Will Upfronts (Eventually) Be Supplanted by New Media Surrogates?
Remember a year or two ago when the podcasting community got together and tried to establish industry unity and define standards for advertising? Our own John Furrier was a founding force of the resulting organization, the Association for Downloadable Media.
It seems that a similar spontaneous unification is attempting to bubble up this year in the world of web-based video. Recently I’ve been solicited to participate in two happenings in New York City that hope to be for digital media what the upfronts are for Heritage Media.
One, which June 9th, is calling itself the Onfronts. It seems to be centered around Tilzy.tv, but has pulled in a number of well known names in the online video community. From the emails I’ve been sent from them:
With support from Blip.tv, Tilzy.TV is proud to bring advertisers and leading content creators together to share experiences and showcase upcoming projects.
The first annual Onfront NYC will take place on June 9, 2009 in downtown Manhattan at the chic Tribeca Cinemas – home of the Tribeca Film Festival – and is open to a select group of content partners, independent producers, advertisers, and press.
We’ve barely announced Onfront NYC, and we’re ecstatic to have Atom, Fox, Next New Networks, My Damn Channel, DECA, For Your Imagination, Generate, EQAL,Take180, and Revision3 already on board. We’re also grateful to CJP Digital for their early support of our vision.
Another one that’s making headlines today but is scheduled to take place during NYC’s Internet Week is the Digital Content Newfronts.
They’ve made a splashier impression on me with a comedic video that’s circulating starring Emcees Jake and Emir.
There’s a smaller roster of leaders involved with this event: Current.tv’s Al Gore, Tom Green, Revision3, our own Daisy Whitney and College Humor’s Jake and Emir. This event seems a bit more centered around defining standards than meeting with potential advertisers, as there’s a schedule of speeches and panels, and no apparent time slated for meeting with new potential clients.
Still, quite an interesting set of developments, ones that we’ll be watching with intense interest.
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