We had entries from literally all over the world and it’s been great fun going through everyone’s channels. There was a real variety of content and it was tough to pick just three winners.

Here goes…

The Winners

VentureCupTV

VentureCupTV is a channel about Entrepreneurship from Denmark. The stories focus on entrepreneurs in Denmark and wider afield in Europe. We especially liked the broadcast quality production values, slick editing, and the use of professional style idents and a channel introduction. The stories themselves are fascinating to watch.

FilmomentumTV

The story behind FilmomentumTV is as remarkable as the channel itself. It’s founder (Paris David Escandón Saavedra) originally from Mexico City, survived a 3 week coma, chronic kidney disease, and was declared brain dead by Physicians. When he woke up three weeks later, he found he had lost the majority of his eyesight. This didn’t stop him pursuing his love of video, animation and editing – and FilmomentumTV is the impressive result.

Filmomentum is in fact a collective. It’s members met through a video editing blog that Paris set up after marrying and moving to Canada. To facilitate his contribution to the collective Paris receives massive support from his wife, who he refers to as “my right hand and my eyes”. With other members from Canada (Chantal Deguire), Argentina (Jorger Tazzoli), Spain (Santiago Escribano) and Peru (Victor Osorio), the group has bonded through a common love of the visual arts, editing tools and filmmaking. The various shorts you will see on the channel cover video art, social commentary, documentaries and fiction.

“Filmomentum TV is a case in point of how the Internet can be the means to bring people together who have never met and live in different parts of the world. It can be used to build their common dreams into tangible projects, to share and actualize their ideas and passions. The tool which has really made this next step possible for us has been WorldTV.” says Paris.

Filmomentum stood out for us as an inspiring example of high quality, original video production, and a fantastic example of what can be achieved with the WorldTV platform.

BlackpoolTV

BlackpoolTV is an Internet TV channel about the iconic seaside town of Blackpool in Northern England. BlackpoolTV was set up by local resident Dan Braid to cover local events and happenings in an accessible and interesting way. On a recent shoot, they even managed to snag an interview with former Snooker World Champion Stephen Hendry. You can see the interview on the channel.

We really enjoyed the concept, the channel’s professional approach to production and the stories themselves. A brilliant example of how WorldTV can be used to create local TV. Great stuff.

Runners Up

Judging a competition is difficult because inevitably the majority of participants will be left disappointed. Here’s two channels that came very close indeed… We wish them every success and hope lots of people will visit them to see what they have to offer.

Jenraction TV

We especially liked Jenraction TV from Martinique. Similar in some ways to BlackpoolTV, the channel covers local events, music and happenings on the beautiful Caribbean island of Martinique. It has professional style idents and introductions and the channel does a great job of including many local people – some of whom are great characters.

MaxProsperTV

MaxProsperTV is a fascinating music video channel from Nigeria featuring all Nigerian artists. Many of the videos are original videos from the artists themselves, and if you love music, you will definitely want to check out MaxProsperTV.

Thank You… and a bonus!

Our huge thanks to everyone who participated and as a thank you to everyone who took the trouble to participate, we have given every channel that entered a free ‘Clips Upgrade‘ worth $10. If you already have this feature then we’ve enabled ‘Custom Meta Tags’ in your Editor – a new and forthcoming feature. Thank you all very much and we wish everyone continued success with their channels!

In any event… we’re thrilled, and our next major milestone will be the official release of WorldTV v1.0 which is planned for the end of April. Thanks to all of you for your continued support!

Have you ever wanted to have your own channel on TV? Ever wanted to become your own media mogul?

Well now’s your chance…

WorldTV offers the world’s leading platform for individuals and groups to create their own TV channel on the web. Now WorldTV is offering 3 lucky winners the opportunity to get their channel onto TV – for real.

Using WorldTV’s insanely easy-to-use video platform, anyone can create a TV channel out of a collection of video clips. WorldTV turns those clips into a full screen linear TV channel. This includes a channel logo, EPG, and a full suite of tools for managing the channel content.

If you’ve ever had the idea for a TV station, and think you have the talents to run one, now’s your chance to prove it! All that is needed is some creativity, an idea, and some great and unique content.

The Prize

We are offering three 1st prizes. Each prize includes the following:

• Your channel will be professionally converted into a Boxee app – the hottest connected TV platform on the planet. With a Boxee app, your channel will be viewable on the stunning new Boxee Box (and millions of installed Boxee desktop clients worldwide). You’ll have full ownership of the app and channel, and will be able to develop it, promote it and change the content as you wish.
• Your very own Boxee Box… to see your channel on TV!
• A VIP WorldTV.com package consisting of all available PRO features for 3 years
• Your channel, if selected, will be used in a VIP presentation to leading executives from the TV industry as an example of ‘people-powered TV’. These executives directly control the channels which appear on the EPG in over 150 million homes, and have stated a strong desire to find alternatives sources of modern and progressive content for their channels.
• Prominent profiling on WorldTV as a featured channel and in WorldTV’s various directories

To enter the competition please follow the rules below. Entry deadline is Dec 31st 2010 at midnight GMT.

Entry Rules

1. Create a WorldTV channel (or adapt an existing one) that meets the following criteria:-
   • At least 10 clips in the playlist
   • At least 80% of the clips are in HD. That means 720p resolution or higher.
   • You own the copyright in the videos yourself or have (or can realistically get) permission to use them. You can also use videos that are in the public domain (generally very old videos) or videos that fall under ‘fair use’ from a copyright perspective. Please research public domain and fair use before relying on these provisions. This video is a great primer on copyright. For the avoidance of doubt, you cannot use YouTube clips or other clips you find on the web unless you own the copyright in them yourself or can obtain permission to use them.
   • Is suitable for presenting in a business-like setting.
   • Can be in any language but it is recommended that at least 50% of the clips have English sub-titles.
2. You should be capable of communicating in English. The competition will be run in English.
3. All entries must be made on this form. Any other submissions (eg by email) will be rejected.
4. No correspondence will be entered into. The Editor’s decision is final.
5. You must provide a working email address.
6. You must be aged 16 or over, or have someone 16 or over helping you.
7. Multiple entries by an individual are allowed. Multiple entries of the same channel are not allowed.
8. This competition is run by WorldTV and is not affiliated with Boxee or any other Company.
9. We reserve the right to extend or re-open the competition if there are insufficient entries.
10. Winners will be announced on this blog within 4 weeks of the final close of the competition.
11. WorldTV will not obtain any copyright in the entries you make but will have the right to publicize the winner and winning entry and demonstrate the channel to TV executives as indicated under ‘Prizes’.
12. Clips can be hosted on any site that WorldTV supports (eg YouTube, Vimeo), but you must own, have permission to use, or can realistically obtain permission to use each and every clip. Winners will be required to provide the source video files for each clip following the competition.

Tips

• There are no specific themes we are looking for but the channel should demonstrate a ‘professional TV channel concept’. The name, logo and selection of clips should all reflect your concept.
• Think about what you can uniquely offer that someone else can’t. It might be a hobby, profession or interest, or it might be locale based such as a TV channel for a specific town or area. Ideally it would be something that doesn’t already exist on TV, or where you have a completely new spin on an existing idea.
• The more professional your channel looks, the better. Be sure to have a great logo, and if you can make up channel idents, and present or introduce your clips, through voiceovers, on-screen graphics or video introductions, this would reflect well alongside the content you have in your channel.
• Teachers are welcomed and encouraged to enter their students into the competition.
• If your content includes clips from what look like major TV or film productions, and are clearly beyond ‘fair use’, be sure to tell us your connection to this content in your entry. We may reject entries out of hand if we think it unlikely an entrant has, or can realistically obtain, rights to use such content.
• Come and talk to us on Facebook if you have any questions. We will be actively answering questions there throughout the competition.
• Good luck!

Enter the Competition here

The Facebook page was particularly useful recently when we experienced a serious outtage this week that affected significant operations of the Editor, including the ability to add new videos. Due to a simultaneous problem that affected our incoming email, we were unaware of this problem, as people were unable to email our support. Were it not for our Facebook page – where several users had reported the problem, the outtage may have lasted longer than it did. In future we encourage using Facebook to notify us of any bugs and talk to us in general.

We greatly regret the issues that happened this week and sincerely apologize to any users it affected. Improved support is a key area for progress as we gear up for coming out of Beta later this year, and the Facebook page is a significant step forward.

First off, a couple of news items to share with you…

Editor Synchronisation

Some of you may have heard of Google WAVE, a new technology that lets people collaborate on the same document at the same time. In a similar way we have re-written the underlying technology used by our Editor to communicate with the WorldTV servers. Now when you make updates to the Editor it will automatically push those updates to any other Editors accessing the same channel. To put it another way, you can have two people accessing the same Editor, from different places in the world, at the same time. Updates by one will reflect on the other’s screen within seconds. It’s kind of geeky, but cool. Try it out!

SXSW

South by Southwest is a massive conference and festival that takes place each year in Austin, Texas for the music, film and digital industries. We’re excited to announce that WorldTV has been selected as one of 39 companies to attend the event as part of a UK Govt trade mission. The event runs from March 12-16.

Our Plans for 2010

For the past couple of weeks we’ve been asking you to tell us what features you would like to see on WorldTV, and to vote on other people’s ideas. We’ve decided to extend this until the end of January, so you still have time to cast your votes.

The features that are currently getting the most votes, and/or which are now on our shortlist are…

• Live broadcasting
• Homepage for channels
• Scheduling system / WorldTV time / Multiple playlists (build schedules of programs like real TV)
• Search for channels (on the World page)
• New and improved player designs
• Improved channel recommendation system (on the EPG)
• Weekly e-mails / awards system
• Channel genres / categorization (music, culture, sport etc)

Our shortlist is actually quite long (over 100 ideas for features) but these are the main ones. If you’ve not done so already head over to our feedback forum to place your votes!

From time to time we like to bring you coverage of projects or events that share similar philosophies as our own, or which otherwise you might not be aware of. All this week we have been using our ad-hoc live channel on WorldTV to bring live streaming coverage of Burning Man – the legendary event in the Nevada desert that celebrates radical self-expression and creativity.

If you don’t know what Burning Man is, it’s hard to describe. Think of a cross between a ‘makers’, art and music festival where commercialism is banned, Star Wars and Mad Max, and you will get close.

The live video coverage comes from a 360 degree camera mounted high above the event with audio coming from the on-site 24 hour radio station BMIR. Watching the sun rise California time over the desert, and all the attendees ferrying around on bicycles is a true sight to behold.

Watch live video coverage of Burning Man

We’ve thought a lot about this idea and decided to build a prototype device that would make this really simple. Trademark WorldTV user-friendliness applied to a consumer electronics device, if you will.

Luckily our Founder knows a thing or two about this kind of thing and is heading up a project to build our first prototype. You can follow along and build your own set top box with the guide that he’s developing.

Read more about it on the WorldTV Projects Page

The smoke has finally cleared from this year’s awesome edition of The Global Marijuana March and The Toronto Freedom Festival. The festival featured many great performances by the assembled showcase of musical talent along with many thought provoking speeches given by the attending speakers. To see the footage captured by our team of videographers you can still go to the The Toronto Freedom Festival Channel here on WorldTV or if you prefer you can catch an encore audio presentation from our friends at DOPEfm on 93.3 CFMU McMaster Campus Radio.
Coverage of the festival will be rebroadcasted on DOPEfm on Saturday May 30th 2009 beginning at 1:30am Eastern Standard Time (Approximated) & repeating 4:30am EST (Approximated). The 90 minute production includes the following speakers from the day: Eric ‘Buzzzworthy’ Wood, Jonathan Dickinson, Dana Larsen, Marc Emery, Patrick Whyte, Sara Chekroun, Christopher Lawson, Alison Myrden & Vijay Sarma; plus the ‘themed’ music playlist of some DOPEfm favourites including: Kay & Cleary with The Chosen Few Band – What It Takes To Live, Madvillain – America’s Most Blunted, Nish Raawks – Canada’s Most Blunted, Singapore Kane – Do What I Wanna Do, Fly Guys – Fly Guys Rap.

To catch the encore audio presentation go to CFMU McMaster online or catch the live MP3 stream here. DOPEfm is also available by podcast from iTunes and directly here or here

Many thanks to all those involved and the over 30,000 people who attended the Toronto event for making the day such a smokin’ success!

If you have the ability to send video by e-mail or transmit video via Qik, you can participate. We would like to add your video to the live broadcast.

If you would like to watch the event on Saturday, follow us on Twitter or visit worldtv.com/live on Saturday afternoon.

This is part of a continuing series of experimental live broadcasts and marks the debut of WorldTV’s new Projects page. We’ve always said we will offer ‘imaginative projects that people can get involved in’. Imagination should be in abundance this Saturday…

Learn how you can contribute video and Tweets to this Saturday’s live broadcast

The event is an online stream of an exclusive Champagne and Oyster Tasting featuring some of London’s top food and drink personalities, all from the top floor of London’s famous Park Lane Hilton hotel. We are truly excited to be a part of it.

We will be capturing the event on three separate cameras to give the audience a unique insight into the proceedings and goings on. The restaurant itself is a truly legendary space with arguably the best view of London high above Hyde Park and with panoramic views from all sides.

A stellar selection of influential food, drink and lifestyle critics and bloggers are all attending and will be using social media applications like Twitter, Qik, live chat and so on to integrate their own audiences and followers. Guests will be presented with several exotic varieties of Oysters and Champagne from some of the finest houses including Galvin itself. Hosting the event for WorldTV is the BBC’s Food and Drink Expert Nigel Barden who will explain all the goings on to the audience following live around the world. Food and wine lovers will get a real treat and something of an education, and it can all be seen gratis at worldtv.com/live.

We are very excited to be producing such an original and innovative show as WorldTV’s first official live broadcast and we look forward to producing many, many more in future.

Don’t forget to tune in this Friday at 4pm UK time or 8am West Coast USA. Twitter users can follow @worldtv for a reminder and our founder @smashing who is producing the event. To follow all event activity use the search tag #galvinw.