Episode 18: The One About "IndieTV" Versus "Immersive Entertainment"

A passionate debate recently took place in the online video world about whether the short, scripted tv show model can gain an audience, versus interactive content and personality-driven entertainment. This is the kind of shit we love for New Mediacracy, so we gathered up Barrett Garese, Brett Register, Craig Frank, Jamie Blair, along with NM regulars Chris McCaleb, Zadi Diaz, and Steve Woolf and downed six, count 'em six bottles of wine.

The backstory: Barrett had delivered his WebTVWorkshop tip of the day video back in May, which got picked up last week by others in the web show world. That led to a passionate discussion on Twitter with quite a few participants. There was a follow-up Tumblr post by Barrett that led to numerous replies. David Nett put forth his thoughts on Facebook, which also had a lively comments exchange afterwards, and there was a Tubefilter article by Marc Hustvedt, which generated similarly passionate comments. There were other blog posts by creators on their own sites, as well.

I think anyone interested in the future of web shows and online video entertainment would be interested in this discussion, and it goes to the heart of what we've been discussing recently on New Mediacracy. Give it a listen and post your comments below: is IndieTV a steady model that people can wrap their minds around, or should creators focus on pushing the envelope of storytelling?

Direct MP3 link