Mesh Day 1

Photo: “Where’s the Business in Show Business - Music and the Web” panel at Mesh today

Day 1 of Mesh is over and it was an extremely worthwhile day. Apologies to anyone listening to the panel discussion I was on today over the state of my health. I’ve been fighting a cold for a week now and losing my voice. As such, I kept a lot quieter than I normally am. Despite that, I think I got a few good points out, but I hope it was valuable for those watching. If you didn’t get a chance to ask a question but have one, please leave a comment, or catch up with me at Mesh tomorrow. I probably have more to say about online video than anyone cares to listen to.

Thanks to my fellow panelists Andre from CTV and Dina from Blip.tv and to the always-awesome Amber Mac who was the panel moderator. I heard that the second session she was in that day was really valuable. I missed it as I was listening to The New Front Page discussion. My favourite moment of that session was when Daniel Burka told us how he and his friends play this game on IRC… They post a news headline and you have to guess if it came from CNN or The Onion. It brought to mind the book It’s Not News, It’s FARK by Drew Curtis. In it, Curtis claims that news journalism is changing to be more entertainment focused. CNN’s popular stories section on their homepage often illustrates that this argument is true.

The last panel that I attended today (pictured above) was Where’s the Business in Show Business - Music and the Web which turned out to be the most heated discussion of the day. I did a bit of live blogging of the panel over on ScribbleLive (before I had to duck out early to tend to a coughing fit). In the discussion, David Usher was really focused on the message that artists need to build a community now to be successful. Afterwards, I spoke with Mathew Ingram about that idea and asked if he felt that Journalists (since he writes for the Globe and Mail) have to do the same thing now and he completely agreed. The same is starting to ring true for broadcast producers as well.

Our television audiences are increasingly expecting to be able to talk directly show producers about the show. I’m an Interactive Producer so direct contact with our audience is par for the course. How are traditional television producers reacting? The ones I work with are amazingly accessible, even joining show Facebook groups, identifying themselves as show producers and welcoming questions & feedback.

Ultimately interactive, television, news and music producers are creating information and entertainment for an audience and I agree with Mr. Usher that connecting, listening to and understanding that audience is key to our success.

I’m resting now with a mug of tea and a couple of NyQuil and looking forward to Day 2 of the conference.