"We should share what we have in order to become less narrow and frightened and lonely and self-centered people."

David Foster Wallace isn't writing about user-generated content but I really think he could be. By uploading or watching you can't avoid making connections with other people. You are no longer an atomised soul detached from the rest of the community being anonymously piped entertainment by giant corporations. Engage and the world becomes a warmer place.

In the last few months, there have been lots of interesting developments in the world of user-generated TV. We thought it would be good to get all the chief protagonists in one place (to save some of their spouses from endless over-excited work chat, if nothing else).

And so UGTV '06 was born.

We've got a top-notch panel of speakers. The audience will include representatives from all the major terrestrial channels, a fair selection of niche channels, some of the most exciting firms in new media and a bunch of faces from the world of advertising. We've found a suitably futuristic venue called The Visionarium. We've got lovely nibbles from Maison Blanc and jugs of Pimm's to quench your thirst.

Space is a little limited, but if you'd like to come drop us a line at events@mintdigital.com.

Robbie Stamp of Stamp Bros had been closely involved in the Hitchhikers Guide across many platforms. He said:

Focus on one media and make your idea as good as possible on that media. Then think about rolling it out.

That's exactly the opposite of what we are doing with Buried Alive and BloomBox. We think (hope?) that his advice doesn't hold for ideas that are intrinsically multi-platform.

John Booth of Sony Entertainment said their research showed that three things consumers don't want (on playstations or PSPs) are:

• linear media
• technology for technology's sake
• editorial control from above

That's more like it. That fits with the BloomBox vision.

Mark Rogers of Market Sentinel said Rupert Murdoch's great skill as a businessman is seeing the choke point. In the satellite era, his key purchase was NDS and their encryption technology. Mark asked who will dominate the new media landscape. His answer: aggregators. What was Rupert Murdoch's first significant purchase in the internet era? MySpace.

Hallelujah! BloomBox is a tool for creating aggregators.

David Putnam’s keynote was an excellent introduction to the changing media landscape. He really gets the excitement of the internet. I thought this was interesting:

Five years ago a functioning TV studio would have cost £800,000. Now it costs approximately a quarter of that. A camcorder you can buy from Dixons today is higher resolution than anything the BBC owned in 2000.

Like many people Adam Gee from Channel 4 is not a big fan of the phrase 'user-generated'. He loves the idea behind it though. When he made a list of 8 projects he was excited by, he realised all of them had a user-generated element. Ones he mentioned include:

• 1-2-1: co-authored international blogs
• Germ: UK’s first competition for viral digital content (got good press)
• Lost generation: people can add media of all sorts
• 4Docs: high-end user-generated content
• 4Laughs (forthcoming): talent discovery in comedy

I was hugely impressed by Steve Cullen and the guys from someth;ng. For the festival they had created a system that allows a user to bookmark a moment in time and space via a RFID tag. It matches you with people who have gone to similar events at similar times. It’s fun, it’s cool and it might even be useful. What is more, they had built the system from scratch in 6 weeks. Great work, lads.

Over the last month a whole raft of user-generated TV initiatives have been announced. For example:

• Flextech have launched Trouble Homegrown.
• MTV have announced they'll be launching an 'audience-controlled channel brand'.
• Both BBC and Channel 4 announced user-generated comedy sites.

At an industry event I met a man who claimed: "Porn used to be the highest margin content in the world. User-generated content is higher."

If this is true, it's clear why broadcasters want to get involved... but what will distinguish the winners from the losers?

Time will tell, but here are some thoughts.

1. Make the question interesting What motivates a user to create and upload content? There is the YouTube approach - create a giant area for all types of content.

There is also a more niche approach - combine user-generated content (UGC) with a TV show that focuses the desire for users to contribute. We believe this is a rich seam. We've been talking to TV producers and broadcasters as we launch BloomBox and it seems the possibilities are almost endless. UGC could well be the next wave of reality TV.

(This iMedia Connection article demonstrates five contrasting approaches to framing the question for user-generated advertising.)

2. Ease of use Vimeo set the standard for uploading and previewing clips. YouTube gets our vote for community features, helping the user get widespread viewership of his clip. I'm yet to see a broadcaster's UGC initiative that can match these.

3. Network effects - success breeds success Lots of bytes have been spilt trying to explain MySpace's success (here's a good article). I'd wager that networks effects are the most important. Content creators want an audience. Popular sites become more popular. (To demonstrate, MySpace isn't the social networking leader everywhere. It is trounced by Orkut in Brazil and Bebo in Ireland).

This post wasn't supposed to be an advert but the first two factors show where BloomBox excels. BloomBox removes the technical hassle from user-generated content, freeing producers to make the question interesting. It's ease of use, as we will be able to reveal soon, is excellent.

Get these two right and the compounding reward of network effects will kick in. You'll be as rich as a porn king.

Extra reading: Cracking NY Times article on some of the dangers of user-generated advertising.

One of our greatest cheerleaders but also greatest critics here at Mint is one Paul Fisher. Paul has moaned about our website forever and we seemed destined never to please this discerning web connoisseur (Fisher is to websites what Michael Winner is to restaurants). Until now that is!

Paul loves the new Mint site so much, he is going to spend the whole weekend looking at it on his widescreen laptop.

Our next challenge: to try to get Paul enthusiastic about going to the theatre (something else he traditionally doesn't like).

I'll be speaking at b.TWEEN06 in Bradford on 26th May on the subject of 'Opportunities for new media producers in the TV world'. That should be a short talk. Joke. Honest, that was a joke. There are lots of opportunities. Well, maybe 'lots' is a bit strong but there are some. Anyway... come along, it will be brilliant!

Mint's site for Nudo was featured on the respected Signals vs Noise blog. These dudes are like the daddies of web design, so we were very happy to get the mention.

We've just got back from MipTV in Cannes where Mint won its category in the Content 360 competition. It was a hugely exciting week - we spoke to lots of people who were enthused by our entry Buried Alive and who had interesting ideas for how to extend the concept.

Gary Hayes from the Laboratory of Advanced Media Production, Sydney said Buried Alive was the "best project from all the pitch sessions as it really combined user generated, community, rich media and potentially mobile". Shockingly he also claimed Mint Digital was a "nice company".

Other highlights of the week include: 1. Getting a mention on the back page of Broadcast for a 'kerfuffle' involving 3 confiscated passes.

2. Tim's over-excited acceptance speech. He called David Frank, Mint's chairman, 'the greatest man in television'.

3. A glowing write-up from Il Manifesto (login requred, surely not a problem for our predominantly Italian communist readership).

Mint Digital has been shortlisted for the BBC Content 360 award - in the 'Long Tail Content: Navigating The BBC Archive' category. Four finalists present their concepts to a panel of BBC commissioners at MipTV in Cannes on the 5th April 2006.

If you are going to MipTV - please pop by and support us. We get 5 minutes to pitch-off against the other contenders, so we'd love your whooping and hollering when we unveil Buried Alive. (4pm at Audi K, Level 4).

We'll also be demo-ing Buried Alive and other top-secret projects for the rest of the week in the New Talent Pavilion on Level 3 of the Palais.

Make sure the branding is on message.

A couple of time clients have requested that we make their homepage short enough so you can see the whole page without scrolling. Well, I like longer pages but I'd never spoken up, worrying that it is that just personal preference.

Then I read

Then I noticed:

It take 50 milliseconds for someone to decide if they like your site.

I wonder if that is why of all the sites we've made, it is the one with the simplest front page (Nudo Italia) that users get most enthusiastic about?

A lovely little article on starting a software business. Man, Joel Spolsky writes well. (My dad gave me this doorstep by Alan Bennet for Christmas as an example of "wonderful writing" but Bennet's prose is so pedestrian by comparison).

Apologies for the non-existent blogging, we been busy with a big site for Shipwrecked.

"It wasn’t that I was anti-popular culture or anything and I had no ambitions to stir things up. I just thought of mainstream culture as lame as hell and a big trick" says Bob Dylan in Confessions.

The web makes media less lame. Umair Haique explains theoretically why this should be and demonstrates that it will be a permanent effect: The New Economics of Media(long PowerPoint presentation). In short, the web increases the returns on investing in quality content and reduces the returns on marketing it.

John Battelle confirmed this theory anecdotally. Asked, "How do you market content in the new economy?" he replied "You can't (except for a little bit of AdWords), you've just got to make it as good as possible and hope it spreads."

(Link via: Paul Fisher)

The Nudo site is New Media Age site of the week. Thanks!

like Flickr for music, but better... absolutely brilliant

http://www.last.fm

A breathtaking website.

Strong use of photos. Lovely, slightly unusual, shopping basket.

We've moved into a new office.

Address: N301 Westminster Business Square 1 Durham Street Vauxhall London, SE11 5JH