Al Gore's New Cable TV Network
 

This is kind of funny, but the concept behind it is interesting where viewers supply the content. And Google co-founder Sergey Brin is in on the deal as well so it should be something to keep your eyes on.

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SAN FRANCISCO - Al Gore has a plan for luring the Internet generation back to television: make it more participatory by having viewers contribute their own video.

The former vice president and longtime Internet champion joined investors Monday to announce the creation of Current, a cable TV channel that will target younger viewers with a blend of news, culture and viewer-produced video.

Gore will serve as chairman of the board of the new venture, which will be based in San Francisco.

He and Joel Hyatt, the founder of Hyatt Legal Services who will serve as Current's chief executive, assembled an investment team that paid $70 million last year to acquire the Newsworld International channel from Vivendi International.

The channel, to launch Aug. 1, will remain privately financed and initially will be available in 19 million cable-subscriber homes.

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Google co-founder Sergey Brin gestures during a news conference at IndTV offices in San Francisco, Monday, April 4, 2005 as he unveils the new television network, Current, aimed at young, hip and liberal viewers.

the future of "tv" shows is all about delivering them on demand

so you dont have to be on a time before your set and you dont have to tape it

only get what you want when you want , simple

oh GREAT.

nice....I hope the stream it on the Internet for free.

so when this fails who is he going to blame this time?

George Bush...who else.. :1orglaugh :1orglaugh :1orglaugh :1orglaugh

do you think it will be as boring as he is?

I'm not sure anything could be that boring.....except Al Franken maybe....

Theoritically, it's a good idea. Content is king and allowing more people to supply that content should improve the choice of quality. However, it is still -one- channel and -one- channel only. There is nothing extraordinary about the network nor is there any real chance it will succeed in its current form. It's not going to give a voice to everybody, rather just highlight the select few that garner the most advertising revenue.

The Google connection is superficially good, but I'm not sure I want my TV news based on what people search on Google.

An ABC article says: "Sergey Brin, the 31-year old co-founder of Google, praised the channel as an effective way to distribute video in a way that frees it from the limited bandwidth and other technological challenges that has kept it from being widely available on the Web."

Eureka! What a great discovery...spend $70 million on an old dinosaur of a TV network, trick the public into producing the content and claim revolution! What will Al Gore think of next? He's clearly the greatest innovator ever.

:1orglaugh :1orglaugh :1orglaugh

Is that the guy who invented the Internet?

If viewers supply the content, then what do they show on the first day?

naked pics of Al Gore to get the ratings up :helpme

Perhaps I was wrong about Google. Here's Larry Page describing GoogleTV's forthcoming porn section:

Page also said he wasn't overly concerned about what might happen if Katzenberg's quip came true, and users uploaded objectionable or pornographic material to the video service. "There's lots of technology you can use to deal with those issues," Page said. "There might be an adult section, or something like that. I don't think that is going to be a big issue."
http://www.internetweek.com/allStori...leID=160403842

That would get off the chart ratings if they let amateurs upload their home "private" movies.

:thumbsup :winkwink: