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"RealHouseTV "
Yesterday we launched the new format of RealHouseTV.A new 30 minute show, debuting each Monday@8pm. It will play on a loop all week and is attached to a chatroom to allow a communal viewing experience. That means that anyone who tunes in to the show will be popped in a chatroom and be viewing/hearing the same thing* (at the same time) as the other people in the chat room.
This is an important difference from the �on demand� viewing of traditional web programming.
There is a reason why hearing a song on the radio is better than hearing it from a tape. On the radio, you are aware that thousands are listening along with you. It is a communal experience.
The same is true with a movie theatre vs. watching the video at home.
But, even though you may watch RealHouseTV while home alone, the web has the ability to produce that communal experience, too.
If you�ve tuned into my Wednesday Radio Show, you have experienced this. People from all over the world convene in my CitizenX chatroom at 5pm PST every Wednesday. I Do my radio show from San Diego. Producer Jason takes call-in participants from the studio in San Francisco. And we all add our 2 cents in the chat room. I often ask a question on the air and it is answered in the chatroom. Does it matter that the answer cam from the UK? Not at all. For at that moment, we are all sharing the same virtual vibe.
I want to create this vibe with RealHouseTV, too.
With an attached chat room, it is like a virtual TV party. Meet all your pals in the RealHouseTV Lounge and watch a show together. If the other viewers have webcams, you can see them as they see you, as you all are watching the same show. You can make comments on the broadcast, and even �whisper� privately to friends using Instant Messages. It is a shared virtual experience that takes place in the atomless setting of cyberspace.
Will it work? See you next Monday for the debut of Episode 4.
* RealHouseTV is not a TV broadcast. The video is terrible. It�s tiny, blurry and not in synch with the audio. But the audio is clear and it plays along with a visual slideshow of the action. Most importantly, it is viewable over a dialup connection. It fails at being a TV channel, but it is very successful at a new kind of guerrilla broadcasting.
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