The Economist and FORA.tv

Yesterday, the FORA.tv audience saw what happens when a 166 year-old media giant joins forces with a fast-growing online video start-up. The result: The Economist and FORA.tv publishing videos from The Economist Marketing Forum.

The Economist, in the words of one of its legendary editors, is famously dedicated to throwing "white light on the subjects within its range." In this case, the subject was marketing in the midst of an incredibly challenging economic environment. And given the brainpower present at the event, much white light was thrown. But the chief marketing officers and executives also discussed such news topics as the fate of AIG.

We leave it you, FORA.tv members, to continue the conversation:

Twanks Again

In continuation of our ‘Twanks’ series – where we say thanks to FORA.tv’s wonderful Twitter friends – we present three great Tweets.

Just yesterday, @cjwach (Casey Wach) tweeted:

twitter your top 3 websites that some may not have heard of. Mine: www.ted.com, www.fora.tv,www.thedailybeast.com

Casey has a whopping 17,105 followers (yowza!) and is Washington, DC-based. Casey, we share your good taste.

The next Tweet that caught our attention, by @okamisensei (Henrī Ōkami):

I am in love with FORA. "FORA.tv helps intelligent, engaged audiences get smart." Think TED, but far more broad in scope. http://fora.tv

Henrī lives in Tokyo, Japan and is behind a very cool project, Sunrise NEWS, which is English news for students in Japan. We like!

And last, but certainly not least is a loyal FORA.tv friend, @ kulpreetsingh. In addition to giving @foratv other #FollowFriday shoutouts, he Tweeted this not long ago:

#followfriday Like TED but even smarter @foratv !!!!!

Among other things, Kulpreet is a volunteer, almost vegan, marketing manager, and is into eBusiness, and Social Media. A busy mind – just the kind we like.

Twanks to you all! We love getting to know you, and are thrilled that you are enjoying FORA.tv.

Brain Candy: FORA.tv Now Available on iTunes U

Brainiacs rejoice! FORA.tv is now live on iTunes' academic wing, iTunes U. We're proud to rub elbows with some of the nation's top educational institutions in what looks to be a very exciting new forum for online classroom media.

FORA.tv is breaking into the world of iTunes academe with six exclusive tracks featuring some of our very best archival programs: Economics, Law & The Constitution, Religion in America, The Environment, U.S. Politics, and a special cinema history course called Hollywood Between the Wars.

If you have iTunes installed on your system, you can visit our new course tracks by clicking the links above, or by looking us up in the iTunes U Beyond Campus directory (we're under "F"). And while you're over there, don't forget to check out our popular podcast series, if you haven't yet.



For more information on FORA.tv's mobile media offerings, visit our FORA.tv ToGo page.

FORA.tv Traffic Soars: Tops Charlie Rose

Compelling new programs ranging from videos from the Entertainment Gathering Conference in Monterey, to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, to a fascinating series on Hollywood Between the Wars have vaulted FORA.tv into the major leagues of online video viewer rankings.

According to Compete.com, a media-industry standard in online traffic measurement, FORA.tv bested Charlie Rose in traffic in December and January and came very close in February.

Last week at a BEET.tv roundtable in San Francisco, FORA.tv's CEO Blaise Zerega talked about programming and why the site getting so much attention. Blaise emphasized that while traffic numbers to the website are a leading indicator of success, most of the programs are viewed off site, via YouTube and an embeddable player, and through syndication arrangements with major web destinations such as Wired.com.

FORA.tv Studios Present The Lost City of Z

On Thursday, David Grann, a New Yorker staff writer and author of the new bestseller The Lost City of Z: A Tale of Deadly Obsession in the Amazon , joined Phil Bronstein, San Francisco Chronicle editor-at-large, at the new FORA.tv Studios to engage in a spellbinding discussion about one of the most harrowing, adventure tales of the 20th century. In 1925, British explorer Percy Fawcett's obsession for the mythic El Dorado – which he code named City of Z led him deep into the unexplored heart of the vast Amazon jungle, never to return. A member of the Royal Geological Society, Fawcett's doomed quest marked the end of discovery by amateur scientist-explorers. Fawcett and others were replaced by highly-trained archeologists and anthropologists, going the same way of the lost civilizations they sought.

Optioned as a full-length feature film starring Brad Pitt, Grann tells Bronstein of Fawcett's encounters with deadly reptiles, fish, and insects, to say nothing of cannibalistic tribes, six-foot-long poison-arrow attacks, starvation, mutiny, and ultimately, of his mysterious disappearance.

With this debut program, FORA.tv Studios will begin hosting frequent interviews with the world's great innovators and authors.

Lite On Its Feet, FORA.tv Profile Feature Packs a Punch

Getting To Know You.
We are a curious bunch, we FORAns. While we realize the last thing you might want to do is to create yet another online profile, we do ask only for the basics (but always want to hear more!). Like other social spaces, FORA.tv is even more interesting when you have the chance to connect with like-minded (and sometimes opposing-minded) others.

No Wheel Reinvention, Here.
How to friend-connect? If you like what people are saying in the conversations on FORA.tv, add them as a friend by clicking on their username and adding them from their profile. That's it. You're done.

What You Add Is Up to You.
Hometown, schools, and whatever you’d like to add about yourself. (but we always want to hear more!)

Real-time.
If you’d like to IM, let people know how to find you across the social web on skype, AIM, twitter, Google Talk, YM, ICQ.

What Have I Been Doing on FORA.tv Lately?
Your recent activity will remind you of the comments you made, programs you watched, friends you made and clips you saved. You can choose to show this information about yourself to anyone, your friends, or keep it to yourself through the privacy settings.

Nifty Gifty: Follow the Conversation.
You can bookmark any conversation on FORA.tv which gives you a handy shortcut to get back to it, plus the ability to be notified by email or on your profile only, every time there’s a new comment.

Save Your Faves.
And, finally: next week you’ll be able to save any program to your profile so you can find it again, and build as extensive a video library as you like. For those of you who saved your faves before the re-launch, we hope you’ll be happy to see them re-appear.

Once you register (it takes 3 minutes), find me here!

Twanks: A Weekly Shoutout to FORA.tv Twitter Friends

Each day, we are amazed by the amount of connectivity, sharing, and discovering happening on Twitter. And, after seeing the incredible love for FORA.tv being expressed, we decided it was time to give it right back. So, we've decided to dedicate a weekly post to one or more Tweeple who have made us smile (and who we think you might find interesting).

This week, we've got @BWelford, @RuudHein and @Brittneybean on deck.

Outside of Twitter, @BWelford, aka Barry Welford, writes a blog called Senior Money Memos, which we find is chock full of wisdom and timely financial tips. More tidbits about Barry: he has extensive international business experience with major multinational corporations, particularly in marketing. He has degrees in Mathematics and Statistics from Cambridge and London. He now lives with his wife, Vivianne, and their dog, Sherri, in the beautiful Fraser Valley of British Columbia, Canada. Barry says, "it’s great country for outdoor pursuits and birding, whenever time allows." Sounds great to us.

The Tweet that caught our eye:

RT @RuudHein: if you like TED check out http://fora.tv -- they're on Twitter too @foratv -- most promising

Actually, it was a ReTweet by @RuudHein - our second Twanks recipient.
Ruud Hein is a rock star programmer, web publisher, and developer in his professional world. On the 'who is Ruud, really' side, he is (as self-described):

Hard-core family man. Loyalty. Strength. Dedication to one another. A love of words, writing, reading, listening, singing, praising, rejoicing. Comfort the frightened, help the weak, be patient with everyone.

Couldn't have said it better ourselves.

And last, but certainly not least, is @Brittneybean. Brittney is one of our new friends from London who wins the prize for best Twitter background! Also, we loved when she Tweeted:

I have an unhealthy obsession with fora.tv

We love it when you say things like that. :)