A YouTube for Intellectuals?
You are what you watch. That's what the "Kill Your TV" people used to say. But if TV is mindless, where does that leave YouTube?
Apart from search engines, YouTube is now the second most popular website in America, drawing the average visitor for a solid sixteen minutes of video surfing--a web eternity. The site hosts a long tail of clips on every item imaginable, but the top videos actually track the vices of television: sex, celebrities and sensationalism. And as the web morphs from endless text to an increasingly video-focused platform, YouTube is ground zero for some of the dumbest crap online. Yet web videos don't have to be vapid, according to the entrepreneurs behind <a href="http://www.bigthink.com/">Big Think</a>, <a href="http://www.thenation.com/doc/20080414/melber">YouTube for the Harvard set</a>.
After working as producers for The Charlie Rose Show, Harvard grads Peter Hopkins and Victoria R.M. Brown saw an opening for thoughtful, short-form intellectual videos targeting online audiences. The idea was simple: take the brightest, most creative thinkers alive, plunk them down for a conversation straight to camera--reality-show style--elide the moderator and provide an intimate window into the "big ideas" of our time. The erudite site drew investments from heavy hitters like Peter Thiel, a PayPal co-founder and Facebook angel investor, and Larry Summers, the former Harvard president and treasury secretary.
Compared with the experts on serious television, let alone the pundit circuit, Big Think's interview subjects have remarkable depth, diversity and credentials. There are famous professors and renowned writers, award-winning scientists and prominent theologians, political activists and tech futurists. In other words, the site is full of intellectuals with ideas that can make for compelling video--but without the sound bites and sizzle that dominate TV and YouTube. (There are also interviews with traditional newsmakers like senators, governors, former government officials and celebrities.)
The prolific author and conservative Judge Richard Posner, for example, offers a <a href="http://www.bigthink.com/wisdom/1571">meandering but intriguing answer</a> to the open-ended question "What's your counsel?" After lamenting the cost of the Iraq War, he notes that only government can tackle existential problems like global warming and disaster prevention. "It's actually kind of heresy, but I think the American people are undertaxed," he says in a low-key confessional. It's the kind of policy-driven argument that would rarely make a cable news debate, let alone a viral hit. "We ask a range of questions that are open-ended, forward-looking and nonpartisan," explains Brown, who works out of one of the spare photo booths in Big Think's Manhattan office. The start-up does not have enough desk space for its five employees.
Big Think strains to transcend traditional media framing, self-consciously shunning categories like "news" and "opinion" for more trippy headings. A "physical" section lists videos on architecture and music, while a "meta" category covers concepts like identity, wisdom, death and inspiration. It's more nuanced than YouTube, but also more confusing. (Why is "justice" meta? Why is "media" physical?) Yet Big Think is not just striving to be a hipper PBS, blasting highbrow content at enlightened Millennials. The founders say they're aiming for a meaningful, interactive dialogue--the kind of audience participation that makes good blogs lively, social networking sites sticky and YouTube profitable...
<a href="http://www.thenation.com/doc/20080414/melber">The rest of this piece is available at The Nation.</a>
Apart from search engines, YouTube is now the second most popular website in America, drawing the average visitor for a solid sixteen minutes of video surfing--a web eternity. The site hosts a long tail of clips on every item imaginable, but the top videos actually track the vices of television: sex, celebrities and sensationalism. And as the web morphs from endless text to an increasingly video-focused platform, YouTube is ground zero for some of the dumbest crap online. Yet web videos don't have to be vapid, according to the entrepreneurs behind <a href="http://www.bigthink.com/">Big Think</a>, <a href="http://www.thenation.com/doc/20080414/melber">YouTube for the Harvard set</a>.
After working as producers for The Charlie Rose Show, Harvard grads Peter Hopkins and Victoria R.M. Brown saw an opening for thoughtful, short-form intellectual videos targeting online audiences. The idea was simple: take the brightest, most creative thinkers alive, plunk them down for a conversation straight to camera--reality-show style--elide the moderator and provide an intimate window into the "big ideas" of our time. The erudite site drew investments from heavy hitters like Peter Thiel, a PayPal co-founder and Facebook angel investor, and Larry Summers, the former Harvard president and treasury secretary.
Compared with the experts on serious television, let alone the pundit circuit, Big Think's interview subjects have remarkable depth, diversity and credentials. There are famous professors and renowned writers, award-winning scientists and prominent theologians, political activists and tech futurists. In other words, the site is full of intellectuals with ideas that can make for compelling video--but without the sound bites and sizzle that dominate TV and YouTube. (There are also interviews with traditional newsmakers like senators, governors, former government officials and celebrities.)
The prolific author and conservative Judge Richard Posner, for example, offers a <a href="http://www.bigthink.com/wisdom/1571">meandering but intriguing answer</a> to the open-ended question "What's your counsel?" After lamenting the cost of the Iraq War, he notes that only government can tackle existential problems like global warming and disaster prevention. "It's actually kind of heresy, but I think the American people are undertaxed," he says in a low-key confessional. It's the kind of policy-driven argument that would rarely make a cable news debate, let alone a viral hit. "We ask a range of questions that are open-ended, forward-looking and nonpartisan," explains Brown, who works out of one of the spare photo booths in Big Think's Manhattan office. The start-up does not have enough desk space for its five employees.
Big Think strains to transcend traditional media framing, self-consciously shunning categories like "news" and "opinion" for more trippy headings. A "physical" section lists videos on architecture and music, while a "meta" category covers concepts like identity, wisdom, death and inspiration. It's more nuanced than YouTube, but also more confusing. (Why is "justice" meta? Why is "media" physical?) Yet Big Think is not just striving to be a hipper PBS, blasting highbrow content at enlightened Millennials. The founders say they're aiming for a meaningful, interactive dialogue--the kind of audience participation that makes good blogs lively, social networking sites sticky and YouTube profitable...
<a href="http://www.thenation.com/doc/20080414/melber">The rest of this piece is available at The Nation.</a>
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Ari,
I don't mean to be rude, but what made you think it acceptable to repost an excerpt from your article in The Nation in this forum? I have no problem with your referencing work first published elsewhere, linking to it, or even quoting it. But simply reposting it (and only an excerpt, at that) serves to degrade the quality of the discourse in this forum - it amounts to spam. I hope that you'll exercise your considerable talents in the future by posting original content to TPM Cafe, instead of rehashing work that's run elsewhere.
April 1, 2008 12:14 PM | Reply | Permalink
Fly,
Not to be rude but... I have enjoyed some of your posts, and I don't always have time for some of the longer ones - but I do try and get a feel when I cannot fully indulge. That said, what's the big problem with Ari making an occasional post here that highlights something like 'The Big Think' and its associated content?
I would hardly call that spam, I'm busier than hell myself and suffer twinges of guilt when I catch myself coming here when perhaps I should be doing something more directly profitable for myself and family. As this merely points up a service that might greatly benefit some of us here and it is from an author/contributor from a noted progressive publication, I have a hard time picking bones with it. I had briefly heard about this project somewhere else in the past but did not at that time have the time to pursue it.
I'm glad, myself, to be reminded about it.
I have reviewed some of Ari's past posts, and spamming is hardly what jumps to my mind. Have there been one or two posts that he clearly identifies as coming straight from 'The nation'? Sure - but what's the big deal - it's not like we all have a ton of time ourselves to properly compose well articulated and sourced posts on a daily basis. I view Ari's posts as generally being quite relevant to the currents of the day.
Finally, I am sure 'The Nation' has on numerous occasions referenced material that originated here - so what is so awful about a little quid-pro-quo?
I just don't get the drift of your beef, it hardly seems to apply in this case.
April 1, 2008 1:28 PM | Reply | Permalink
Thanks for both comments -- I have posted original work here, like Table for One, and yes, sometimes I also post Nation pieces that might interest this community. Given BigThink's focus on fostering intellectual and participatory videos online, I thought it might be worth sharing part of the piece here...
April 1, 2008 2:32 PM | Reply | Permalink