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AnsaThat finds its answer By Randy A. Salas
http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | (MCT) A little more than a month ago, I wrote about AnsaThat (www.ansathat.com), a quirky new website that I noted was embarking on a yearlong quest to produce a daily Internet TV show about trivial things. So imagine my surprise when site founder and program host James Black e-mailed me recently to say that his experiment had ended successfully and that the show was on hiatus. What?How AnsaThat beganAnsaThat was conceived, as Black says in each installment's intro, as "the place where you ask the questions and we find the answers." Each five-minute webisode shows him traveling the globe to reveal things such as how long it takes to count 1 million coins, how much lipstick the average woman eats in her life and whether the concrete used to build the Hoover Dam has set yet.But the fun ended — temporarily, I hope — last Monday with a 53-minute compilation "made especially for AnsaThat viewers to decide if we should keep on making more."Besides coverage in Web Search, AnsaThat was featured by a variety of media outlets, culminating recently with an article in the Chicago Tribune and the selection of Black as the Web Celeb of the Week by Britain's BBC Radio One. Those were the final things Black needed to dub his experiment a success.Power to the 'ordinary Joe'"The idea was simple," Black explained. "Could an individual create a successful daily Internet TV show with little experience, no filming skills, minimal presentation skills, no editing skills, basic computer skills, etc. — in other words, the average Joe? Could this individual then find success in both the UK and the USA within 50 days?"AnsaThat operated under these parameters:• It couldn't use YouTube.• Its presenter — the affable Black, a former print journalist whose catch phrase "easy-peasy" greeted each viewer challenge — was the "wrong demographic."• Its content was trivial — literally.• It had no promotional budget.• It used basic equipment.Viewers flocked to the show in numbers that Black compared to the audience for a lower-level cable-TV show or a local newspaper."Any 'ordinary Joe' can now become their own TV network for less investment than the purchase of a typical big-screen TV," Black concluded.Site's future is uncertainBlack says he's busy now setting up an Internet TV company, the details of which he plans to announce soon. Meanwhile, AnsaThat has become so popular that he's looking for ways to continue the daily trivia show with new presenters, which he has solicited on the website. In fact, he says, he has been inundated with offers from around the world to host, film and edit the show."I am quite overwhelmed at the response and really have stomach turns when I think about what I created in such a short period of time," he said. Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes what many in in the media and Washington consider "must-reading". Sign up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here.
Randy A. Salas is a columnist for the Minneapolis Star Tribune. Do you have a favorite Web site or a question about how to find something on the Internet? Send a note by clicking here.
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