Open thread for community feedback

Watching michelle lombardos segement right now.. awsome. Your choice segements really spoke to me! CYA AT BURNNING MAN! ( :

Wow, I'm surprised I don't miss this channel after going back to cable.

i LOVE and deeply appreciate the gay pride segments on Current- making a great show so much better for encouraging open-mindedness in a world that's struggling with the concept. I've been lucky in that my family, friends, and fraternity fully embrace and support me just the way I was born, but there are many who live much rougher lives just trying to be themselves. kudos, Current.

Michelle is awsome! I love bubbles!

I really appreciate the Gay Pride special!! Being one of 2 gay men in a town of 3000 (my lover being the other) we don't get alot of gay news!!! I LOVED the story about the Pink Pistols!

I thought it was just me!!! I love me some current/tv but i do not like the website much.I get e-mails from people but i cant reply to them or even find them????? when i try to connect back from g mail it gives me a page with a bunch of people on it but not the one i was looking for????

hi current i must admitt current touches on some topics that rouse strong opinions from me and inspire me to contribute. I woild probly say that current tv is just about the only channel I watch but PLEEEASE! tell me how I can help with some of these humanitarion missions or atleast be a part!

This is very confusing!!! I want to make a comment about the c lone of ann coulter...Mrs. Hasselbeck.

She is really getting to be quite a force in her constant defense of her people. She gives me palpataions.

When criticizing this current administration and the tax issue..let's remind this young whipper snapper that ELIZABETH DOLE had to resign her post many years ago for the same exact reasons...she housed illegal immigrants and she was not paying taxes....
GUESS WHAT ..SHE'S A REPUBLICAN!!!! WOW!!!

The American People are just sick of the Rush Limbaugh's, the Ann Coulter's and the Elizabeth Hasselbecks...It is time to come together to get this country on track!!!! They are far tooooo negative and not in a constructive way.

The Republicans are the worse at paying taxes...they feel they should not pay any taxes so where is she going??? Enough already!!!

Is there some place to send suggestions or ideas for pods or collective journalism assignments?

I completely lack the skill, equipment, time, vision, and whatever else it takes to create one of those things (further evidence, I think, of my shortcomings).

I'd like to see a piece done on the effect of the Electoral College on the minority voters in any particular state (and by minority, I mean political minority, not ethnic minority). As one such voter, who faces yet another year of having his vote discarded as soon as it is cast, I'm interested if others in my situation feel as disenfranchised as I do.

ANY chance we can get:

#1 A listing in our profiles of topic achievements - e.g. made homepage, picked by Editor, etc.?

#2 A quick way to navigate to our previous responses so we can quickly view and respond to any comments?

#3 Although not the first to ask - a way to filter the stories from a user's profile so we don't need to wade through EVERY story they've ever submitted to find one in a Category we like.

i've been trying to find the pod about the japanese hostess bars...specifically in tokyo. there was this song that played at the end that i happened to like. just wanted to know if anyone knew...thanks.

I'd love a Current gadget to add to my iGoogle page... Does one exist? (a model similar to Digg's that still encourages users to click through to view the entire story would work well... Rather than sacrificing your unique user #'s, it would remind users to visit the site more frequently)...

An app to add to my social networking pages would be nice...

Also can't wait for that iphone app.

I have an issue with the connections: I don't want to know what the people who connected to me are doing, what they like, what the recommend etc. I just wanna block getting emails each time someone "thinks I'll like" something.

GRR!!1

That's why we've all been saying the leaderboard and the greenlighting/voting process added legitmacy to the concept VC2 and CJ.

Now users greenlight a video, and it doesn't mean jack-squat. The on-air programming gatekeepers control the content coming into the network now - there's nothing revolutionary about that at all.

Apparently the new Current.com is going to be about controlling the content. Not revolutionizing TV.

Look at the assignments for VC2: "Fashion in your city" and "Shake your moneymaker" - these are suggestions for content they want from VC2 producers. Fashion pods were a point of contention with most producers from V1 of the website. Now they are front and center as MUST HAVE content for the network.

Look at the VCAMs, 7 entries for the Toyota VCAM - make an advertisement section, there used to be HUNDREDS of entries for any given VCAM under the old website. Way to go Current.

Look at the "make TV in 10 mins" section, that is what Current wants - free webcam footage that they pay $0 for to fill the airwaves up and give the illusion of participatory on-air programming.

This company has come off the rails, and they're all sitting in the bar car drinking Appletini's talking about how great Tom Cruise's scientology video is while the train careens off the cliffs.

This place is lost. And sadly, Current's own actions, from not airing the pods that won the leaderboard under the old system each week (how many VC2 people just stopped getting their phone calls returned months after they won?), to turning a revolutionary television concept into an appeal to subjects of the lowest common denominator, will be the reason this company fails when the $100M runs out from their IPO in 3 years. And it's a crying shame, because there was so much potential to the channel.

They had lightning in a bottle and they threw it away.

-zen

twodee, I did notice that if you pull up a producer's videos up on their profile that you have no way to directly vote for those videos directly from the producer's page.

Hmm. I hope that's fixed shortly.

You should be able to vote for a video on the producer's page, or at the very least, if you click on the video it ought to take you to the page where it's posted so it can be voted on there at the very least.

Clicking on the video does nothing ATM.

-zen

Agreed about the producer profiles. Thank you.

I was confused as to why this was not a priority on the new site but it is good to know it was noticed and put on the production list, so thank you. It makes me feel like my contributions matter more.

Now if we could just vote for videos when we try to watch them from that profile page. . . and if we can get the in house productions into a separate leaderboard from the VC2 stuff and bring back an open voting system that allows us to pick and track the VC2 programming . . . that would bring back more of what I loved at Current.

I'd happily rate the in house stuff informally but the VC2 really needs clear and open voting like before.

If they want to make it "bigger and better," add more tools for the citizen programmer types, like the spreadsheet stuff I suggested above. Put back the score decay by having the score of the greenlights wear out over time. Require people to refresh their votes on projects after a couple weeks or a month so the voting stays "fresh" and people can't just do "driveby" greenlighting. Bring back the positive. Get rid of the red light and create a "not yet" button that doesn't change the score but alerts people tracking the video if changes have been made. If you can't stomach that then just add the "Not Yet" as the third option for people who don't want to actually do damage to the score and will actually help it if the person does more work on the piece. Finally, show all the greenlight and not yet voters to encourage interactions. I can't tell you how much "cross pollination" showing the greenlighters did in the community. It was really valuable.

There is a real thrill to being a citizen programmer and tracking the progress of people's videos as you make suggestions and help push it back up the ranks. It's an addictive horse race type of thrill, but it is a productive kind. This thrill of friendly competition has really been undervalued by the website mechanics up to now in my opinion.

When you think about it all this "citizen programmer" stuff was only about 1-5% of the VC2 content that went on TV so it is not really giving up THAT much control but it makes a huge difference in the sense of investment and staying power that the website has over people.

I know. . I've said all this. . but you need to click your heels together and repeat a wish three times before it works. . . so. . .

I am totally with you zen. A great change for the better here! What is so amazing to me is that the whole concept of CurrentTV was about viewers contributing video stories and they only now got around to making that an important part of the profile. It is great to see the respect given to each of these producers when we can now visit their portfolio of work.

WOO HOO!

A producer's videos finally show up next to their profile. I'm pleased with this development.

I just wish it didn't take such loud public criticism on this and other websites to get things implemented, but this gives me hope that someone is listening, albeit months later.

Back to the millstone, babies cost a lot of money I heard.

-zen

@Plisko

"The sharing of links and webcams and blogging and all that is fine to me. I really don't object to all the new content categories but I just think the VC2 producers and the VC2 "screeners" should have a clear corner where we can operate coherently while all the other stuff also happens."

Ok I understand. I certainly agree with that.

i searched google current [after seeing a youtube put down about it] so i joined up to check it out ,going by the posts you been going for 3 mths so clearly this is only some trial.

i like the idea of a google tv ,but am only interested in a new news source ,i like to comment on news , but this seems to be a user puts it up site ,in which case ,it might in time improve ,
im searching for content so i tried to click on the other television sites [virgin comes to mind] but that didnt seem to work

i clicked on profile but it dosnt have instructions to fill that out ,clicked on my icon , to put up my own picture , again no luck ,so im spending a little more time trying to see if this is working for me
i suppose i was looking for an alternative to youtube ,but clearly here is still in progress ,i presume this is the blog here ,there are some things working ,but its all so newly radicle to me im not really getting whats happening

maybe the news letter will give more of an idea

wish you all luck

Wow, being in your 30s makes you a geezer here?

I want my social security check and some Viagra please.

Someone please email me after my nap, I'm so old fashioned, I still use email instead of facebook.

It's like some screwed up Logan's Run channel - when you're 30 your hand turns red, and the programming no longer applies to you.

-zen

all is well in La La land.

Do you smell that?

Maybe it's just someone's barbecue. .

I'm glad the future is in such capable hands. I thought we were in trouble.

Al Gore would be proud.

I couldn't imagine that was a serious post which is why I didn't think it was worth more than my own snark in return.

He called me a geezer. . . I had to at least say something :P

I will admit, though, that I often DO need a chill pill. . . and, unfortunately, I always seem to find them AFTER I just torched something.

don't take smorrisey too seriously. He wishes not to be and generally likes to hang around here poking dead things with a stick. Last I looked his profile said he "likes to argue for arguments sake." Like putting a chain saw on automatic and throwing it into a room and sitting back to watch what it will destroy. That?s always useful.

Smorrisey:

"hope they continue to shake things up, whilst keeping it sexy and shallow....just the way i like it."

LOL. Party on Dude. Never mind that pesky smell of smoke. Wooo Hooooo! Gimme more sex and skateboards!

Stardate:

"@Plisko

The leaderboard issue is indeed perplexing.
Did they actually tell you why they killed it"

I was told that the leaderboard "just didn't work" and the reasons I was given listed things like people not reading the directions so they understood how it worked (uh make a video), not using the red lights correctly and stagnant rankings which, to me were all mostly a result of the changes they made than the idea of the leaderboard itself.

I thought the variation they had when I got here was the best and most community building execution. It was competitive but in a friendly way rather than a backstabbing way. The votes contributed to a video score which then determined the ranking. There was no redlight, but the scores were fighting an impartial "gravity" that brought the score down over time. This meant that not voting for something had the same effect as a red light but without the appearance of aggression which can pit people against each other.

Everybody's greenlight vote was worth different amounts of points toward the video score, depending on how much they participated and how successful their picks were. This meant you couldn't bring in a mob from your myspace page just to vote for you and win through sheer numbers. Their greenlights wouldn't be worth much individually. Producers could also see who greenlighted their videos which encouraged them to go interact with the people who helped them. The neutral dropping of the scores I described happened because each individual greenlight in that score "wore out" over time so you either needed a constant stream of new votes or previous voters willing to come back and refreshed their vote to keep the score up.

That last part, the refreshing, was apparently considered a glitch and not well known but I thought they should have made it an advertised feature. That way you couldn't just greenlight everybody in one pass to get tit for tat because your score would drop on each of them over time. To really be helpful you would need to return and do it more than once and people would probably only do that on stuff they really liked, nobody could get behind everyone like they could when one vote was forever. I also can't tell you how many times I heard people say they would greenlight something again if they could when it had been hanging in competition for a while.

If they combined those original features with the ability they added later to see each person's greenlight value in their profile (for openess in the score calculation) and a new spreadsheet page in our profiles where we can track all the relevant stats for videos we are voting on, I think that would be the ideal system. It is competitive without the appearance of anyone sabotaging anyone. They could also really play up the "citizen programmer" angle for people who can't make videos by giving them a useful toolset to get invested as a screener and tracker of content. That was a really fun process that I think deserves more credit, and better functionality.

They should also have two seperate leaderboards, one for VC2 and one for in house videos with similar features for both. Kind of like how the Vcams got their own system. Mixing them all together means less VC2 producers can shine. Let the different categories of content shine separately. Unless, of course, staff want to compete fair and square to get their pods aired now and then.

The sharing of links and webcams and blogging and all that is fine to me. I really don't object to all the new content categories but I just think the VC2 producers and the VC2 "screeners" should have a clear corner where we can operate coherently while all the other stuff also happens.

"I hope to see the site go black background"

NOOOOOOOOOOOO. Just not that, please!

@Plisko

The leaderboard issue is indeed perplexing.
Did they actually tell you why they killed it?

@Zenbeer

"I appreciate your comments, but I remain skeptical that this website can ever get itself back on track. Even if it never does I'm sure Current will claim it's a resounding success anyway."

You mean that Current.com has fewer users than Curren.tv had?
I don't know. I'd like to see the actual data.

One thing is sure I don't want Current.tv back.
The leaderboard should be back, however.

"A better aura? Are you for real? This website, along with the channel, are victims of their own hipness."

Yes I'm for real thank you. It has a better aura.
I didn't say the content is better than it was but the presentation is much better. The look and feel, if you know what I mean.
Also, it's kinda addictive which Current.tv certainly was not. I rarely visited that site. I come here now almost every day.

""was facebook meets digg/delicious, with video (VC2) as an afterthought". "

That's fine because I hate digg and delicious, too.

"This is a website with no community forums or means to directly communicate with one another other than direct contact/email. "

And that's not enough? It's enough to me.
Although I wrote a lenghty email to Conor he promised to foward it to those who deal with the technical stuff and so far there has been no reaction. I have no idea what the developers are doing. They don't seem to pay much attention.

"A website with no means for producers to even pull up a list of their videos? "

Yeah that's a big negative in my book, too. I don't understand why they don't do something about that.

"A site where the voting process has no transparency?"

Yes, the leaderboard is a must. Not because it was transparent but because it was fun and at least it
established some kind of order.

"A site where the most banal topics are displayed front and center day after day? "

I'm not interested in that kind of BS, either.
I could live without the Current Picks for sure.

Amen, zenbeer.

Rave on, Plisko.

Thank you so much for your articulate (is it alright to use that word today?), passionate, persistant rants.

Thanks to everyone for speaking truth to power.
(...but what good is a blog if no one cares?)

I do hope the man behind the curtain is listening.
Does anyone ever get a response from current itself?
...or are these threads just a means for former vcproducers to hang on for a while longer as all production shifts to in-house journalism?

It would be very interesting to know if they are listening and what they think about your incisive critiques/laments about the new format. It was my understanding that the present site was supposed to be "bigger and better" so it will be interesting to see what they have in mind for the leaderboard.

Keep fighting the good fight.
-pm

I just got a PM assuring me that they are aware of the problems and they are fixing things, including bringing back a "bigger better" leaderboard. I'm not sure what that means but I hope they talk openly to the community to help determine what worked in the old one and what would make it "bigger and better" to them. That's a conversation I would pay to be in on.

I have this stubborn addiction to the vision that Current originally inspired in me so I can only wait and see I guess. The fact that the leaderboard was taken away in the first place, however, tells me a lot and it leaves me without confidence . . . not that my confidence means life or death for Current, but that's where I'm at. They've been fixing things for a long time, things that I never considered broken.

This is the first public forum I have come across where we can talk about this since I backed off from Current a few months ago. I have been carrying the disappointment around like dead weight so the dam kind of burst when I started typing.

Hopefully it is still useful, even though I have ranting tendencies.

I don't think anyone is complaining about the colors or some of the additional features.

To me, Current without a leaderboard is not Current, so I'm not sure what you mean by a better aura Stardate. Without it they misrepresent the essential mission they promised: To let ordinary people help shape the direction of programming. That doesn't happen by letting ordinary people pitch videos or by putting them on TV. It happens when ordinary people can have more say than the programming department on some projects through voting in an open, and verifiable way. Not voting in a hidden dog an pony show type way, but in a way people can monitor themselves by keeping track of scores and vote tallies.

There was a class of producer at Current who would rarely be picked by staff. Whose success and status at Current was given through audience voting alone. To me, that was market tested product, the highest compliment someone here could get and it was the essential genius that I thought Current represented.

Everybody seems to think that putting our stuff on TV is Current's genius but it isn't. There are at least two TV networks that take low budget documentary submissions right now: link TV and Democracy TV. I can also pitch my projects to 20 other networks who will still consider it in a very similar way as Current. Every one of them will talk to me because that's their job. They all want new content. They take hundreds of pitches a week. When people say "tell me one other network that will put your work on TV and pay you for it" they are also saying "your work isn't good enough for anyone but Current to pay for" and that is crap. There are very talented producers here who would be paid much more for their work elsewhere, especially the fluff stuff that every other network wants too. I did a low budget 30 minute reality TV scenario about World War II with a friend that was actually inferior in some ways to the better stuff uploaded here and we were paid $2500 by Scandinavian TV to broadcast it twice with no loss of licensing rights.

Every TV producer starts out as an ordinary person and they all pitch stuff to a TV programming staff who will review it and then put the work on TV (re-edited) if they like it or leave it hanging if they don't. The Current website just creates convenience and efficiency by pushing that process into people's home offices rather than a network waiting room and it uses the web instead of the US mail. This IS great and smart and all that but it is not the democratic part.

This is not what makes Current stand out to me and I wish we could pull the curtain back on this. Current is NOT the only network that will put your work on TV through a pitching process and, in fact, some others have a wider coverage and less restrictive licensing. Some may even begin doing it better than Current soon.

The leaderboard, as it was first set up, was the heart of Current and pretty much everybody liked it BUT Current, who slowly broke it over time and then claimed, at least to me, that it didn't work anymore. If they did that, then what faith should I have that they would build something equal in design for this new site?

I appreciate your comments, but I remain skeptical that this website can ever get itself back on track. Even if it never does I'm sure Current will claim it's a resounding success anyway.

And just to clarify, I said the new website "was facebook meets digg/delicious, with video (VC2) as an afterthought".

"Yeah the site is not user-friendly and the leaderboard should come back and there should not be celebrity b@llshit stories on the front-page but even with those shortcomings Current.com is much better than Current.tv was. It has a better aura, for lack of a better word"

A better aura? Are you for real? This website, along with the channel, are victims of their own hipness.

This is a website with no community forums or means to directly communicate with one another other than direct contact/email. A website with no means for producers to even pull up a list of their videos? A site where the voting process has no transparency? A site where the most banal topics are displayed front and center day after day? A site that caters to teenagers to 20-somethings while ignoring the 25-34 yr. olds?

I don't think the new .com site is better than .tv - not one bit, the site seems to be fresh, but that's the illusion the digg./delicious styled front page achieves. The content constantly changes on the front page, but the front pahe content is what's not interesting to me - the vibant community of video producers who helped one another out in developing their projects was. Watching the leaderboard and getting a rush watching your pod go from #300 to #1 was also an appealing part of the website - all that is gone now, so there's very little to keep old producers from V1 of the website engaged in the conversation - and sadly, I think that was done by design.

71 comments here, nearly all of them not good about the state of the website.

Months and months later what's been done about it?

Nothing.

If it weren't for the shining gold that the CJ (current journalism) department is all about I'd have bailed months ago. The only hope I have for Current is that CJ expands and provides more content.

I shut my mouth 'till now, but nothing's changed here at all since the new website showed up, so I am breaking my silence.

Thanks for the note though. It's good to see a familiar icon from the old website that at least remembers what was abandoned for this new model.

I didn't come here to help democratize the media by sharing stupid links about Tom Cruise all day long.

I did read the link you provided where people posted enthusiastic comments that they like the new website, I'd like to point out, I do not recognize most of the users on that thread from my 2 years here

However, on this thread, I recognize most of the commenters here as producers and participants from V1 of the website. That speaks volumes to me.

Either way, good luck - I'm lurking and waiting to see if the video section ever gets any prominence here again and if a transparent voting process and a means for the community to measure that voting ever returns.

-zen

Zenbeer,

I have no idea how you reached the conclusion that Current.com is like Facebook I for one wouldn't have compared the two in my wildest dreams.
I hate Facebook (and every social networking site, by the way) and I like Current.com so there must be some difference.

Yeah the site is not user-friendly and the leaderboard should come back and there should not be celebrity b@llshit stories on the front-page but even with those shortcomings Current.com is much better than Current.tv was. It has a better aura, for lack of a better word.

Anyway, check out this thread. Here you can find
many more positive comments:

http://current.com/items/85004901_current_com_tutorial

Well. . . what can I say about the issues that twodee, crankdesign, stardate, zenbeer, and many other long time Current community members haven't already said?

I am depressed about Current TV. I am obsessively depressed. I feel betrayed. I feel angry. I want to lash out .

I have drafted 3 letters to Al Gore trying to keep it short and each one is 5-7 pages long. Why write Al Gore? Well. I suspect I have about a 50% better chance of Al Gore hearing and listening to what I have to say than anyone else representing Current TV right now.

I have tested this "democratizing the media." I made a pod that said exactly how I felt about the changes they were making. Nearly the whole voting community, the flesh and blood loyal membership, agreed with me but they blew us all off because their website statistics said everything was A OK.

What good is it to be citizen journalist for Current when the "citizen programmers" have all been thrown out on their asses? Now we are left with an undecipherable mess of a website that mixes our work into a giant blob of posts and links and in house productions? A place where you can't even find your own videos, let alone the videos from other producers. . . Let me ask something. Do you put posts and blogs and all this cluttered "chatter" on TV? Are they VC^2? Do they really belong in the "user contributed" interface of something called CURRENT TV?

The best I can tell Current asked the whole web community what they wanted and then made what they themselves thought was best. Now they are asking us for our feedback again so we can feel "connected" while they plan the next phase of what they themselves think is best. It's a dream that turned into a nightmare.

Why should I care? Why should I even be posting this right now? Why should I even be a member? When has Current TV ever cared about what we think except when we think what they think?

I fell deeply and passionately in love with Current and it filed for divorce about 10 months ago. Current is seeing other people now but I'm having a hard time getting over the relationship.

If this post seems overly emotional then I hope it comes as no surprise.

(continued from previous post)

3 years ago Current wanted to be a Youtube style site, Youtube had just been purchased by Google for a few billion, and it was a hot model to base a new website on.

Now Facebook is the flavor of the week, and Current is desperately trying to ride the coattails of their popularity along with the digg/delicious link sharing model. It's a recipe for disaster to put all your eggs into the Facebook basket - and someone at Current in 2 years is going to figure this out and the heads will roll. Not to worry, whatever flavor of the week that pops up on the net in 2010 will be the next thing Current tries to emulate, copy and adopt as their online model.

Does anyone at Current have any idea what they are doing? I've kept my mouth shut until now, but this site is a total mess compared to the vibrant community that existed in the old model. It sure would be nice if someone at Current could get a clue about the original mission of this station as stated by your programming president, David Neuman in 2005:

"Well, as you know, viewer-contributed content is essential to our mission, which is about democratizing television. We're about telling stories that aren't being told right now. We're about giving the audience a complete voice and a complete role in what we're doing. Our mission statement begins with working with the audience, to create a new category of content. So I don't think you're ever going to see us increasing the amount of professionally produced content we offer. But I think what you are going to see is that the quality level of viewer contributions is going to get better and better." -David Neuman, President of programming, Current TV

If Al Gore and Joel Hyatt knew what this company's management did to this website in the last year, and I mean everything -- from the way you abandoned the community of producers who gave their time, sweat and love to the concept of Current TV -- to adopt a website model that no one here seems to like or understand -- & deleting the community boards because you couldn't control the content or tone of the people who used it -- they'd fire all of you.

There are about 70 messages posted to this thread, and I have read 2-3 positives about the new site, that speaks volumes. (Although I'm sure that can be remedied by emailing a few people on your fanboy list to say we're all wrong?)

Maybe the problem isn't the community of users here, maybe the problem is no one here is listening to them still?

-zen
former community moderator and VC^2 producer Current.tv

As a former community moderator at Current on the first iteration of the website for 2 years let me just say loudly and clearly, "I hate what Current.com has become".

A "people" section where every post and pod is from a staff member is not what I call building a community of users. The new site seemed to me to merely discard the entire old community and their means of interacting with one another, in order to wrestle control of the website back from the users who were so critical of Current for failing to live up to their mission of "democratzing the media".

Now we have this bizarre concept beta site, where Facebook meets Digg/Delicious, with video submissions as an after thought. The old model, with video submissions, and the means to vote on them, are gone, who knows if they'll ever return - I suspect someone is testing a new greenlight/redlight system behind closed doors now, but as for the vibrant community of producers that were here, we're all left out in the cold.

The old community forums, which were a point of contention for staff members were simply deleted and replaced with nothing. The process of engaging users to create video and having the rest of the community then vote to get it on TV was removed, giving a producer here no means to directly comment on another producers pieces, or giving feedback. In fact a producer can't even pull up his list of submissions anymore - WTF?

Now the idea is a bunch of people that are experts on "youth culture" at Current think we all want to share and swap links with each other all day - but the main contributers to those links are the staff themselves, who also control which ones "are popular" on the main page. Who the hell cares about Tom Cruise's scientology video? I sure as hell don't, but apaprently the staff thinks we do care.

Facebook, which is the #2 myspace clone, wait, I mean social-networking site (hey it'll replace email - kinda, sorta, never), seems to be catering to an exclusively 18-24 yr old (college kids) audience, and the rest of us 30-something users, or even non-facebook users, are wondering, why put all your faith in Facebook succeeding - are we trying to revolutionize TV, or just be the latest neer-do-well copycat in new media?? I thought the demographic here was 18-34? How does this new site engage them?

If this is Current.com's idea of building an online community, let me state frankly and for the record, you idiots have no idea what you are doing, and what you discarded in the process of moving to this new website model is nothing short of catastrophy in my eyes. A community that was strong, vibrant and growing was simply thrown to the wind in favor of this facebook/digg-delicious style junk portal. And you know I'm right, simply because of the amount of material the staff needs to contribute to maintain the front page facade of a vibrant online community. You know it. I know it. The users know it. Most of us have left from V1 of the website. Perhaps that was the plan?

(continued in next message)

What Current.com needs is a play-list showing the pods from Currnet Tv

am I crazy?

i don't think one person's first impression and neuro-psyc degree should determine it.

hey mental-dissorder-generator/labelers, try collecting at least a dozen people I/client is known by, and taking an opinion poll. (here's a tool: www.facebook.com)

opinion polls of those who know someone best (i.e. family siblings and parents, and classmates) provide a lot of Logical, Make-Sense data for your "gimme $500 report".

p.s.--no i'm not crazy, youre crazy for saying so

If sanity is in the eye of the beholder, perhaps beauty is also.

I am quite perplexed by the new direction of currentTV. My confusion mirrors all of the frustrations cited above (on this particular "thread" - if you happen to find it in the quagmire of the new site configuration).
Is anyone truly listening to these comments? (most responses are dated "1-2 months ago") ...where did everyone go? Is it a "thread" of communication if we can't read the feedback? Is there any?!
As people raise valid points/issues about the revamped site, very few responses from current personnel (viral/social/whateverthetitleis) - to each comment - aren't printed in the "thread" for everyone to read. (there may be some wonderful insight in those responses...)
I don't have the time of day to continue treading water here. WAIT A MINUTE! - Perhaps that is their intention to deter people from using the site as contributers to upload new VC pods in an attempt to transition to in-house-only productions . . . ?! Ah ha! Why am I wasting my time on this? - The only thing I've heard, regarding my input to this new set-up, was "thanks for your input!" You're welcome.
Good night and good luck.

I love the web site and Current TV but there is an ongoing problem with freeze up on Current TV
This is not on any of the other zillions of channels..only Current
and makes me wonder if there is some kind of intentional disruption or is it a problem with Current technically itself.
I also am not sure if I should report it to Time Warner Cable or not.
I was told that maybe they would deal with it on their own so not o quite a while go.
Thanks very much.

One other thing (that maybe someone else has discussed here, admittedly I didn't read them all) - in responding to a comment on a particular topic, the submission is often thrown in between other comments, not following the most recent comment, and in context doesn't make sense. Shouldn't comments be posted in the order they were submitted? Thanks.

Thanks Mr. C - - You guys are the experts and I'm sure you have a better handle on the different topics posted here, but offhand maybe:

Sports
Environment
Animals
International Politics
Earth's Wonders
Entertainment

Anyone else?

@ Chic // great idea! sure the topics can be a bit broad and carry 'too much' under that category. What did you have in mind?

Ill bring this up in our editorial meeting.

Wondering if we could add a few more specific categories under "topics" for posting. If we're mainly interested in Politics or the Environment for instance, we find all kinds of interesting posts put unrelated to the category.

I agree that it should be easier to find pods produced by a particular person. Every comment, pod, and link all lumped together is maddening.

I have a hard time even finding pods that I've given the greenlight, let alone exploring someone else's profile to find the pods that they liked.

I really really really really wish I could go to a producer's profile and see the pods they produced and not everything under the sun that they ever wrote on this website. EXTREMELY FRUSTRATING!!! The producer part of this website is LOST for me.

I only just discovered this thread and by accident. I still have no idea what heading it is under or how to navigate to it again without bookmarking it!! Which relates to my comments about the new version of the site. ---------

I echo many of the previous comments, especially about allowing us to sort topics and other pages so we can just see videos. ---------

When I add someone as a connection, I mostly want to see what they've produced (VC2). I don't want to have to find these buried among all their comments. ---------

I still like the old front page better as I could see many video thumbnails all in one place and then hone in further to sort by topic if I'd like. I spent much more time on the old site. ----------

I like the old black background which made the thumbnails stand out more. ------------

I agree with other comments that we can find "stuff" from the internet on...well...the internet. The old Current.tv had a higher standard of quality content than I am finding on Current.com. I am not interested in all the poll types of questions, opinions or the "assignments" that do not seem to aim towards cutting edge journalism. Nor am I looking for a replication of MySpace or similar networking venues. ---------

A rationale for the new site that was sent to me by a Current staffer is that this new mode allows more people to participate than just producers. I didn't start out as a producer, and the old site inspired me to think about creating pods. In addition to offering a type of independent or grassroots media by encouraging quality viewer-made documentaries, anyone could participate in the old site by offering constructive feedback, comments and by greenlighting pods. --------

The new site loads more slowly than the old as well. That wouldn't bother me if I could easily find and view as many pods as I used to. --------

So, Current . . . help! Bring us back at least some of these features, even with a new look!

The layout is still horrible on Opera and the comments do not even appear.

Do you have any plan to make it work beyond Firefox and IE? I hate using one browser for Current and another for everything else.

Also, why can't we follow threads, only topics?

The new site is addictive and I need sleep, but Current.com keeps calling to me.

Excellent job designing this site! I don't know if you're still tweaking it or it's just getting better, but I love it.

Thank you staff, sorry if i doubted you.

Current rocks!

@ bsundancer // the greenlighting process remains the same as on the previous site. CDC Users determine its programming schedule by voting for video submissions via ‘I Like it’ button.

Thanks David!

Hey Crank!

Drambuie has to approve all of these VCAMs before they can be viewed by the public. We'll unlock them as they get approved :)

-david.

So I still can't see the drambuie v-cams. Still getting a grey box that says that current needs to look at the clip first. But I see that others are able to leave comments. HELP!

Yes, I am beginning to get that impression. Now where the uploaded Drambuie v-cams should be is the how to make a drambuie v-cam page. Where did those uploaded v-cams go????

On the current tv promo page there are a couple of promos people have uploaded but where are all the others?

anyone get the sense no one is listening?

for shame... for SHAME!

I've noticed that there aren't any videos in the Drambuie section. Will this change soon?

Thanks,

H

Are you partnering the openSocial platform

When I go to a producers profile page it doesn't list the pieces they've submitted. I really have to hunt to find out what else they've done. Any way to make this easier? ,,,,putting all the work submitted on the producers profile page would really help.

i miss watching new pods and greenlighting them..... sniff snifff :(

I understand that the new site is in beta and that the current staff is well aware of the flaws according to an inside source. Site navigation is very disjointed. As an active VCAM producer, I surely miss the leader-board format per the current.tv site. It's also a producer buzz kill to find a recently uploaded production grey screened while staff "is looking at it" for an indefinite amount of time. I too am hoping for a reasonably quick fix before we lose any more valued community members.

Amandazee, Danlevine there is an absolutely ambarrassing absence of dialogue with the community on this most important of issues. The energy and time of these community members is apparantly being wasted as not one of you has the time or concern to respond to these valid and useful questions and concerns. It is shameful. Is the 'democracy' here just a marketing tool?

I can't seem to see any of the new drambuie v-cams. When will they be up?

As a producer of pods that I would like to get seen on TV, why don't you tell us staight up, how do we get green lights and get are pods seen. No games.

Could one of yu guys address the issues of upload problems with video egg. As a previous producer on the old site I'd like to put some new stuff up but can't get your new site to take my uploads.

On the old site we had a community of producers, you've thrown us to the wolves for the general public. Is another YOU Tube what you really want? That's least common denominator quallity. I thought Current was going to be more.......
disapointed "bsundancer"

Jgeoff,
I really hope they take your suggestion as far as sorting.

I'm more interested in checking out someones work rather than what they responded to.
Pages now are so cluttered. If you visit someone's page to see their uploaded pods, you have to filter through tons of other stuff, and if the person is real active--it's a lot of pages.
Now this response will be something else to clutter up my page.
I even think this may discourage people from responding, because their own work gets lost in the mix.

Are promos gone?

The one on the right looks like Mini Me, Vern Troyer, just ompare their eyes, and even doing the Doctor Evil finger on the lip

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dr._Evil

I am response 34 amazingly

I agree with jgeoff on filtering and bookmarking.

I was making similar points on another thread along with some observations about the strange nature of search results. Please look at those issues:

http://current.com/items/85004901_current_com_tutorial

Absolutely love current.tv - entertaining, informative. Very happy to be a part of current.com! Great idea - all the best!

There's a lot of constructive feedback here, DanLevine. But I'm down with this new interface and whereas I had no idea what I was looking at before, this site is much easier to nagivate. You keep rockin' and I'll download Flash :)

...and... it'd be nice if I could bookmark this thread within the site for easy access later. It's a miracle I found it to begin with... let alone trying to find it again later -- "Bugs and Monkeys"?? WTF does that even mean? Anyone here ever learn about "Usability"?

There is absolutely no visual hierarchy on this new site... no "bread crumbs'... nothing to put anything into perspective except the "tags" apparently... and it seems even those are "off limits" in some whose creators haved mistagged their threads, yet, don't allow any other users to add helpful *appropriate* tags....

"Your item has been created but couldn't be added to following private interest(s): Feedback
If you want to add this to any alternative interests, click here"

What's that even mean? I simply tried to add the tag "Feedback" to this page. :/ And "click here" doesn't go anywhere....

How's this an "Open thread" then? :/

Video playback is okay now - thanks :)

While I'm here, here are some suggestions I emailed to Current - before I discovered this area of the site...

<

I love the new site, but think it'd be nice, when viewing people's profiles, if we could sort "activity" by "Submitted/Responded to/Greenlighted" etc rather than (or at least in addition to) by Date...

Perhaps also on the Current Picks/New/Currently Popular area we could choose to "Show only Videos" etc -- all these Links are diluting the original purpose of Current's site, but it's okay... just would like the choice to only see videos sometimes...

It'd also be nice if we could see "stats" on our uploads (views and ratings) from our account page.

PS - if you want feedback so much, you really need to PROMINENTLY put a "feedback@current.com" link on the top of each page...

>

Anyone else not able to play any videos at all here any more?

@ danlevine:

- I click on my account. It says I have X number of messages. I click on messages. And there is no mail in my inbox.

- I click on person's profile. Then click "Add as a connection", but the click doesn't work/register. No connections are showing up on my profile page.

oragetropical and jaygeeoh hit it. the old site was sooooo much better.

and how about sound? half the pods in "viewpoints" have recorded sound so low you can hardly hear them.

and too many links to outside sources. i don't come to current just to follow story links to third party sites.

The old site had more of a "community of producers" feel to it. You felt like you were participating. I couldn't wait to submit a pod. Now I feel like I'm just searching...

Even the look of the site, the color, the warmth, full pages devoted to producers--now even the pictures of the producers are miniature, hmmm...is that reflective of something?
sometimes I would check out other pods of producers who left comments on other pods, or greenlighted.

The "like" "nope" voting options seem too simplistic.
To be moved by a pod to the point that you wanted to "greenlight" or to have an opinion that the pod was just "not ready for tv" were better voting options for producers.
the leaderboard added extra excitement, as well as following a pod on it's upward trail.

And what's up with that "currently on tv page" I don't know what that's about!

I'm a visual person...show me images, colors, clips, pics--not a lot of white space & text

and pods are now harder to find!
the only thing easier now is uploading, but why upload if no one is looking.

I think the thing that upsets me the most about current.com is that the leaderboard is gone. I feel that my pod is lost for everyone (including myself...it's so difficult to access my own pofile...) I won't make another pod before the leaderboard comes back because it is useless to do so now. It was very motivating to be able to go up in the ranking and see the progression of other pods. I used to spend a lot of time on current.tv. Since the new website came out, I spend 10 min max and leave fed up. I don't know why current.com was imposed to us instead of asking us the way we wanted the updates since Current is made by us.
I hope to see some change soon.

Well, I spend more time here now than I used to during the current.tv era.

It's kinda addictive but it does not serve VC2 producers well because amid all these topics and random browsing visitors do not watch their videos
and the make TV section has no leaderboard.

All of us are just going to have to accept the inevitable growing pains..Current TV is getting bigger than its britches can hold and its gonna take some adjusting.

Lets just hope it gets done soon enough, before the core audience is gone. I know that, while I still post things to the site, I have stopped watching videos altogether. Its too complicated to find 'em, unless I run into one here or there. I do it more out of work and less out of play.

TWODEE: Hey, its like the Hyper-Internet...more real than real, we have created a space that, well, reflects itself! Rockin, indeed...

N

What a mess this place is. I'm sorry to say Current holds absolutely no interest for me anymore. The re-design is aesthetically pretty forgettable, but the willy nilly addition/subtraction of various features paired with the hunt-and-peck quality of trying to find anything has rendered it utterly worthless. The old site wasn't fantastic, but the information and content was at least arranged logically, and could be navigated without headache.
Sorry guys, but I'm pretty much out, and I won't be back.

danlevine ,

But why do you publish a site which is only half-baked?

This was the problem with the original site too.
"Being planned" will not attrack people.

That producers could see their pods at one place is a no-brainer. How could you leave that out?

And what happened to the leaderboard?

@jpoterbin ~ right now topics are ordered with "most recently added to" at the top. yah, guess that's not very clear. fyi, we have a major update planned for later this year to improve my topics browsing and managing -- what you see now is very much a phase one implementation as we focused more on user connections for the launch.

@vavavicky ~ sorry you're having issues. we'll look into it.

@covelogibbs & everyone with constructive feedback ~ thank you for sharing your thoughts and ideas!

you guys might want to consider alphabetizing the "my topics".

Here's my post from another thread: I'm trying to stay positive here, but I also haven't quite got the hang of this. It seems more like "whack a mole" than Greenlighting. The Redlight issue is now officially over, because now some of the content is so crappy that I can't hit that "NOPE" button fast enough. Just now I thought I'd give it one more chance before posting to this thread and I discovered content so violent that I may have nightmares. My two young nephews are now officially not allowed to surf Current.com unattended. It's too bad also, because they first discovered current.tv while I was working on the "Seeds of Tolerance" contest and they learned a lot, asking to watch the finalists over and over again, empathizing with me in my agonizing decision on who to vote for. I decided to vote for "Ghost Tribes," I can't remember who the boys wanted me to vote for, but they both became hooked on "Supernews" and discovering POD's worthy of my Greenlight. More recently, while I was working on my Submission to the 60 Seconds to Save the Earth contest, "NO NUKES", my younger nephew came to me with a poem that he wrote, which he thought would be perfect to do a current promo out of. His poem was original and I agreed to work with him on it when I get the time (plus, how many eight year olds come up with something like that?) While I'm confident that the violence I just saw will never make it onto Current TV, It did make it onto the website and I will have to notify my brother in law not to let his boys surf current.com. I miss the old site. I was even considering starting a current.tv POD workshop a my local school. Now I don't know.........

here is my 2 cents from another thread://////The biggest problem I see with this new website is that the VC2 producer section has taken a back seat to the constantly added online links and comments. This website does everything the internet already does. Is that good? It feels like The internet within The internet. Now we actually do have...the internets.