Some of my readers have interacted with Charles Pelton, who (along with Modern Media Partners) is now Ypulse's publisher and business partner. He has also been helping me sell sponsorships for Ypulse Mashups. What you may not know is that he has never done "sales" before this and was actually a journalist for several years at tech pubs like Information Week. Since I was in L.A. talking virtual worlds on Wednesday, I sent Charles (his friends call him Chaz) to Om Malik's NewTeeVee Live conference to bring you the highlights. Here's Charles's recap of the event:

Wednesday, I attended Om Malik's NewTeeVee Live conference in San Francisco. The theme, "Television Reinvented," addressed what youth marketers and media for and by youth have known for quite some time. The delivery of visual and video content is dynamic; advertising models are in flux; and marketers and advertisers have a great many places to place their bets. But keynoter Ralph del la Vega, an AT&T Group President, provided a warning: "The wealth of choices leads to a poverty of attention." At the same time, he said, "We have a huge challenge, but also a great opportunity. Hopefully the ads will be relevant."

What's most important is that "the gap is being bridged between the filmmaker and the audience," as Douglas Cheney, the Director and Co-Founder of Big Fantastic pointed out. Big Fantastic produced "Sam has 7 Friends" and the Eisner-backed on-line production "Prom Queen." The trick for anyone producing short-piece content for youth or any market is how to get big brands involved.

There's still too much nervousness about who owns the content. Ty Ahmad-Taylor, who is heavily involved in Product Development for MTV and several related brands, believes that "it's a mistake to think that we're going to be gate-keepers for our content." He adds, "The best antidote to piracy is to just make stuff available."

There was much discussion about bridging the gap -- in terms of creative output, quality and funding -- between what's posted on sites like YouTube and Revver and highly produced programming from traditional film, video and television studios.

The biggest fireworks were reserved for competing venture capitalists. Money sure creates passion. What's the driver for Internet video and TV? Social networks or the content itself? George Zachary, a partner Charles River Ventures, believes that "social networks that connect with users are going to win. It's a mistake to invest in content; I view users as middleware." Check that, though, if you're Dennis Miller, a general partner at Spark Capital. "Do we (continue to) build meaningless apps for Facebook?" he asks. "The media business will be a monstrously successful."

What's definite is explosive growth. Mary Hodder of Dabble says that there are now 350,000 videos hitting the Internet every day. We know that what gets seen is driven by the network of people recommending a particular piece. "The personal recommendation has really high value," she says.

YouTube, in the person of founder Steve Chen emphasized the growing maturity of videos that are being posted to his site and other. "What's the role of an aggregator?" he asked. For YouTube, it's allowing any customized player and it's encouraging syndication to other sites. "We want whatever content that our users want," says Chen. "We continue to see ourselves as a platform to syndicate. We can help present tools to monetize content."

What does this mean for brands? More opportunities to present and sponsor more content in more formats, delivered on more devices, in more varieties and lengths. But who produces that content? We know that youth are heavily involved, what about traditional writers, producers, editors, etc.? The Hollywood and Broadway strikes were on the minds of many yesterday in San Francisco. Dina Kaplan of Blip.tv said that "Power used to be with the studio system. Now it should be with the content creators."

That’s all well and good, but this really isn't a battle between the creator and the studio; it's a more fundamental shift between the old creator (writer)-studio axis -- these guys are really joined at the hip -- and the Internet as a platform of distribution, opportunity and change. The bet isn't with one side or the other in the current dispute; the bet is with change.

More NewTeeVee-ish headlines from today:
Web Videos Stealing TV Viewers, and Marketers (New York Times, reg. required)
TV sets a turn-off for South Korea's youth (L.A. Times, reg. required)

Posted by anastasia