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2005: Year of the digital citizen (and Yahoo!’s digital citizens)

I still haven’t gone to bed yet, and it’s almost 5am. Ho-hum.

I’ve been reading on BBC News Website a nice little MSM-orientated piece about ‘2005 being the year the digital citizen‘. It’s written by my good friend Dr Jo Twist, Senior Research Fellow @ IPPR (who ironically used to write for the BBC News Website before getting the job she so much deserves).

I’ve also been checking out Yahoo!’s on-line reality TV show, “Wow House”. Two families kit up their home with the latest gadgets as they battle it up for who can get the most geek-blinked crib.

Hmmm, maybe they should come and visit Jon and Dr Jo’s house, and mine and Sofia’s apartment for a benchmark? 🙂 I’m currently looking to buy an HD projector for the bedroom to project our DivX’s and XVid’s onto the ceiling! Yeah, it’s the 21st Century equivalent of having a mirror up there!

But, anyway, back to Yahoo!. I’m actually a little disapointed with what Wow House is going to be. If they’re going to pioneer offering online TV series’ than I would have thought that creating a consumer-orientated gadget show is actually not a very good first-go. Most of the early adopters for this kind of stuff, like me, are not going to be interested in a consumer level electronics. “Hmmm, here’s a plasma TV”, etc.

I don’t watch as much TV as I used (like most people, these days I think), but I’m a big fan of “business-orientated” reality TV. The US Apprentice series, even Martha Stewarts, are fascinating. I find the group dynamics educational and the bitching entertaining. Yes, it’s edutainment, folks.

I would love to see someone like Jeff Bezos do an apprentice series, and make some of it available on-line in addition to broadcast TV. I think it would do him, Amazon and the industry a power of good.

What do people think about Yahoo’s foray into reality TV?

Published in News

One Comment

  1. I dont know.

    I’m more impressed when people do a lot with a little. For example my home entertainment system is hardly amazing. Big widescreen CRT here, Dolby Digital there – pretty much no HD anywhere in sight. But people are still very impressed, specially under the student budget it was all bought under (not to say your wasn’t). But I’ve seen crazy installations which costs a bomb but there less impressive because you know they paid someone else to do it for them. I guess the point i’m making is that hard work shows.

    I think someone will do a MAKE type show for the internet. Its maybe why MAKE does so well online? Your idea of a Jeff Bezos apprentice is a good one and I would urge someone or yourself to develop the idea forward. Its the point of the web, it doesnt need to be this super lavish affair, it can be small and grow. Its how HAK.5, RocketBoom, Diggnation did it. I know I subscribe to the scene which is actually not that bad and Kevin Rose is planning a internet sitcom later this year but thats about all thats out there for geeks.

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