’t as advanced as in the United States, TV channels have done a great job in providing users with more means to interact with what’s happening on screen. During casting shows, viewers are able to vote for their favourite up-and-coming-star and for certain TV shows, consumers can even receive up to the minute information as to when a given show really starts.

Sadly, all these “enhancements” are actually ways to generate more revenue and provide little added service for the viewer. Compared to what consumers in the US of A are able to receive, this development looks like TV channels in Europe are only slightly past the stone age.

“Companion” was, according to me, the buzzword of the years 2005 and 2006 in media that was broadcast in recent years. Viewers expect to receive more “bang for their buck” so to speak and the bigger media networks are more than happy to oblige:

CBS’ new hit show “Jericho” for example is available for free on InnerTube, via a streaming Flash Player. The show’s web companions “Beyond Jericho” and “Countdown” provide extra information about the story. While they don’t feature the same characters, fans are given an extra five minutes of their favourite show every week.

The SciFi channel approaches the problem from a different point of view: it’s hit series Stargate: SG1 and Stargate: Atlantis are both accompanied by about five weblogs each, written by the show’s producers, actors and other staff. During the first three shows of the last three seasons, SciFi even released podcasts that provided additional commentary to the story on screen.

These channels have seen the light, they know that they can’t beat the Internet’s power, so they decided to harness it in the best way possible. The result? Stargate: SG1 has seen a 15% increase in viewers over the last three years, which is amazing for a show that has been running for close to ten years now.

Sure, in the end, all these networks want is more viewers so they can sell more airtime to their advertisers, but the deal offered to the consumer is a good one.

FYI: If you’re living in the Netherlands, this post might be of some interest to you, if not, the following information has little value to you:

This is just a short post about some “tools” I’ve been using for quite some time now: MSN Chatbots that don’t care about mining social data from their users but rather provide them with a service.

Bot #1 is buddy@mrmovie.nl - a chatbot that provides Dutchies with information about movies that are currently running in theaters around the country.

The first step is to tell the bot where you are, then you select the number of the movie you’re planning to watch and you’ll get all the information you need:

Bot #2 is msn@nl.abnamro.com - this chatbot is powered by ABN AMRO and provides users with an update on their bank account’s balance.

This one is really simple, there’s only one step actually: say “Saldo 1234″, whereby you exchange 1234 for the last four digits of the account you’d like to check and you’ll get an update.

Hint: If you’re using a custom IM Client, like Trillian, you can turn off logging for this account to ensure your privacy.

Bot #3 is encarta@botmetro.net - this chatbot is actually available to everyone. Like the name says, this is the Encarta bot. Encarta is a digital encyclopedia, that rose to fame before Wikipedia was conceived but has lost quite some users in recent years. Nonetheless, this bot is very useful, even more so if you have Encarta installed locally:

This bot is the smartest one of all, it is able to do maths and answer simple questions and follow up with stuff. It also remembers if it spoke to you before and tries to emulate feelings, so be kind:

I’m quite certain that other countries have similar services available, good luck with finding them!

While reading my news feeds this week, I came across an interesting article posted on the Dutch blog called Marketing Facts.

According to recently published research, more and more YUPs and above-average-educated teenagers switch their TV sets for news from sites such as YouTube, Google Video and regional, web-based, streaming content providers.

I don’t plan on copying the whole article, there’s one thing that grabbed my attention. Koen van Tongeren, visibile in this picture stopped watching (traditional) TV and switched to a Mac and watches digital TV on his wall by means of a beamer. Not the cheapest solution I guess, but certainly interesting.

If you look at the picture, you’ll see that van Tongeren is watching at least three shows at the same time, probably more in the background. Of course, TV sets that are able to display more than one channel at the same time have been available for some time, but I like van Tongeren’s setup a lot more. He’s grabbing the news he wants to read, perfect content personalization.

Marco Derksen, the author of the original post, also asks the question as to how long his readers plan to keep using TV sets in the living room. Thinking about it, I believe that we’ll have a TV set around for some time to come. Granted, I don’t use it to watch anything anymore, other than CNN, but it’s good to have a fallback in case something happens.

Other’s also appreciate it that we still use a TV; while I personally don’t mind watching a show on my Laptop, I know that it’s no fun at all to watch a good DVD on a 14″ screen. However, this wasn’t really the question Derksen asked, after all, if you only use your TV to screen a DVD, it’s little more than a display device.

Derksen, albeit using the wrong words, is curious about how “we“, the current generation, consumes news:

It’s obvious that everyone has his or her own way of getting the latest news, but I think, most people are using RSS to keep up with it. I certainly do and I do it alot. In the past month, I’ve read close to 9,000 items - that’s 300 new items every day, on average.

Information overload? No, because most sites only provide you with a short teaser of the actual article, so you can decide on the spot if you want to keep reading or if you’d rather move on to the next item. From all the items, I probably end up reading 40% which is still a lot but this way, I can keep up with the game and keep myself informed. Naturally, sites like CNN.com also help out a lot with getting the latest news.

All in all, I see two changes here - the way we consume news has changed to a more personalized format and I don’t believe that TV broadcasting can continue like it is now without offering at least one third of the personalization options the web offers. People don’t care for news that have no value to them, so why alienate your consumer base?

Second, the amount of news has increased by at least ten times. While people still remain somewhat loyal to their favourite channel, thanks to the myriad of sources out there, viewers have a lot more choice and what is considered a criminal on one channel, could be a patriot on another. Every channel has their own way of “spicing up” the news, it’s up to the viewer to pick the one that “tastes” best.

A week or so ago, I blogged about my movie project and about it’s possible premiere on Friday, February 2nd. Obviously, there was no premiere, yet, because of a few events that happened.

For one, the affiliation with the team that builds US: I is working out very nicely and they are catering for most of my wishes. In return I’m rewriting scenes to better fit their environments, not just because I feel obliged to, but also because it’s a lot easier to showcase their stuff that way.

I’m also rewriting dialogue based on new research I discovered, to make certain scenes more realistic and to add a few more easter eggs. I’ve also been working on a movie poster (actually, I’ve been working on three different ones) and I’m revising my marketing strategy for the whole project.

Scott is doing a great job as a voice actor and so are the other people. I have a lot of new found respect for movie makers, young and old. This project is a lot bigger than originally expected, but still, it’s a great experience and I would do it again any time.

More (elaborate) updates will follow soon.