Comments on: pitchfork tv

By: Dave Allen

Dave Allen — Wed, 09 Apr 2008 16:26:58 +0000

@marc, I believe I’m going to like P4RK TV a lot when it is portable. As you say, you spent an hour watching full screen videos. That’s akin to an hour on the couch watching regular TV, there’s no differentiation. Obviously your ability to pick and choose, “filter” your content is cool and also time shift your viewing but watching video for an hour on my laptop even with an attached 23″ monitor just doesn’t do it for me.
As I said earlier, when this thing hits Apple TV and I can download and take portions with me on the iPhone, I’ll be happy….”the internet is not a TV channel” should be the mantra, advertising agencies are falling into the trap of thinking it is and they are failing to grab users attention because of that thinking. The internet is a whole expanding universe and when companies try to grab a part of it that piece just snaps off and withers on the vine as it gets left behind. The best thing the internet offers is interactivity - P4rkTV is a non-interactive experience as far as I can tell. Discovery is the key word I reckon. Keeping moving is the action. As I heard at a panel not too long ago “remember, kids are only one click away from porn,” meaning that the minute someone’s (very short) attention span is compromised by some video going on too long without interesting content..then click and they’re gone and they won’t come back either.
Meanwhile I recommend CoolHunting for beautiful videos that keep your attention because they last about 4 minutes and they’re packed full of interesting stuff. http://www.coolhunting.com/video/

By: Marc

Marc — Wed, 09 Apr 2008 15:17:15 +0000

Youtube is great, but the quality sucks. Last night I spent about an hour watching beautiful full screen videos on PF. I think the site is very well designed, it has great content and the videos are very high quality. How could you not like that?

By: Dave Allen

Dave Allen — Tue, 08 Apr 2008 16:32:36 +0000

@JW, you might be on to something there…this just in from CNet
http://www.news.com/8301-10784_3-9911501-7.html?tag=nl.e703

Courts chip away at Web sites’ decade-old legal shield
For more than a decade, Web site operators have enjoyed a broad legal shield against lawsuits filed over material posted by their users, which has let user-driven sites like YouTube and MySpace.com flourish. But a pair of recent rulings by federal district judges have chipped away at that protective shield. If those decisions are upheld on appeal, and if more judges follow suit, Web site operators and Internet service providers may find themselves compelled to police what their users post–or face the unsettling prospect of being held liable for the contents.

By: J. Wallace

J. Wallace — Tue, 08 Apr 2008 12:54:06 +0000

If you ask me (and nobody did, heh) this just seems like a move to slip a more traditional media model onto the net, albeit disguised as new media. The very idea of Internet TV channels as a major part of the future of the net doesn’t bode well to me.

Once internet media sites begin acting like old media in a consistent, marketable way it won’t be long until the FCC decides it “needs” to regulate it. I believe the DCMA was one attempt to do this even without the old media influence.

Oh, and I believe the FCC will find a way to legislate around the fact that the stuff it wants to regulate online isn’t broadcast over the airwaves. They’ll figure out some kind of “save the children” public scare campaign and try to run some kind of legislation through….

I know this sounds a bit shrill, but we’ve seen this behavior from our government before.Does anyone remember the PMRC music hearings in the senate back in the 80s? And that was over a few Prince and Sheena Easton albums.

By: Scott Carver

Scott Carver — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 20:25:09 +0000

Possibly as important as video quality, the audio quality is what makes most youtube (and most amateur made) live music videos almost worthless to me. I agree that the factor of making it easily embeddable is key though, and once pitchfork.tv gets this working they’ll be all over the place. According the Wired article, embeddable and ipod-friendly clips are forthcoming which will solve both the “stickiness” issue and the podcast/Apple TV thing as well. One thing I find pretty annoying about pitchfork.tv is their “Pitchfork Central Casting” in the Special Presentation section of shows. It feels pretty fake, and I think the last thing the channel needs is faux reality tv and College Humor-esque skits.

By: bryanv

bryanv — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 19:13:01 +0000

I like it. I think its nice to see/hear some high quality video/music for a change and not to mention, its free. Granted the videos are for one week only but I think that brings more value.

By: Dave Allen

Dave Allen — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 17:47:54 +0000

@Justin, very good points (I for one have no bias against PFork BTW) but I suppose to be really compelled by this service I’d love to see it be included in Apple’s offerings for the Apple TV. The kind of stuff I’m expecting to get from PFork.tv is the kind of stuff I expect to be watching on a big screen from the comfort of my couch, not on a laptop at my desk….

By: justin

justin — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 17:38:45 +0000

I generally disagree with Dave and Josh on this one… I think having certain media sites that offer quality over quantity (and interactivity) is a good thing, so long as the quantity\mashup\social networking sites still exist as well. I think we should be so glad to have a little professionalized and produced yin to our overstimulated OMFG yang.

I found that this helps: pretend that the site has nothing to do with Pitchfork. I think the latent anti-pitchfork-monopoly bias that we all have plays a role in souring our opinion in this, though I do wish that some other site had come along with this idea before pitchfork did.

As for the web 2.0 aesthetics, I still think that the internet needs to make full use of the mediums available. Sure, low quality video shouldn’t ruin anyone’s day, but there’s something to be said for finding a website that CONSISTENTLY offers good sights and sounds (I don’t think brand loyalty is a bad thing). I can’t tell you how many times I’ve cursed youtube after finding a great band playing a great song live, only to have the sound rendered literally intelligible by the fact that it was recorded on a cellphone.

I think to say that any one system of content delivery is too unhip to fit into the net is to miss the point of the web as a competitive playground for ALL types of media.