
What's everyone's thoughts on justin.tv? - domp

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danielha
It is unsurprisingly compelling. But the live chat and interactivity really
made it for me. It's great to just idle in the room all day, pop back on the
computer after some time and ask "So what'd I miss?"

The potential of justin.tv is just phenomenal right now. The platform that
they've built is really going to change how entertainment is done.

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pg
Dangerously addictive. I must have spent two hours looking at that site today.

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domp
I'm not gonna lie I watched it a lot tonight. I really would have enjoyed it
better if the sound was better though. It was hard to hear the speaker and a
lot of the conversations. Wasn't Justin supposed to speak in front of
everyone?

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pg
Justin's speaking at startup school; maybe that's what you're thinking of.

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domp
Yup thats the confusion. Thanks

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floozyspeak
Doesn't seem sticky enough for me.

Yer basically playing out a concept to see if you can do it and then you can
either break it down and turn it into a licensing kit idea for people and get
the masses to start creating their own, and adding their own personal style to
it.

If you don't sell it ya got about a month until someone learns from your idea
and rips it off and now yer bleeding.

Still isn't sticky.

You could play it up more and do more truman like things to it, but then yer
dancing into the realm of staged content, and the real effect could wear off,
but as if people really think reality shows are all that real anyways, theres
always a camera man there watchin people.

I dunno. Still biggest thing for me as a would be watcher, needs stickyness. I
like the fact you can embed justin like a widget, and all the bits you have to
rss it out etc is nice but overall stick is lacking.

Spend, Build, Learn, Craft, License, Sell thats yer best bet here. I seriously
doubt these guys can go a year, and if they could i mean my god, gun to head
please, eventually the audience will WANT you to turn the thing off. People
like blogs for stories and threads and ideas that get manifested into an
entry, in a real time stream, that after thought processing isnt there, so you
may see it you may not, stickyness is relying solely on the person in play and
whether or not somethings really interesting to see.

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jimream
What would be better is a well edited documentary, comparing the two biggest
start-up incubators Ycombinator and Techstars.

It would be a fantastic promotional documentary for all party's involved.
Heck, you could even turn it into some kind of reality Tv show if your wanted
to where the 2 incubators compete somehow. 1st season broadcast via Youtube +
HD websites. 2nd season via NBC.

It's 1000x better idea for a show than this <http://www.iamtheprodigy.com/>

its a reality based tv show where 2000 door to door summer salespeople compete
to see who can sell the most, what garbage!! The people at Ycombinator and
Techstars are the _future leaders of the world!_ How much more interesting can
you get!?

If your interested in this idea I will be in the Bay area March 22-27.
JimmyReam@gmail.com

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nostrademons
There was a documentary done about one of the dot-com busts in 2000. I can't
remember the title, but Google may be able to help you.

The problem is that most of work starting a startup is _boring_. So either a
documentary distorts what actually goes on and shows you the interesting parts
(like the one above), or you lose interest and forget about it.

My day basically goes:

1\. Wake up. Start development VM. Check yCombinator. Reply to a post or two
while VM boots up.

2\. Implement a feature, or some administrative script, or setup some software
package on server, while eating breakfast.

3\. Go to day job. Work on somebody else's startup for 8 hours. Use breaks
etc. to resource technologies I'll need for that night's programming.

3.b. Sketch out some feature longhand in a notebook on the train home.

4\. Come home. Implement the low-hanging fruit that I just researched.

5\. Eat dinner

6\. Spend 2-3 hours working on some of the larger tasks that need doing.

7\. Repeat.

It's pretty productive, but hardly good TV. The documentary would basically be
"Jonathan staring at computer. Jonathan staring at computer. Jonathan staring
at computer."

I am keeping a blog (poorly - been 2 weeks since I updated) with the day-to-
day stuff. But really, that's just "Here's the challenge we just faced. Here's
how we solved it. Rinse, lather, repeat."

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danw
The documentary is probably startup.com

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herdrick
They'll get tons of VC money soon and they'll need it for the bandwidth bills.
More people want to film their lives than want to talk into a fixed camera
(i.e. YouTube). You need a little new hardware for this though which hurts.

Still, it will be huge. The next YouTube.

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Alex3917
Excellent. I had a lot of fun watching the tail end of the YC dinner last
night.

I don't think they'll have any trouble getting publicity, considering all
Justin has to do is tell all the live viewers Digg a link to his show at a
certain time. :-)

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jadams
It's very, very cool. I'm in Canada, and it felt like I was at that party.

I kept having the strange urge to talk directly to people like pg, Trevor
Blackwell, Jessica Livingston, as if Justin were some kind of Telepresence
bot, or medium. It's weird to think of him walking around, with all these
"spirits" in his head.

The robot demo was fascinating, and I love the unscriptedness. I think I
prefer that to an edited or scripted documentary. You can infer a lot from the
raw data that wouldn't make it through the editorial process.

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sethjohn
My guess is that the real money here is in a product placement advertising
model, rather than licensing the platform.

They'll get some valuable patents for technology they develop, and a few
hundred bucks each off the few hundred people who want to broadcast their life
24/7/365. But a big .tv-star will be able to bring in $K a day just to test a
Segway, show up at the right restaurant, attend the launch party for a new
startup, etc.

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herdrick
I think the police entering their apartment at 1:40 this morning, guns drawn,
is going to make a classic moment for the archives.

I'll be honest, I was thinking I was maybe going to see Justin get shot.

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sharpshoot
whoa, seriouly what did i miss there!? Why did the police enter the apartment?

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staunch
Apparently someone used a teletype service (intended for the hearing-impaired)
to call police and report a stabbing. Police arrived with guns drawn.

( These teletype services are frequently used for credit card fraud as a way
for the perpetrator to remain anonymous. )

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Andys
What struck me was how slick the platform was. I don't particularly care to
watch Justin for more than just a few minutes, but if it was someone I did
want to watch I'd probably load it up every night.

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rhmason
I may be older than your target audience but I think except for the police
raid it was rather lame. But then I don't understand the appeal of American
Idol or Survivor either

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nostrademons
Posted them here: <http://news.ycombinator.com/comments?id=5313> before this
thread was open.

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sethjohn
Prediction: At least two of the first ten .tv-stars will attempt a Borat style
character.

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dpapathanasiou
It feels like the "Truman Show", except the lead character knows he's being
watched.

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staunch
I love it and I'm rooting for them big time.

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marie
JustinTV is SO addictive!

