Alice from the Wonderland Games Blog was at the National Association of Television Programming Executives conference yesterday, taking notes on the sessions. Of especial interest is her notes from "Engaging for Insight: Putting the Power of Fan Cultures to Work for You" — which included the CMO of Virgin Comics, a VP from Turner Networks, and a couple of consultants. It's fascinating to see TV execs trying to come to grips with Internet fandom:
I ran comedycentral.com when we launched Southpark. We used the web early on to let fans find each other, but I was doing it in a Viacom universe who was walking around with a sledgehammer for anyone who put a bit of fan content up on a site.. but now we do just the opposite. Comic books have their own places for people to interact: Virgin comics has been publishing since just July of last year, and already we've tracked 1100 websites talking about our comics in 12 different countries. That's wild? How many TV shows can claim something like that? There aren't many. Network programming needs to reach out and respect those people online talking about your stories. they talk about our stories, adn we don't have to pay them! the fan is happy talking because they like the product, and we're fans of the fans.
