Ben Metcalfe

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?