Jon Arnold's Analyst 2.0 Blog: Canadian IP Thought Leaders Series - Claude Galipeau

Thursday, March 1, 2007

Canadian IP Thought Leaders Series - Claude Galipeau - BlogTV Canada

For anyone interested in disruptive broadcasting and social media, I think you'll find this week's podcast worth listening to.

I spoke with Claude Galipeau; he's the SVP of Digital Media for Toronto-based Alliance Atlantis Communications. The company is one of Canada's largest and most progressive media players, and is the driving force behind the introduction of BlogTV to Canada. In January 2007, BlogTV.ca was launched, and Canada was the first market that Israel-based BlogTV has expanded into. I posted about the launch, and am in the process of evaluating the service for them. I'm even planning on producing a regular technology review segment with my son Max for one of their channels. Why not?

Claude and I first talked about BlogTV.ca - what it is, what it is not, and why it came to Canada first - and not the U.S. I also am hung up a bit on the idea of calling it TV when it's web-based. My theory is that people will do anything to get on TV - even it's really just the Internet, and nobody may be watching. That's ok - we're all figuring this out, and blog TV is still just a science experiment, even for the likes of Alliance Atlantis. We touched on the idea of BlogTV being a talent feeder for more traditional media, and I couldn't help but reference the SightSpeed Guy story, which Claude hadn't heard about until now.

All told, we covered a lot of ground, including a few thoughts on the business models around BlogTV - but could have gone on a lot longer. Let's save that for another podcast, and by then, we'll probably do this as part of a video segment right on BlogTV.ca. Stay tuned!

I should also mention that since we're talking about TV and video here, Claude has his own live broadcast on BlogTV.ca, and I was able watch him, fishbowl-style, during our podcast. Pretty strange experience, but kind of fun. I've included a couple of photos here, so you can see what I was seeing while were doing the call.

You can download the podcast here, as well as read more about Claude. Hope you enjoy it, and your comments are welcome!

Photos of Claude on BlogTV.ca, courtesy of my Nokia N93....