Guess who's crashing your holiday party?
D7TV has a funny show, and you can take it with you.
"I'm so tired of people talking about Web 2.0," says Sarah Meyers with a forced sigh. That's a lie, judging by her on-camera bouncing--platinum wig and bustier and all--as an unwelcome guest at a fete full of venture capitalists. Clearly she's relishing the access, the attention, and the ability to mock the scene while quaffing free cocktails and climbing into the cockpit of a parked miniplane.
You can watch Meyers's silly, party-crashing adventures at D7TV.com, a start-up that serves original micromovies to a Web browser or mobile phone. You can even hang out with the Dimension 7 crowd at its studio in Second Life. I wound up at D7's real-life SOMA warehouse during its San Francisco launch soiree in the wee hours one Saturday last month. Unlike the high-powered shindigs the D7 team sneaks into and films, there wasn't a billionaire in sight.
The people behind D7TV, which is in beta, aim to create an online network of original content you can swallow in on-the-go capsules. The shows are a tad more polished than most video blogs, yet rough enough to pocket as an audiovisual snack. Playback formats include MOV, Torrent, 3GP, M4V, and WMV (which wasn't working in our tests). Unlike MobiTV, D7 isn't streaming third-party series from major channels to Treos and the like. Unlike YouTube, there are no dorm-room lip-syncers to interfere with your surfing fun. If you're looking for a quick hit of entertainment, D7 also has some non-Webcentric, non-party-crashing stuff to offer. One gem is the series following Yoga Girl, who practices asanas on street corners in the notorious Tenderloin neighborhood. There's a decent raw-food recipe show, too.
D7's site is still a work in progress and could benefit from better navigation. For instance, clicking in the cloud of Tags or Feeds icons won't easily get you to the Party Crashers shows, while selecting Pulse 2.0 from the drop-down menu was a more direct route. D7 may eventually integrate aspects of social networking and viewer participation that would merit Meyers and her colleagues the dreaded Web 2.0 stamp.