Friction.TV
Rating: 
What do they say it is?
“Friction.tv believes that disagreement - or friction - is a vital element for a healthy debate, to reach new insights and to find out what’s really going on in society. We need disagreement before we can start to find some answers… Friction.tv is unbiased, open and uncensored (except for explicit content)… empowers you to climb on the soapbox and voice your mind about any topic at any time. You can ignore mass media and bring out the issues that really matter… Friction.tv will provide an interesting and stimulating alternative to the sanitised, agenda driven mediocrity of the conventional mass media.”
What do I say it is?
A formulaic video publishing site that relies too much on the soapbox for its claims to be an alternative media platform. For example, it has sections for Politics, Education, Environment, Local Issues, Sport, Society, Entertainment, and sponsored channels. A quick comparison, some of the sections of Guardian.co.uk are News, Sport, Politics, Environment, Culture, etc… Some of Friction.tv’s main content providers are The Conservatives, Greenpeace, LBC Radio. The content is somewhere between Youtube and Current.tv, without ever quite feeling either spontaneous, timely, or usefully provocative.
What’s great about it?
The speed of the viewing interface, the breadth of voices, the open access for any editorial, and the narrow brief—issues that can be debated.
I’m pleased to be able to access , for example, the views of Ian Taylor MP, Chair of the Conservative Science & Technology Committee, “arguing why there should be a rationale debate over this country’s energy requirements” as much as to hear the views of the Washington DC students talking over the noise of the kitchen party about old white men in power.
And forgive me, but I do love the retro curved TV box to watch the video through. I also think the learnt navigation / interaction is great (once learnt), in that you need to roll over the video for the dynamic control box (pause, play, volume, FFWD etc) to pop up. It’s probably a good idea, too, to hide the controls and time counter in this way, particularly when you’ve clicked on a video from David Cameron asking “I think our relationship with America is vital. What do you think?” and the first minute is all about the situation in the Balkans. Who edited that one?
What could be better?
Which brings me onto… content. Of course Friction.tv is subject to the quality of the video and argument uploaded, and some of it… most of it… just isn’t worthy of debate. Some areas of the mass media are banal, celebrity, agenda-driven, dumbed-down versions of journalism. But that doesn’t mean I want an online video debate site to reproduce that same dilute and scattergun approach to content, particularly when that site is claiming to provide an alternative. A lot of the content is either advertising a belief or position, or simply soap-box raving, which does not engender debate. Friction, maybe, but there is a difference.
Take this ‘debate’ as an example. I chose this example for two key reasons. First, it was one of the advertised ‘hot topics’ on the homepage. Second, its headline ties in with what Friction.tv says about itself, providing alternatives to the ‘agenda-driven mediocrity of the conventional mass media’.
Under the title “Islamophobes: don’t believe the media” it is in fact a very softly spoken advertisement for the Edinburgh Central Mosque and activities they are running at the Edinburgh festival (I assume last August, 2007: the debate has been running for seven months, but is on the homepage as it is one of the ‘hot debates’ as it has gained the most comments, 799 when reviewing).
But a) it is not a debate, b) nothing in the video makes reference to why the mass media cannot be trusted, and puts forward no arguments, c) the comments are not a direct debating response, d) there is no response I can see from the makers of the video, and e) can a debate run for seven months? Not to mention f) what are the answers, what next, what happens now?
This seems a fairly typical example. The ratio of video responses for this story (1 out of 799) is also about standard. The people at OneWorld.tv tried this video dialogue back in 2001/2 but it failed. Maybe it was too early. Maybe Friction.tv is itself also a bit premature for video-to-video debate.
A couple of points on accessibility/usability:
- Every video does not have a transcript, which to meet good accessibility standards they should have. Of course this will be difficult, but it does mean Friction.tv is only for those who do not have a hearing disability
- The debates / comments publish last at the top; there is no right answer to this, but if you are trying to read the flow of a debate (rather than just a list of comments) then you need to constantly scroll up, down a little bit, back up, etc. The BBC publish comments from top to bottom. As do sites that encourage debate on their articles, such as OpenDemocracy.net. Another video site, current.tv, also do comments chronologically from top to bottom, so you can follow the debate (as an example view this debate)
- Are the Agree/Neutral/Disagree flags with the original video, or to the comment before, etc? What if the original video is not posing a particular question, or it is crowbarred to fit the format for the site?
- The ‘local issues’ tab also means happening locally, not necessarily local to you. Which needs sorting, as there is no way to sort what is local (i.e. within 50 miles or so) to me. So it immediately frustrates.
How is it going to make money?
The numbers game. The more views and comments, the more traffic, hence the benefit from remaining editorially removed from managing the hot topic choices, for example.
Also, Friction.tv has a number of channels (e.g. sponsored video feeds) from the likes of The Conservatives, Greenpeace, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, all organisations that want to create debate and will bring in traffic. These channels are actually one of the better things on the site, as they try (although do not always succeed) to frame the content within a for/against debate.
Should I pay it any attention?
Out of the corner of the eye, yes. Friction.tv is one of the easy to use video/TV sites vying for a position of notoriety and fame (and the advertising revenue) along with current.tv, youtube.com, green.tv etc, and could potentially to be the one to win the race. But with only two subscribers to its Youtube channel, it needs to rely less on the ideal of free speech to make its name and more on delivering some of those ‘answers’ that it talks about in its promotional blurb.
1 comment April 9th, 2008