Lunch with Carson Daly

Down at the EconSM conference in Beverly Hills, we had the unique experience of having lunch with Carson Daly, currently the host of Last Call with Carson Daly on NBC. Prior to lunch, Daly had sat on a panel about social media and Hollywood, where he posited his MTV Total Request Live show of the late ’90s as a pioneer of social media on television, “turning over an hour to users.”

Teaming up with Demand Media for an online video-related project launching next week (more on that later), Daly was excited to talk about the rise of the “semi-pro” in music and video. As he sucked down bloody marys and toyed with his BlackBerry 8800, Daly told the stories of securing development deals with NBC for Nobody’s Watching and Brookers (embedded above). A development deal, I asked, is that really the apex?

“It’s a colossal step for somebody outside of the old boy network to get in,” he replied. “Here’s a 19-year-old secretary in Connecticut, and now she’s getting paid by NBC to sit in her bedroom and make videos.”