Highlights from ‘Television is going online’ conference

A few takeaways from today’s Getting Ready for Prime Time: Online Video and the Future of Television conference in Berkeley, CA:

Interesting tidbit: Someone pointed out that the Minnow — the name of the boat in “Gilligan’s Island” — was a tongue-in-cheek reference to Newton Minnow, the FCC commissioner who in 1961 described television as “a vast wasteland.” I didn’t know that.

Brewster Kahle, founder of the Internet Archive and a member of the Ourmedia Board of Trustees, gave the keynote address. (I did a video interview with him and will post it shortly.) Brewster said of the archival process: “Preservation without access is pointless. If it’s not loved, it’s not going to be preserved. Access drives preservation.”

He pointed out that keeping items up to date in the Archive requires two things: preserving the bits and keeping current with format changes. He said the Archive replaces items every three years or so, tape to tape, disc to disc. “This magnetic stuff is a little iffy. One magnet can ruin your whole day.”

Consultant Peter Hirshberg showed a video (which belongs on Ourmedia), “Day of the Longtail,” which recalled Bob Garfield’s “The Chaos Scenario” article. Peter said interactive TV never took off because it just offered a couple of buttons and required a set top box, “but people began getting their ya’yas off the web.”

Alex Cohen provided some metrics for the site he founded, Undergroundfilm.org. (Alex is on Ourmedia’s Board of Advisors.) The site, with two to three staffers, draws 150,000 visitors a month who watch a downloaded movie in full. It has 1,200 titles and is adding 100 new titles a month.

Cory Doctorow, the author and EFF activist, warned that our digital rights would be greatly scaled back under a bill drafted by Hollywood and set to come up in an appropriations bill near the end of this session of Congress. The bill would resurrect the broadcast flag for both digital TV and digital radio. He also raised awareness about another execrable piece of international legislation being considered by WIPO: the so-called broadcast treaty, which would wipe out various rights currently enjoyed by Webcasters (naturally, it’s being promoted as a Webcasting bill of rights).

JD Lasica, founder of Inside Social Media, is also a fiction author and the co-founder of the cruise discovery engine Cruiseable. See his About page, contact JD or follow him on Twitter.