If you want to find water, you might hire a diviner. How do you find out which voices in the new web content world really matter?
We're accustomed to "reputation" being awarded by a combination of our surfing habits and the reputation algorithms of a Technorati or a digg. But there's a moment of truth here. Good content has to matter; good content needs a point of view. Neither of these necessarily make for popularity.
I spent some time speaking with Gary Murray at Mixcast, Royce Dixon of Streetz iz Talking, and Josh Berman at Soul Gorilla.
Mixcast, a Content 2.0 website hosted out of New York, has fast become a popular channel in America's urban and hip hop culture. That popularity should spread beyond its self-imposed confines. Mixcast comes with a strong point of view.
The website is a collection of web TV channels aggregated from around the urban world, drawing in new media producers and channels whose small home audiences add up to one global community, audience and producers, sharing a particular urban experience.
Royce Dixon is a former restaurant, bar, and Jamaican carry-out owner from Washington D.C. Royce now runs Streetz iz Talking, a reality documentary company that produces films about what he regards as America’s other mainstream – the down and out, drug addicted and apparently marginal that inhabit the abandominiums of DC, New York and... the list is long.
Soul Gorilla, another Mixcast channel, reaches across the urban communities of America, Asia and Europe from Seattle. “We’re working with amateurs and pros alike, explains channel organiser Josh Berman. “Some of the guys are film school graduates, trying to tell the world what Seattle is about and create an entertaining concept and a brand.”
In the case of urban Seattle, that brand focuses on the achievements of the black American population. Brand urban Seattle talks to the world without seeking a permit from a network broadcaster or an international sales and distribution deal. The
Internet is the only way for brand urban Seattle to grow in a wider consciousness.
Two members of Soul Gorilla are also dancers with the Massive Monkeys, world break dance champions. The Gorilla’s site features videos of the Monkeys dancing around the world, bringing Seattle’s underground culture to appreciative audiences in Europe (they recently won the British break-dancing Open championship) and Asia. “They’re treated like Gods in Korea and Japan,” says Berman, who adds they are relative unknowns at home.
The fandom and stardom that impacts only lightly on the culture of Seattle explains a little of how Mixcast works. When pieced together, the marginalised cultures of all urban centres add up to a huge cultural movement.
“Our channels bring their own audience to Mixcast,” says Murray. “These guys are already established in their own urban culture and they bring that audience to us and then there’s cross over between them and other urban audiences.”
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