Posted on Thursday, May 01, 2008
www.beet.tv

Animators Lead the Online Video Revolution, Television Pioneer Fred Seibert

Acclaimed for his work as employee #1 at MTV where he was creative director and later as president of MTV Online, president of Hanna Barbara and the force behind the revitalization of Nickelodeon, Fred Seibert has been on the forefront of several chapters in the (r)evolution of television.

These days he's building a diversified network of community-generated online video programming at a company called NextNewNetworks. He holds the title of creative director. In March the company raised $15 million in a second financing round from Goldman Sachs and Velocity Interactive.

There are 16 shows. Barely Political is probably the best know these days, particularly for its "Obama Girl" sensation.

Fred came by the Beet.TV studios earlier this week to talk about Channel Federator, the online network for animators he started some years back. He explains how animators were the among the first to embrace the online medium way back in the 90's.

Although just a few thousand animators upload videos, the clips are getting 3 million monthly views on the company's site and through extensive syndication onto many sites including YouTube, Blip.tv, MySpace, Viddler, etc.

(NextNewNetworks uses TubeMogul, an awesome service, to syndicate its clips to multiple sharing sites -- as does Beet.TV)

Fred is busy planning for the company's second annual animation awards which will take place in New York on June 4. Check out the nominees and their really cool work and cast your vote! The awards event will be presented online on June 10.

-- Andy Plesser

Editor's Note: Check out the closing images at the end of this segment. It was shot from the roof of our studios. Some view!