Channel9: in focus

Want to know how to do next generation corporate videos?

This site has hundreds of them.

They actually do integration!

The video publishing process here is tightly integrated (well, as tightly integrated as anyone has gone so far, but it goes without saying that we would go much further) with a ‘message board’ (excuse me, er, no, I think I mean blog comments: Channel9 is a blog, isn’t it? right? discuss!).

And it shows!

The stats on the site are extremely impressive, with their seminal 'Nine guys’ video having been watched over half a million times.

How does this compare with ScobleShow?

ScobleShow, Scoble's new 'video blog' (when will we stop giving things these stupid anti-descriptive generic names? It's an online TV channel, get over it!) that he's doing over at his new employer PodTech Is as full of heaven and hell as you'd expect.

It's videos are in a current (i.e., iTunes-compatible only) version of Quicktime.

If, like most, you aren't using a Mac, you may have one hell of a problem playing them.

People have complained.

Scoble has apologised.

There's the hell.

The heaven?

Excellent interview with Jonathan Schwartz, CEO of Sun, the guy who many suspected had got Scoble fired by Microsoft for interviewing him ('twas a lie', Scoble tells us, Microsoft didn't mind at all, Scoble left of his own accord)

And 'Photowalking with Thomas Hawk' (Thomas Hawk is the blogosphere's top photo-blogger, and in the video he takes Scoble and us on a fascinating 'photographer's eye view' tour of San Francisco) is a series (and a mostly-new format idea) worthy of the BBC (shaky-cam notwithstanding).

Comparisons with Channel9?

This is a really tough question.

With all due respect to Charles Torre who has carried on with Channel9 over at Microsoft (and he has done some good stuff) we are talking Scoble here, and we are talking 'Scoble with a need to innovate even more than when he was at Microsoft'.

I expect him to leave Channel9 as an antique, a historic curiosity.

ScobleShow is in a mess right now, but don't bet on it staying that way.

And he's still doing good stuff and new kinds of stuff even though he hasn't really got his act together.

ScobleShow already gets as much of my attention as Channel9 used to.

Learn fast!

I learn new things about how to do this stuff (and just as often, and even more importantly, how not to do this stuff) every time I visit.

I still believe this is one of the most important sites on the web.

You can also learn (from the content of the videos) about a lot more than how to make corporate videos.

Learn what?

You can learn about transparency, change resistance, collaboration challenges, software management nightmares, PR dilemmas (and occasionally, about Microsoft, and software developemt).

Social media Management masterclass (SmMm)!

And yet the site - and everyone else in the world - is still deluded about it being Microsoft-centric.

Go here, take a look and see for yourself....