“Since 1950 there has been a total of more than 3,500 research studies conducted in America on the effects of media violence on the population. One random analysis of almost 1,000 studies found to demonstrate there is a tangible correlation between violent entertainment and violent behavior.”

“In the realm of media violence research scientists over five decades have been able to repeatedly demonstrate both short term and long term increases of violent behavior as the result of short term and long term exposure of manufactured horror.”

- Stop Teaching Our Kids To Kill – Dave Grossman and Gloria DeGaetano

And of course you can help them by simply voting here which then takes you to the Pepsi Refresh Everything Good Idea page for I am Waters.

Q: Should NBC have run, or even distributed the crazed manifesto of the Virginia Tech killer?

A: No.

Let’s be clear. The guy was crazy. And hateful. And he wanted fame. And he succeeded because they ran the video. There is only one logical conclusion other crazy hateful people who want fame can draw from this. Record it, distribute it, and you will get your 15 minutes of MSM coverage.

Dave Winer, at scripting news, uses lots of words in a subsequent post to talk around the issue. But his original call for the release of the videos was wrong. There is right. And there is wrong. And that is wrong.

My Dear Wormwood indeed.

From Emmy Advanced Media TV/Web Video Inversion:

There are only three business models: I pay, you pay or someone else
pays. In the media distribution business this is well understood.

and

For example, someone has to develop an Internet-oriented qualitative
media optimization program. This sounds simple enough, but it is not.
Right now, the vast majority of media optimization algorithms are
quantitative. This means the creative content of the advertisement is
not taken into consideration when formulating a media plan. This has
worked within acceptable limits for television, but in a world where
both venue and creative need to be contextually matched, pure
quantitative optimization is not appropriate.

I like the way Shelly explains it. Ad insertion is so basic that it defies A/B testing. The web presents the opportunity for fundamental testing of creative quality. Somewhere in between boring and viral hit lies the majority of advertising. It can improve.

The full post is worth a read.

I was meeting with Elaine Krause yesterday and the subject of video on the web came up. And relative media influence. I mentioned that Brookers, who I posted about previously, had more viewership that some cable stations. So here are the numbers.

Brookers Crazed Numa Fan Video Views:
2,341,968 (as of July 22, 2006)
Prime Time Cable News Median Audience 2005:  2,600,000

Also note that the cable news median audience number is from ALL networks.

I still like the My united states of…WHATEVA !!! video best.

In Cable Vs. The Unknown Shelly Palmer posts the results of an SMS survey from a session called "Add Cable and Stir: A Recipe for Business Success." The results, as posted on his site, are:

DirecTV–37 percent
AT&T–27 percent
Google–0 percent
Municipal Wi-Fi–10 percent
Something not yet invented–25 percent

Given I really like visuals and with Google garnering zero percent it just didn’t have the impact without a visual. So here is a quick pie chart on the perception of threats to cable television. Note the line on the lower left that represents a perception of zero threat from Google.

Maybe if they didn’t concentrate just on murders, war, and all the bad, I would be more willing to watch on a daily basis.

And more where that comes from with the online trendsetter panel. The highlights are:

1. In general, television news is seen as “too negative” in an effort to instill fear and paranoia.
2. They want a more clear definition between “real news” and “fluff” as stories of all types are perceived to get equal weight.
3. They want to see a more racial and economic diversity in terms of the types of stories they cover.
4. They want coverage of global issues.
5. They want honest reporting, not to feel like they’re getting propaganda.

From Palmer – I think this is significant

And, in a historic move, Google is offering an Internet streamcast of last week’s TV premiere of Chris Rock’s UPN comedy “Everybody Hates Chris,” marking the search company’s first foray into primetime TV program streaming. The 21 minute-long show, sans commercials, is available on Google Video through Thursday.
http://msnbc.msn.com/id/9492639/ This sort of blows up the concept of illegal file sharing or editing out commercials — I’d love to hear your comments on this.

Also from HappyKat who seems to be one step ahead of me so many times…

http://www.jotlive.com/
I like this idea -  I also like the word ‘versionitis’.

Shelly Palmer posed an interesting question to his NYC Emmy New Media list.  Define Television. 

Television: A tube that shows stuff. 

Damn, he probably wants something deeper than that.  On Shelly’s blog he gets all deep on this new media stuff so my bet is he really wants an answer to the question of "what is television?"  I found that I could not define television in just one way because what it is is NOT what it soon will be.  I had to first say what it is, and then what it will be.  Standing on the mountain preaching down to the viewers, telling them when to arrive and what they will see and that they will like it; those days are gone.  Even interactive television is still one main editor and content provider, or at least an elite group, talking to the masses.  It is not a conversation, and that is the fundamental problem.  So this is my response to the question:

What is television?

Right now we understand Television to be: An advertising supported mass entertainment medium that sends video, pictures and audio to a remote viewing box.   It is a one way medium providing edited content utilizing limited resources for transmission (radio waves or cable) which makes scarcity a problem.  The competition economics of the medium lead it to sensational but highly professional content to attract advertisers.  Advertisers and content owners attempt to maintain ownership and control of their content.
 
What Television will be:
 
A user driven method of displaying videos, recorded from the past, happening real time, or scheduled to be recorded in the future and displayed on demand for an end user based on their time table.   Television becomes one of many possible portals to view video.  Video remains primarily an entertainment medium but with unlimited resources for transmission (the Internet in addition to radio waves or cable) the democracy of content creation reduces the demand for high dollar advertisers.   Television production as we know it becomes more pay per click and branding focused.   TV and video become part of the conversation that is the blogosphere.   It evolves into a conversation and the one way communication “down” from broadcast stations to the public falls away into antiquity.