For two reasons, Brian’s recent TV Everywhere post caught my renewed attention.

For one, earlier today, Comcast announced expansion of its online TV video efforts to an impressive 23 networks. From full-length movie channels - think Cinemax, HBO, IFC, an Starz -  to cable TV favorites such as A&E, E!, Food Network, and WE,  Comcast’s 5,000 trial homes are now among the very first to enjoy online video akin to legacy TV.

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Has lengthy Sigur Ros concert coverage replaced subversive short-form clips on Current TV?

In other words, is US television’s first intrepid citizen journalist network gradually jettisoning its user-generated videos, in favor of a content format ubiquitous elsewhere on TV? 
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I recently attended my first conference by live webcast - Media Summit New York.  Streaming was handled by scribemedia, which did a very nice job of it.  I wasn’t able to sample every panel because they were only shooting in one of the two session rooms, but it turns out there was something about “tele-attending” this conference that almost made up for that…

First, I’ll admit it - while I find the technology to be valuable in certain situations,  I’m by no means out there on the evangelical front lines of social networking (in fact, it’s only recently that we’ve twitter-enabled ourselves here at digitalmissive.com).

As a bit of a skeptic to begin with, I’ve also been a little ambivalent towards the combination of social networking and long-form premium internet video.  I’ve just felt there wasn’t a huge value-add there; that lean-back television viewing is by its nature a primarily passive pastime, and that the average viewer would not care to chat and text while watching their favorite show form the couch - and to the extent internet video is all about the ability to view content non-synchronously, real-time chatting about a show in progress isn’t really possible anyway.

But that was before I had the  experience of chatting and streaming during that first Media Summit panel - compared to sitting there silently in a live audience with perhaps one chance to interact briefly during the Q&A, watching the stream while having the option to freely exchange thoughts and opinions with my fellow cyber-audience members was really exciting.  I almost felt myself wondering if I would actually prefer watching the live stream to being there in person - just for the chatting alone.

Overall,  though, of course the advantages to attending these events in person trumps the live chat advantage - but how ironic, that attendance at panel discussions on the potential disruptive nature of internet video could end up being affected by …internet video.

So, mea culpa.  I get it.  Social networking and video can be cool - especially for events such as conferences.  Back at home on the next generation of internet-enabled televisions, it could be great, too - for sports, politics, and maybe American Idol.

But great enough to make implementing a keyboard-like interface?  I’m still not sure…