BigThink,
a new video oriented website launched publicly a couple of weeks ago,
and has been criticised quite widely since.
Some have even
called it snobbish and “a
YouTube for smarty-pants.”
But Montreal-born Victoria Brown, who co-founded the site with
her
partner Peter Hopkins, told me in a recent interview that the site
isn’t intended to be elitist or preachy, and stressed that
anyone is
free to contribute their thoughts on just about any topic, including
Britney Spears.
Taking The High Road
That said, however, it’s clear that BigThink is
trying to take the
high road when it comes to content. Anyone who has grown even a little
weary of the funny cat videos on YouTube or the coked-out Amy Winehouse
videos on gossip sites such as Perez Hilton may find it a refreshing
change.
Brown and Hopkins have seeded the site with video interviews
featuring people like such
as Moby, psychologist Steven
Pinker, activist Aayan
Hirsi Ali and Buddhist scholar (and Uma’s dad) Robert
Thurman.
Documentary Style Videos
The BigThink site is divided into two large content groups:
Meta and
Physical. The videos — of which the site has more than 180
now — are
done in the style popularized by documentary film-maker
Errol Morris,
with the subject looking straight at the camera, as though talking to
the viewer.
Most of the interviews are an hour long (although Ms. Brown
says the site will be doing shorter, more news-focused interviews as
well), but they are segmented by question and by topic, to make it easy
for viewers browsing BigThink to find videos they might want to watch.
After registering with the site, viewers can comment on an
existing
interview, or they can start their own conversation about an issue.
They can also flag content as inappropriate.
Colour Differentiated Sections
The content at BigThink is
divided into a purple section — featuring experts —
a green section
with user-generated content and a blue section for editorial
content.
Users can rank the videos or other content they look at on a
scale from
irrelevant or to very interesting, and they can also vote on whether
they agree with the opinions expressed.
All of the video content can be
embedded onto any other site, in the same way that YouTube videos can.
BigThink is also working on giving each user a profile page
with the
content they have shared, comments they have made, and other users they
want to put on a favourite “playlist.”
New features On The Way
And Ms. Brown says the site
is close to rolling out a new video-capturing feature that
will allow
anyone with a webcam to either upload video (in the case of users) or
respond to questions from the site (for those who have been defined as
experts).
The site is also planning to host debates, and will be
putting all of the transcripts of its videos online as well.
Behind The Site
Ms. Brown got a political science and philosophy degree from
McGill
before moving to the United States to work in the film industry, and
then left to her business degree from Harvard.
Former Harvard
University chancellor Lawrence Summers is an investor in the site, as
is former PayPal founder turned VC
Peter Thiel
(who also has a large stake in Facebook).
Ms. Brown and her partner met
while working as producers on the Charlie Rose show, and decided they
wanted to create a site that could look at serious issues and get
reaction from viewers.
A similar sort of site, which some have
called ”the C-SPAN of the Web,” is Fora.tv (which you can read more
about here).
And there’s a video interview with Ms. Brown at Beet.tv.
Written by Mathew Ingram, a technology journalist. Catch his views on the intersection between media and the web at MathewIngram.com. This post is licensed under the Creative Commons.
