Written by Liz Gannes
Posted Tuesday, October 21, 2008 at 1:00 AM PT

Historian: YouTube is a Bigger Deal than TV

Scott Kirsner, a journalist who just released a book called Inventing the Movies about technology’s affect on Hollywood, told us this week that he thinks YouTube will is a more influential innovation than television. In his review of movie history, from Smell-O-Vision to digital filming, Kirsner found an “epic battle” between technology and the status quo, with each generation’s doom and gloom predictions — from the likes of Thomas Edison, George Eastman, Jack Valenti, and Sumner Redstone — failing to come to fruition.

I helped Kirsner out with some research way back in the pre-NewTeeVee days when he was working on an early draft of the book, so it’s good to see him out on the West Coast on book tour armed with his formidable collection of movie trivia. After one such lecture on Sunday night in Berkeley, he sat down with us for a quick interview. The video is above.

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Topic: Online Video

Comments (4)

Video destination sites such as YouTube bring the ability to watch what you want, when you want it, interact with it, and have it arranged and organized by like minded audience. That, in my mind, is the revolution. It goes above and beyond the video on demand model…

Akash — 9:24 AM on October 21, 2008 Reply
Does anyone else find it ironic that the video is about YouTube but the player itself is not a YouTube embed?

HmmConvenient — 6:24 AM on October 22, 2008 Reply
Hey, we post on blip instead of YouTube because we like their embedded player better. But to be fair, I think Scott’s comment is more about the online video revolution than YouTube as one company. YouTube deserves the credit but it’s not the only one.

Liz Gannes, NewTeeVee — 9:18 AM on October 22, 2008 Reply
Are video games and MMORPG’s a good fit for interactive “New Media” type content? Potentially ad-free ROI.

http://primetimeforchange.com/2008/10/electric-farm-entertainment-and-mmos.html?

ttodd — 4:49 PM on October 23, 2008 Reply

Linkbacks (3)

[...] Historian: YouTube is a Bigger Deal than TV – Newteevee.comScott Kirsner, a journalist who just released a book called Inventing the Movies about technology’s affect on Hollywood, told us this week that he thinks YouTube will is a more influential innovation than television. In his review of movie history [...]

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[...] came across a great interview with Scott Kirsner with Liz Gannes on NewTeeVee. Kirsner’s a journalist with Variety, Fast Company and his own blog, Cinema Tech; his new [...]

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[...] Scott Kirsner hits it on the head Spot On [...]

Scott Kirsner hits it on the head «… — 2:32 PM on October 22, 2008