[Rappy Veteran]

Together, Kevin Rose and Alex Albrecht are akin to Oprah for a certain class of tech enthusiasts.

The weekly beta-testing and beer-guzzling show they have hosted for six years, “Diggnation,” adapted the television talk show format for the Web and helped prove that there was a business model beneath the anything-goes veneer of online video. Thousands of fans have attended live shows; some even crowd-surfed during a taping at the SXSW conference last spring.

Like Oprah, though, Mr. Rose and Mr. Albrecht have decided to direct their energies elsewhere. They will announce on Wednesday that “Diggnation” will cease production in December, ending one of the Web’s most popular regularly scheduled series.

Their explanation for ending it: They’ve grown up, just like the Web has. “We started this show as kids,” said Mr. Albrecht, now 35. “Both of us came into Web video at a time when ‘Web video’ wasn’t even a word.”

Said Mr. Rose, 34: “There are other things, creatively, that we’ve started to do that are a little more fresh and exciting.”

A Web video network, Revision3, was built in large part on the back of “Diggnation,” and like a traditional television network, it is carefully managing the announcement about the show’s end. “We’ve built the company to the point where, when a show goes through its natural life cycle, that’s fine,” the Revision3 chief executive, Jim Louderback, said in an interview last week.

While “Diggnation” remains one of the company’s top five shows — Revision3 says it counts roughly 250,000 views each week — it represents under 10 percent of video views and under 10 percent of revenue for the company, said David Prager, a producer of the show and a co-founder of the company. He cited three topical shows that have more monthly views than “Diggnation” now: “Epic Meal Time,” “Tekzilla” and “Film Riot.”

“We’ve been able to use ‘Diggnation’ to grow the network,” Mr. Prager said.

“Diggnation” had its online premiere in July 2005. Then, as now, Mr. Rose and Mr. Albrecht sat on a couch with computers and beers and reviewed both. The iPhone, the Windows operating system and out-of-this-world gadgets were three recurring topics. Some of the topics are derived from the trends on Digg, a social news Web site that Mr. Rose co-founded.

Mr. Rose’s and Mr. Albrecht’s conversations — accessible as podcasts and as video streams — attracted an ardent fan base, demonstrating the tendency of people to organize around niche online brands. “It really did feel like being part of a club,” Mr. Albrecht said. And “Diggnation” inspired other Web shows to do the same.

So far, there have been 327 episodes of the show, ranging from 20 to 60 minutes in length. It was an early indication that viewers would be willing to watch long videos on their computers. “If you make it a place that people want to hang out,” Mr. Louderback said, “it can be as long as it needs to be.”

Early advertisers were domain name registrars, but later, bigger brands like Ford and Old Spice came on board. The co-hosts read the advertiser information out loud during the shows.

“Diggnation” was always an entertaining part-time job for Mr. Rose and Mr. Albrecht, who said they had contemplated an end to the show for more than a year as they found it increasingly hard to find time to tape the episodes. Echoing Mr. Albrecht, Mr. Rose said, “It feels like the right time. We don’t want to wake up one morning and think ‘Wow, we spent the last 20 years on the couch.’ ”

Mr. Rose is now spending most of his time on Milk, a development lab in Silicon Valley that he founded last spring after departing Digg.

Mr. Albrecht is creating and directing other Web shows and short films. But much to Revision3’s liking, they will continue to host other shows: Mr. Albrecht will remain a co-host of “The Totally Rad Show,” a daily chat about pop culture, and Mr. Rose will remain the host of “Foundation,” a monthly series about entrepreneurs and start-ups.

In a conversation last week, they laughed off the comparison to Oprah, even for a small subset of online fans. “We’re the Martha Stewart, maybe,” Mr. Rose said.

“I make a mean Bundt cake,” Mr. Albrecht added. “A tech Bundt cake.”

http://www.nytimes.c...p&smid=fb-share

[+Warwagon MVC]

[Rappy Veteran]

hotlink fail :rofl: