Review of Beet.TV

Beet.TV serves as the media interest video blog for Plesser Holland Associates, a public relations firm devoted to using unconventional technologies in their campaigns for various institutions. Along with delivering news and commentary about innovative media, the blog’s creative unit also works for Plesser Holland, developing marketed blogs for institutions like MIT and Fordham University. The site can also proudly claim prominence over colleague/competitor vlogs like Andrew Bourland’s ZBIZ.TV and Robert Scoble’s ScobleShow, which both discuss similar trends in media technology. Andy Plesser is the founder and CEO of both the company and its subsidiary blog and his expertise comes from a career of surprises: he was an associate producer for CBS, a jazz impresario, a press officer for the presidential campaign of Walter Mondale, and a senior vice president at Howard J. Rubenstein.

Most of the video content is comprised of either interviews with popular columnists, commentators, industry leaders, and other insiders, or demos of new technology and new broad strokes in media development. Videos have a polished, high quality feel and can last anywhere from 2 minutes to 15. The site is a balanced combination of vlog and blog where new daily video content is paired with detailed written commentary, along with news and media citations about the topics that aren’t covered in the vids. Part of what makes Beet.TV

so appealing is its selection of interview subjects and commentators. Well-spoken and significant to the media tech community, their guests – like Ari Pabaro of Doubleclick, Jeremy Allaire of Brightcove, Andrew Baron of Rocketboom, and Shelly Palmer of the Advanced Media Committee – can’t be beat.

It seems that Beet.TV’s edge is its insider’s look at corporate media development. Since it is a public relations firm with connections, it has landed substantial power players in the industry. This helps give a stronger focus to a website with a fairly broad theme.