I attended the NewTeeVee 1 day conference in San Francisco last week. The conference was put on by Om Malik and his team. It was a very intense day that started at 7:30am and ended a little after 8pm with very few breaks. Although tired, it was great to squeeze this into one day.

First of all, hats off to Om for all the great guest speakers and panelists ... a pretty impressive list of people. These events are perfect for networking and I got in as much as I could in one day. It had a real grass roots feel to it that I hope is maintained through the years

The key things that becomes clear day in and day out working in this space is that online video is not TV. Anyone that tries to make it like TV is doomed to fail. The web continues to be a short form video snacking environment and will continue to be so for a while. What really hit me at the conference is the real emergence of high quality, edgy made for the internet type of content created by what may seem to be amateurs. Well ... these amateurs are really funny and they are getting support from many great new online media companies like www.blip.tv, www.revision3.com, www.crackle.com and many others. These companies are helping produce and distribute this new content while also helping these aspiring actors, writers and directors make money.

I already read way more blogs than newspaper articles and I stopped being interested in TV long ago. I don't really know if we are at a tipping point but we may not be far. I predict that this new "pro-am" movement will get significant momentum and will become a major force to be reckoned with. The writer's strike is going to add fuel to the fire by forcing many of the extremely funny pros that write for shows like The Daily Show to create their own online shows and many will eventually make this a full time gig. I also wouldn't be surprised if we begin to see some serious market consolidation in this space and a new media goliath starting to form challenging the major big guns like NBC.

Here is a picture of some of the stars of tomorrow at the end of the conference that was capped by the Web Video Celebrity Game Show. From left to right Lindsay Campbell (www.wallstrip.com), Veronica Belmont (daily.mahalo.com), Zadi Diaz (epicfu.com), Hayden Black (http://www.goodnightburbank.com//Abigail's x-rated teen diary), Casey McKinnon (http://www.galacticast.com/), Heather Gold (heathergold.com), Rober Scoble (http://www.podtech.net/scobleshow/), Kevin Rose (http://revision3.com/diggnation/), Yuri Baranovski (http://www.breakaleg.tv/), Eddie (not sure what show), Justin Kan (sittting down, justin.tv).

There are many more great online shows and can't list them all out here. For FaveQuest, this is great news because it provides us access to lots of great fresh content. All these guys syndicate their content in multiple places and we hope to be one of them. How exciting!

Tune in to the next blog for more predictions

I'm a guy so it may seems strange to be writing a blog on girl power. For some strange reason, I struck me this week that the new media space I'm in has many women in positions of power and I think that is really cool. As the father of three girls, I'm always happy to see women succeed in life and in business. It gives me hope that they will have all the chances in the world to do whatever they want and prosper.

My own mother was an Electrical Engineer and got head hunted often ... even causing us to move back to Europe for a while when I was 12. Meme si Paris was great at the time they didn't have flavored chips, sliced bread, toaster, peanut butter, cable and we had an 800cc mini austin. Fortunately, we ended up back in Canada.

While I'm sure it continues to be difficult for women in business, new media seems to be a place where women prosper. My wife started her own freelance graphic design business straight out of school and it has been doing very well with blue chip clients right from the start. While at the NewTeeVee conference, I had the chance to observe a few panels and the women pulled no punches ... very strong, knowledgeable and capable. Later in the week, I had to pitch to a major media company in Toronto. All the executives I had to present to were women.

It also struck me how the women I spoke to are more interested in their customers and the experience they have with their products than the techie wiz bang stuff. They don't seem to care how the stuff does what it does ... as long the end result is positive from a customer and business perspective. Pretty refreshing since that is ultimately what matters.

Check out the next blog on thoughts about the NewTeeVee conference.