Possibilities for DS106TV

After just a few weeks of the TV experiment going live there has been a whole lot of experimentation and it's generally becoming a fun playground to explore what's possible with a medium like this. The karaoke night action was fun (and possibly painful for the audience). The joint movie watching via Skype ala Mystery Science Theater might be my favorite format so far. Jim Groom has done a lot of interesting things with DS106 Nightly News (although he might need to change the name to Monthly News if he doesn't man up and get back in front of the camera). Dr. Garcia roaming around Cali and scottlo pushing the medium with Camtwist. And there are just countless examples of random people going live from phone or computer with (mostly) interesting things to say, do, and show. Clearly my mind is just spinning with some of the possibilities of what this format opens up. The "community" aspect of it appeals the most to me, which is why I think I enjoyed the movie night so much and can't wait to do that again. But what else? When you've got a public broadcast station distributed across the globe with no rules and endless possibilities, what do you do? I've got a few ideas I'm throwing against the wall to see what sticks. I can't take credit for thinking of all this, hell Grant Potter thought up the Mystery Science Theater movie night.

Dinner Party

A few people jump in Skype with group video chat, the first 15-20 minutes are spent cooking up a meal. Either they're all making the same thing or each doing their own thing and talking about it. But the fun comes afterwards. Everyone sits down and enjoys camaraderie, conversation, and good food. Dr. Garcia already tells me she's working on a cooking show, which I think is awesome. I'd love to push that further with something like this. ### Around The World

Part of the power of ds106 as an online community is that we have people representing several different countries across the globe. Combine that with the occasional travel of regular folks and you've got the Travel Channel reloaded. This is on my mind because I'm actually leaving Tuesday to go spend 5 days in Downtown Chicago for work. I'm totally planning on taking you all with me! DS106TV can provide this community of people a way to experience historic landmarks and locations around the world instantly, online, for free. ### Open Courses

Quite a few of the online ds106 participants are involved in education and many are actively a part of an institution whether it be as an educator or someone who works with educators. Having live video of ds106 classes would be cool, but it would be even cooler if I can pull up the TV schedule and see that someone is broadcasting a class about Hypermedia from Japan, or a course on Physics from Spain. The sky is the limit here, but I truly believe an entire subset of DS106TV could be an Open Courseware type ability for educators to easily broadcast while they teach, providing the opportunity for a community to gather online and learn together. ### Concert Series

I see the possibilities of people broadcasting songs from live concerts they're attending. I also know there are many musicians doing great stuff through ds106 and I look forward to seeing them broadcast their own concerts on DS106TV. Music is a powerful way of connecting with people (Have you even been paying attention to ds106radio?!). Pushing TV to this medium can bring people together to experience live music as a community in new ways. This is just the start and there are a ton more ideas in my head. What cool shit are you doing that you want to share with the world? What are you waiting for?