TVJersey

Some ideas are just brilliantly simple. We all upload video, right, and we tag it so that people can find it. And then?

Jeff Jarvis told us yesterday that his friends at the Star-Ledger [ a newspaper serving the state of New Jersey] have created the TV station New Jersey doesn’t have, TVJersey, a blog that will feature not only their own videos but also the videos of the people. They’re asking our neighbours to put videos up on YouTube, tagged TVJersey, and those will flow onto the blog and the best will be featured.

They’re also giving the people challenges; the first is about Valentine’s day. And on the side, they suggest other events people might want to shoot.

Not only that, but the Ledger is putting its videos on YouTube so they can be discovered there, swimming with the same fishes as everybody else. Says the site:

New Jersey needs a television station to call its own. Programmed by New Jerseyans, for New Jerseyans. TVJersey has no broadcast towers, no satellites. It doesn’t even have a studio. But it has you. And what you produce, we’ll promote.

So this turns video into a local conversation, an open conversation. It also turns a newspaper into a TV station.

So incredibly simple. No complex videoserver back-end requirement. No need for any investment in costly software, it's based entirely on tools available at no charge! And, "we don't need no stinkin' transmitters!

It means… well, let’s imagine a tag DXBTV, DXB being the airport code for Dubai. Then we encourage do-it-yourself media makers to post their video to YouTube from where we get the code which allows us to embed it in a blog. Or even edit it to a weekly half-hour video podcast featuring the best eight to ten contributions.

Imagine the project as focusing on non-controversial lifestyle topics (prudent in the Sandlands).

Imagine do-it-yourselfers encouraged to deliver the video quality found on sites such as TurnHere.

Imagine also using Adbrite to permanently link a commercial message to the video content. Might this not interest a major advertiser, perhaps the airline whose slogan is “keep discovering”?