Where Are The Joneses?; Inspired Or Dire?

Interesting article by Stephen Armstrong of the Times on the new 'wiki-created' internet sitcom 'Where Are The Joneses?':

Whose punch line is it anyway? Steve Coogan’s online sitcom allows viewers to write the script. Our writer joins in the fun - or tries to.

'Where Are The Joneses?' has at its core an interesting idea:  using 'wiki' technology as a gathering/filtering/collaboration tool for creating new comedy.  Their wiki page describes it thusly:

"Welcome to the Where are the Joneses? wiki site. Where are the Joneses? is a daily comedy, shot entirely for the web and it’s very funny. (To see the films go here.) But the best thing about Where are the Joneses? Is that it’s written by the Where are the Joneses? community. It’s written by you!

Join Wikidot and the Joneses community and get involved in these ways:

Ideas - Propose broad outlines for episodes, or even scenes within episodes. Can you think up a scene that makes you laugh? It might get used by our crew.

Scripts – Write for us. Whole scenes or just conversations. Jot it down. Change other people’s stuff and make it better! Get our crew to make it!

Cast - Suggest a new cast member, or comment on ones suggested by others. Do you fancy yourself as a Jones? Why not upload your audition tape to YouTube and create a profile for yourself in the cast section. If we like your tape, you never know, you might be joining Dawn and Ian on the road…."

Yes, it's an interesting idea, (especially for me as am actively involved in cutting-edge comedy  with 'Project X' - revealed this Monday!)

But my first reaction to the notion of 'collaborative comedy' is that it's a non-starter; comedy, as in any art form, needs a strong, guiding vision - and using 'crowd sourcing' to write/generate ideas for shows sounds like it would foster bland, disjointed mush.  But that's just me - a guy that's put out over 100 hours of podcasts/vidcasts all about me, copiously illustrated with, yes, you guessed it, photos of me.  So I'm thinking my obvious narcissism/need for attention is colouring my perspective re: the requirements for centralised voice in comedy.

Let me know what you think - below are some episodes of WATJ - any good?

Where Are The Joneses WikiPage

Where Are the Joneses on YouTube

(Thanks to Caroline Edwards of Sparkle for pointing me to the article)

21st Century Living; A.K.A. Al Gore Visits You Holograpically

Every once in a while I read something or see something on the televisor device that reminds me I made it to the world of the future.

Al Gore's introduction to his 'Live Earth' concert is one of those things.  When you hear a politician stiffly address you with the words "Hello, I am speaking to you in Holographic Form" you know we've crossed some kind of crazy techno Rubicon.  Except for jet-packs and moon bases the future's finally arrived. 

I'm just waiting for the robots to turn on their masters.

(Watch the video below to see for yourself).

YouTube To Be Available on Apple TV

YouTube Demoed on Apple TV

Steve Jobs demos YouTube on Apple TV at D

It's all over.

Google Street View Unveiled

Google's just launched its new Street View service - I immediately went to see what happened to the place most important to me in my youth:

Google Street View, Visiting the Old UC Theatre in Berkeley

The New Belfast

Have just created a 'flickr group': The New Belfast.

http://www.flickr.com/groups/thenewbelfast/

From the 'group description':

"The world has a stereotypical view of Belfast stemming from news reports that focused on the Troublings.

This group is for photos that reflect the both the New Belfast: a city changing fast with the influx of capital and those from other lands, and images of the area that have not historically been seen as a face of the town."

If you've got some interesting photos of Belfast have fun adding them!

Your humble servant,

Jett.

More Joost Invites to Give Away

Yep, 5 more Joost Invites to give away - let me know if you want one!

New Digital Projection System at the Queens Film Theatre

More Joost Invites to Give Away

Per this post:

Joost Invites to Give Away

I've now have 4 more invites to hand out.  Let me know if you want one!

The National Geographic Magazine - January 1949 - Part 2

I love this advertisement - ahh, the Televisual device was going to be a wonderful learning tool.  Hmmm...

Previously:

The Seeds of Godlike Power Are In Us Still

Joost Invites to Give Away

Thanks to the friendly folks at The Story I have a couple of Joost invites to give away.  What's Joost you ask?  Well, why not consult the ubiquitous Wikipedia to find out:

Joost, (warning Wikipedia entry)

I've been playing with it since last night - not a lot of content on there yet but fun to toy with and of course worthwhile if you're the type that's interested in the future of IP delivered media.

Anyhew, as I said above there's a couple of invite to the Beta program to give away.  They'll go to the most deserving comments in this post.