Drewbot

The NYT’s Brian Stelter reports on AOL/The Huffington Post’s live streaming video network announcement:

AOL and The Huffington Post are readying a live video network that will have 12 hours of programming every weekday when it starts this summer…

Roy Sekoff, a founding editor of The Huffington Post who will run the streaming network, said it represented a “substantial investment” by the AOL Huffington Post Media Group, though he would not specify how much. He said there would be 100 employees exclusively assigned to the production of the network, but emphasized that the rest of The Huffington Post’s employees would contribute to it.

12 hours of video, 5 days a week? With that much output AOL will have create the mother-of-all video content management systems or watch 98% of their content become worthless within hours of it’s taping. Tags, headlines, and links will have to be dispersed throughout their network, referencing the relevant video segment for arriving users in search of a story.

Until the mythical internet-TV singularity occurs and HuffPo’s plan becomes a legitimate end run around cable networks, this effort needs to organize content in a way that’s compatible with existing navigation methods, like Google and Twitter. Starting with 12 hours of daily video to manage seems foolish, especially when an proven streaming video workflow has yet to emerge.¹

Then there’s the matter of transposing TV-style formats to the web. Video is slower at conveying information, less interactive, and not suited to multitasking. Sharing is awkward, links to video frequently have a “wait till 4:35” comment to awkwardly link to the moment they’d like to share. HuffPo’s stated solution doesn’t inspire confidence:

Mr. Sekoff said that user dialogue would be one distinguishing feature of The Huffington Post’s network. “People don’t want to be talked to. They want to be talked with,” he said.

So users, he said, “will be a central part” of the shows. A video demonstration of the network showed a segment called “Defend Your Comment,” which pitted two Web commenters against each other via Skype, and another segment that had a host reading a Facebook comment in the middle of a guest interview.

It really worries me that a live telecast flamewar is the segment they trot out for PR.

Look AOL, I’d like you to succeed. A future where the internet has disrupted TV is an exciting one for me, but I worry you’re trying to port CNN to a website instead of creating a channel designed uniquely for the web. By investing heavily in this effort and committing yourself to 12 hours a day from the start (and aiming for 16 in 2013!) you’re creating a situation where you have to succeed quickly. If this goes on for two disappointing quarters, it’s hard to believe this network will last long enough for you to iterate towards a solution.

If I were you I’d aim for 1 hour, shot sporadically throughout the day, produced by a team of 12 or less. Given them a studio, scraps of a budget, and the ability to borrow :30 minutes of other HuffPo employees’s time per week. Find out what works and what fails before you start wooing ad dollars and committing the company to a marquee venture.

Lets hope you’ve got a killer CMS and those Android TVs actually catch on.