FORA.tv + YouTube = 25,000 Subscribers!

Hooray! We just passed the 25,000 subscribers mark on the FORA.tv YouTube channel.

A big thank you from all of us at FORA.tv to all 25,074 of you (and counting).

These numbers put us above other big media outlets. For instance, CBS News has 19,000 subscribers, CNN 17,000 subscribers, and Fox News about 11,000 subscribers.

So, another HUGE congrats to our manager of syndication, Nick Ryan, and to our passionate, engaged community of subscribers on YouTube. The FORA.tv YouTube channel is distinguished not only by the high-quality of its video programs, but most important, by the insightful comments of its viewers.

So, if you haven't yet visited us on YouTube, we invite you to join the conversation:

http://youtube.com/foratv

Live Event: The Churchill Club's 12th Annual Top Ten Trends Debate

What new trends will take shape in the year ahead?

Find out at one of the Churchill Club’s most anticipated programs of the year: The 12th Annual Top Ten Tech Trends Debate.

Watch this FORA.tv Premium Event LIVE at 7:10 pm on May 19th, and ON-DEMAND afterwards.

Join us as we welcome the techno-industries’ leading (and most opinionated) visionaries as they make predictions for the year ahead. Our usual live audience of Silicon Valley’s best and brightest—all with opinions of their own—will be asked to agree or disagree.

Speakers:
Ron Conway, Angel Investor, SV Angel
Esther Dyson, Chairman, EDventure Holdings
Kevin Efrusy, General Partner, Accel Partners
Steve Jurvetson, Managing Director, Draper Fisher Jurvetson
David Weiden, General Partner, Khosla Ventures

Moderator:
Tony Perkins, Founder, AlwaysOn

BONUS: At the end of the evening, one of the panelists will be voted this year's Trend Idol!

ANNOUNCEMENT: The Monitor Breakfast on FORA.tv

News-Tipping Washington Power Breakfasts Go Online
at The Christian Science Monitor and FORA.tv

New weekly video series puts Web viewers in the room with Beltway newsmakers and top journalists.

BOSTON, MA, May 17, 2010—The Christian Science Monitor and FORA.tv today debut online videos of the weekly Monitor Breakfast, a 44-year-old tradition where Washington newsmakers meet unscripted and on-the-record with top journalists. This new partnership brings a pivotal resource to the public in a way that only online video can, and gives a wide audience the chance to get ahead of the news.

Same-day highlights of The Monitor Breakfasts, which invite top journalists on short notice to ensure timeliness, are available free at www.CSMonitor.com/MonitorBreakfast and www.FORA.tv/MonitorBreakfast. Full-length videos of each Breakfast can be viewed for $14.95 monthly or $99.95 annually. These may be accompanied by advertising sponsorships. Advertising sponsorship opportunities consist of pre-roll video within the videocasts on both Web sites and standard ad units on the video page of the Monitor Web site.

“The Christian Science Monitor is now at the forefront of online video in terms of selling subscriptions, pushing distribution across multiple platforms, and promoting this one-of-a-kind a weekly event,” said Blaise Zerega, CEO of FORA.tv. “The Monitor Breakfast is the type of gathering that online video can bring from the confines of a meeting room to a worldwide audience without losing its intimacy or immediacy.”

For 44 years, Monitor Breakfasts have been the source of defining and dramatic news stories. For instance, in 1991, then-Governor Bill Clinton and his wife, Hillary, came to Breakfast to discuss their marital problems for the first time. It became, in effect, a dry-run for their famous 60 Minutes interview – and helped preserve his viability as a presidential candidate. And in 1995, Speaker Newt Gingrich complained about being made to exit through the rear of Air Force One while on a presidential trip. Some say his Breakfast comments helped trigger the subsequent government shutdown.

In all, four presidents, five vice presidents, and thousands of Beltway power players have been guests at Monitor Breakfasts. At the first event in 1966, Illinois Senator Charles Percy tipped off reporters to his Presidential run. Recent guests have included House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, House Minority Leader John Boehner, Democratic strategist James Carville, U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk and U.S. Postmaster General John Potter. Watch a highlight video of recent Breakfasts here.

“We are committed to explaining the news and foreshadowing what’s next,” said John Yemma, Editor of The Christian Science Monitor. “Online video of Monitor Breakfasts opens access to actual news-making conversations for a wider population of influential people in business, government and media.”

The Monitor Breakfasts going online represents the latest in resurgence for The Christian Science Monitor. After publishing an acclaimed daily newspaper for more than 100 years, the organization dropped daily newsprint in favor of online news and a weekly magazine in April 2009. The company has since added a Daily News Briefing, E-mail newsletters, e-reader editions, and more. Its weekly magazine circulation has grown by more than 75% (to 77,000), while monthly website traffic has more than doubled (to 14 million page views).

About The Christian Science Monitor
The Christian Science Monitor (www.csmonitor.com) is an international news organization that delivers thoughtful, global coverage via its website, weekly magazine, and other platforms. During more than a century of reporting, it has developed a global reputation for thoughtful, in-depth coverage of the world – and won seven Pulitzer Prizes along the way.

About FORA.tv
FORA.tv is the leading destination and distributor for smart videos about the people, issues, and ideas changing the world. The company gathers the web's largest collection of unmediated video drawn from live events, lectures, and debates at the world's top universities, think tanks and conferences. Named a Top 50 Web Site by TIME, a Top Education Site by U.K Telegraph, the company has also been covered by Fast Company, The Boston Globe, and many others. FORA.tv was founded in 2005 and is funded by a select group of investors led by William R. Hearst III. FORA.tv is based in San Francisco and can be found at http://fora.tv or on Facebook and Twitter.

Contact:
The Christian Science Monitor
Fred Pfaff, 212-572-8353, fred@fredpfaffinc.com
Steve Ellwanger, 203-856-8303, steve@presscounselonline.com
FORA.tv
Anni Hechtner, 415-599-4618, anni@fora.tv

Live Today: Chess Champions Karpov, Kasparov and Carlsen

Today, a FORA.tv first! A live conversation and match-playing by three world chess champions will take place at 7 pm Eastern.

As reported in the NY Times, former world chess champion Anatoly Karpov is campaigning to be the next President of the World Chess Federation. And to launch his campaign he has engineered one of the biggest events in the world of chess in the past 25 years: Three world chess champions - Karpov, Garry Kasparov and the reigning champion Magnus Carlsen - will gather in one place to talk chess, the politics of chess and most importantly to play chess.

At this extraordinary event hosted by JANERA.com, the teenage prodigy Carlsen will duel Kasparov in a "consultation" match, after which the two champions will face two challengers at a time in a round of speed chess. Kasparov - not just a great chess mind, but frequently called one of the greatest geniuses in world history - will be well-matched with Carlsen who became a chess Grandmaster at the age of 13.

JANERA.com is a new online publication and social network for and by the vibrant community of Global Nomads, people like you! It helps link you across streets and oceans, creating a virtual -- and actual -- community of like minded individuals.

We'd be delighted if you can join JANERA and FORA.tv for this once-in-a-lifetime evening!

Live Conversation Today: The Cost of Conscience -- Dissent in the Workplace

Please join us for an interactive live event today at 5:30 pm EDT: The Cost of Conscience: Dissent in the Workplace, hosted by the Open Society Institute.

Navigating office politics can be perilous under the best of circumstances. But for people whose moral principles put them at odds with their employer and colleagues, the burdens can be especially great. Join three Open Society Fellows as they discuss their experiences working for many years inside large organizations with which they often had profound disagreements of conscience.

Panelists

• Matthew Alexander, author and former senior interrogator, United States Air Force
• Richard Cizik, President, the New Evangelical Partnership and former vice president, the National Association of Evangelicals
• Elizabeth MacKenzie Biedell, author and former Middle East analyst, the Central Intelligence Agency
• Morton H. Halperin, Senior Advisor, the Open Society Institute (Moderator)

Now that they have left their respective institutions—the US Air Force, the National Association of Evangelicals, and the Central Intelligence Agency—the panelists can speak with candor about their lives as outsiders within. What were the emotional and professional stresses they encountered every day on the job? How free did they feel to share their concerns with colleagues? And how did they negotiate the difficult transition to life on the outside?

Tune in and participate in the live, online chat. And be sure to watch other Open Society Institute programs on FORA.tv!

Sage Commons Congress Watch Live 23-24 April!

We're proud to partner with Creative Commons and Sage Commons to webcast the Sage Commons Congress, taking place 23-24 April 2010. For two days, international thought leaders will convene in San Francisco to establish the framework for a unique public resource.

The Sage Commons is a novel information platform being built by an international partnership of researchers and stakeholders to define the molecular basis of disease and guide the development of effective human therapeutics and diagnostics. The public access mission of the Sage Commons requires the development of a new strategic and legal framework to protect the rights of contributors while providing widespread access to integrative genomics resources.

Creative Commons is a nonprofit corporation dedicated to making it easier for people to share and build upon the work of others, consistent with the rules of copyright.

The Sage Commons Congress is a Sage Bionetworks initiative.

Here's the full agenda:

Day 1 Friday, April 23, 2010

8:00 am Continental Breakfast
8:30 am Plenary Vignettes
Andrea Califano, Columbia University
Lee Hood, Institute for Systems Biology
9:00 am Purpose of the Congress
Stephen Friend, Sage Bionetworks
9:45 am Project Group Reports

• A) End-to-End Pilot Combining Data, Building Models, and Querying Them
  Andrew Kasarskis, Sage Bionetworks
  Ilya Kupershmidt, NextBio

• B) Standards and Ontologies for Integration, Analysis, and Exchange of Global Coherent Datasets
  Jessie Tenenbaum, Duke Translational Medicine Institute

• C) Sage Infrastructure Tools Project
  Carol Goble, University of Manchester
  Ted Liefeld, Broad Institute
  Alex Pico, Gladstone Institutes

• Short Break
  
• D) Internationalization of Sage Efforts
  Carolina Rossini, Berkman Center at Harvard University

• E) Citation of Network Models and Associated Data
  Liz Lyon, UKOLN
  Carol Goble, University of Manchester
  Jonathan Rees, Creative Commons

11:45 am Keynote Speaker 1
Jeff Hammerbacher, Cloudera
12:20 pm Break into Lunch Tables (sponsored by NextBio)
12:30 pm LUNCH & Special Guest Speaker
Josh Sommer, Chordoma Foundation
1:15 pm Plenary Vignettes
Trey Ideker, University of California, San Diego
Hiroaki Kitano, Systems Biology Institute
Sam Aparicio, Univ. British Columbia
Rob Epstein, Medco
1:50 pm Simultaneous Working Session for Project Groups:
Reaction & Conversation
3:30 pm Break
3:45 pm Reports Back to Plenary From Project Groups
5:10 pm Plenary Vignettes
Brian Yandell, University of Wisconsin
Jill Mesirov, Broad Institute
5:30 pm Transition to Evening Venue and Refreshments
5:45 pm Keynote Speaker 2
John Wilbanks, Creative Commons
6:20 pm Plenary Vignettes
Eric Schadt, Pacific Biosciences/Sage Bionetworks
Vamsi Mootha, Harvard
Atul Butte, Stanford
7:15 pm Forge Linkages between Workstreams and Objectives
8:15 pm Deposit Suggestions in Mailbox on exit; Post-event socializing

Day 2 Saturday, April 24, 2010

8:15 am Coffee
8:45 am Plenary Vignettes
Daphne Koller, Stanford University
Geoff Ginsburg, Duke University
Ken Buetow, NIH
9:15 am Workstreams Build Synthesis Reports
11:00 am Plenary Vignettes/Speakers
Laura Esserman, UCSF
Garry Nolan, Stanford
Yoshihiden Hayashizaki, Riken
Sharon Terry, Genetic Alliance
11:45 am Break into Lunch Tables (sponsored by NextBio)
12:00 pm Keynote Speaker 3 (LUNCH)
Anne Wojcicki, 23andMe
1:00 pm Presentation of Synthesis Reports
2:15 pm Summary of Statements & Next Steps
John Wilbanks, Eric Schadt & Stephen Friend
2:30 pm ADJOURN

We hope you enjoy the live stream and on-demand views for this important event!

Announcing Britannica on FORA.tv!

We're thrilled to tell you today of a new partnership with Britannica. Watching a program and want to know more? Click on the "Britannica" tab and you'll find a Britannica article for more context. Click on the links with the Britannica article and go even deeper on the subject. We hope you enjoy this new feature!


Britannica and FORA.tv to Exchange Articles, Video

Content-sharing agreement will help both companies boost customer offerings

CHICAGO, April 20, 2010—Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc. and FORA.tv have reached a marketing and licensing agreement in which they will exchange digital assets for mutual benefit, the companies announced today.

Under the agreement, Britannica will incorporate relevant abridged videos from FORA.tv’s collection into its educational Web sites, and FORA.tv will have access to more than 25,000 articles from Britannica Concise Encyclopedia to incorporate in its site as background and additional information for its vast array of videos.

FORA.tv, known as “The Smart Network” among online video providers, is considered unique in its space for the high-quality and intelligence with which it selects topics and covers them. Both companies agreed that Britannica’s widely respected, trustworthy reference information and FORA.tv’s high-quality videos were a good match.

Encyclopaedia Britannica has a considerable volume of video assets of its own, from the many years in which it produced educational films and videos for schools. Britannica president Jorge Cauz said the agreement gives his company an excellent way to supplement that collection.

“As a digital publisher today, we find that our customers have a need for good video and multimedia,” said Cauz. “There’s plenty of video in the world, of course, but most of it lacks the depth and quality to meaningfully enhance the written word, say, in science, culture, or history. FORA.tv’s videos are different. They have depth. They have ideas. Together, their videos and our editorial content will really help our readers learn and enjoy the experience.”

“People come to FORA.tv for provocative, big-idea video content, and to go deeper than the sound bites passed along by most media outlets today,” said Blaise Zerega, CEO of FORA.tv. “By partnering with Britannica, we’ll be adding authoritative information and deeper context to our videos, and we’ll further delight our intelligent, engaged audience.”

About FORA.tv

FORA.tv is the leading destination and distributor for smart videos about the people, issues, and ideas changing the world. The company gathers the web's largest collection of unmediated video drawn from live events, lectures, and debates at the world's top universities, think tanks and conferences. FORA.tv presents these video programs for anyone to watch, interact with, and share --when, where, and how they want. FORA.tv was founded in 2005 and is funded by a select group of investors led by William R. Hearst III. FORA.tv is based in San Francisco and can be found at http://fora.tv or on Facebook and Twitter.

About Encyclopaedia Britannica

Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc. is a leader in education publishing whose products can be found in many media, from the Internet to wireless devices to books. A pioneer in electronic publishing since the early 1980s, the company markets a variety of encyclopedias and other reference works, curriculum products for schools, language-study courses and other learning products, many of which are available online at http://store.britannica.com. Britannica is also active on Twitter and Facebook. The company makes its headquarters in Chicago.

# # #