DECA

DECA, an acronym for Digital Entertainment Corp. of America, is exploring several ways to produce Web series in unusually marketer-centric ways. It seeks extended sponsorships—generally three months or longer, the prices for which start in the six figures—for specific properties. Rather than attempting to import to the Web the scripted series model birthed by television, DECA capitalizes on existing bloggers’ popularity to build properties that feature established online personalities and are aimed at specific demographic slices. It also enlists its talent to make and star in commercials for its advertisers. If this works, DECA will have found a way to fund online video—having a long-term sponsor or two significantly reduces the pressure to sell lots of ads—and bring chary advertisers into a new media realm.

Here at NewTeeVee, we honestly wouldn’t be surprised to get a memo stating that the entire Internet took a vote and elected Xeni Jardin their queen. So to explain what makes her a star would probably take more words than this space allows. But explaining what makes her a Breakout Video Star of 2008? We can kick it off with very few words: Boing Boing TV.

Virgin Galactic’s White Knight aircraft is pretty exciting. And here’s a video that BoingBoingTV made of the aircraft’s launch event, that has some interesting words on the craft and space travel from Sir Richard Branson, Scaled Composite’s Burt Rutan and genuine spaceman and moonwalker, Buzz Aldrin himself. The best line? One that very few people in the world could say: “I wanted to go into space when I saw the moon landing. I’ve never had that opportunity, so I’ve had to build my own spacecraft!”—that’s Branson.

Xeni Jardin isn’t exactly a household name, but she has a sizable following. As one of the creators of the popular blog Boing Boing, Jardin’s a bona fide Web celebrity.

Now, Microsoft is hoping she can lend some small-wattage star power to its “I’m Initiative,” which promotes Microsoft instant-messaging and e-mail by tying them to social causes. Through a deal brokered by Federated Media, Microsoft is underwriting episodes of a new Jardin-produced Web series, “Boing Boing TV World,” which gives snapshots of international cultures.

Xeni Jardin
Who she is: Co-editor of Boing Boing; host and executive producer of Boing Boing TV

Why she clicks with us: With her signature platinum cropped locks and cool, ice-blue gaze, Xeni is every inch a futuristic beauty. She’s a perfect host for Boing Boing TV, the online daily video program that uber-popular “weird and wonderful things” blog Boing Boing launched last fall. Whether she’s doing a serious interview or making us laugh while she gets shocked by a human electricity conductor, she’s always a charge to watch.

David Byrne turned a New York City building into a musical instrument and gave BBtv a tour. Byrne explains the set-up:

The latest episode of Boing Boing TV features Xeni Jardin visting David Byrne in NYC where he gives her a tour of a the Battery Maritime Building that he has turned into a giant musical instrument, part of his Playing the Building series of sound installations.

Speaking of music, David Byrne turns a building into a colossal instrument.

Playing the building is a sound installation in which the infrastructure, the physical plant of the building, is converted into a giant musical instrument. Devices are attached to the building structure — to the metal beams and pillars, the heating pipes, the water pipes — and are used to make these things produce sound. The activations are of three types: wind, vibration, striking. The devices do not produce sound themselves, but they cause the building elements to vibrate, resonate and oscillate so that the building itself becomes a very large musical instrument.