Watch BoingBoingTV

Some of my dearest friends in the world, the happy mutants at BoingBoing, have started broadcasting daily videos – boingboingTV.

This is a rare opportunity not only to watch some truly interesting short-subjecct reports from the edges of technology culture, but also to watch a media form be born and evolve. Currently, BBTV is somewhere between YouTube and the Daily Show. But after only a week or two of existence, it’s still very much in its nascent form.

Knowing how sensitive and responsive BoingBoing’s creators are to the media environment in which their work appears, I am excited to see how they adjust their content and format over the next few months. This could be the birth of something really significant. Think back to what it was like watching those little interstitials on the Tracy Ullman show, and knowing they’d someday be The Simpsons. Or how all those Friendster-clones popped up until Myspace – or is it Facebook – came upon a winning formula.

In this case, however, we’re looking at the people and ethos that makes this space run, to begin with. It’s not another get-rich-quick Internet product, but a posse of dedicated techno-enthusiasts figuring out how – now that the technology is ready for primetime – to push the real, social, pro-cultural and anti-authoritarian agenda of this medium through a new and potentially influential channel. Is it perfect right now? No, of course not. But it’s still plastic, and that’s the very best part.