Happy Birthday, South Africa & WildEarth.tv!

Back in February I did a two-part case study series on WildEarth.tv, a online wildlife channel that broadcasts live from the Djuma Game Reserve in South Africa. Not only is this concept unique in and of itself, but what fascinated me the most was (and still is) their vast and incredibly cohesive social ecosystem. In my not-so-humble opinion, WildEarth.tv and its community are among the most awesome things on the internet, right up there with LOLcats, Twitter, and instant rimshot. It’s hard to imagine that the WE community and all it encompasses was built in less than two years, but it’s true.

Tomorrow, April 27th, 2009, marks the 2nd anniversary of WildEarth.tv.  It was exactly two years ago that they first broadcast their live, 24 hour “window into Africa.” I am so, so happy for them and so, so happy for their existence. April 27th is also Freedom Day, the day South Africa commemorates their first democratic elections, 15 years ago.

So Happy Birthday to both WildEarth.tv and South Africa! You’ve both come a long way, baby!

To celebrate, WE are having a special fireside chat at 19:00 CAT (which translates to 1:00 p.m. Eastern Time), just go on over to the site and tune in, even chat. Better yet, join their official Ning so you can join the  chat there and see all the amazing photos and videos the community have contributed, and enjoy all the features of a Ning community. (I’m a big fan of Ning.)  I hear there’s a “planned surprise that you won’t want to miss” at the fireside chat, too.

Have you checked out WildEarth.tv yet? What do you think?

Q&A with Graham Wallington of WildEarth.tv

(Below is Part 2 of the WildEarth.tv case study, an interview with founder Graham Wallington. The first part of the WildEarth.tv case study can be found here.)

In a webinar last week with Hubspot and on their Inbound Marketing Blog, David Meerman Scott emphasized, among other points, the importance of giving up control of your message if you want your ideas to spread. It’s no coincidence that Graham stresses the very same — I think these guys are onto something here. (Any bold emphasis below is mine.)

Your web site says that you came up with the concept of WildEarth.tv ten years ago at the Djuma Game Reserve. Tell us a little about your background and what your connection was to the Djuma Reserve at that time.

Yes, in 1998 I decided to try and set up a LIVE webcam at a waterhole in the African wilderness and with the help of Paul Clifford and the permission of my good friends Jurie and Pippa Moolman (the owners of Djuma), we installed a 30 second refreshing JPEG webcam at Djuma. We called the company AfriCam and this was the beginning of a phenomenon that just grew and grew. From the very early days, the viewers of this LIVE wildlife content wanted to communicate with each other, but in those early days the only social tools available were message boards and chat rooms. To this day there are still people following our broadcasts that were there on the very first day back in September 1998.
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Someone in South Africa’s doin’ social media right!!

(This is Part 1 of a 2 part series. The second part, and interview with Graham Wallington, founder of WildEarth.tv can be found here.)

Day in and day out, all over the interwebs, social media freaks like myself are pointing out companies engaging in social media, either making case studies of what not to do or showcasing those companies that seem to be doing it “right” (a subjective term, perhaps). Ford is one of those falling into the latter category, thanks largely in part to one Mr. Scott Monty, who we in the Detroit social media scene are proud to call one of our own. Of course, it’s not just businesses that are embracing social media, as exemplified by Beth Kanter, the most prominent voice in social media for nonprofits. I could go on.

Personally, one of my deepest interests is how social media is applied (or can be applied) on a much broader spectrum. Consider the pope on YouTube. While I’m not going to sit there and watch the pope’s YouTube channel, I still think it’s pretty cool how even the Vatican is utilizing the new tools to spread its message.

Not long ago, I was followed on Twitter by @wildearth, whom I followed back without thinking much more than, “Oooh, big pretty kitty!” upon seeing their Twitter page. I never paid much attention, until one day I saw this in my tweetstream:

I couldn’t resist clicking the link, and indeed, there was a leopard, live on steaming video. I’m a sucker for wildlife, so I sat there, and I watched. Then I started poking around WildEarth.tv, curious as to what it’s all about.

It’s amazing.

WildEarth.tv is an online-only wildlife channel that broadcasts LIVE every single day from the Djuma Game Reserve in South Africa, a vacation destination for those wanting to go on African safaris. While you watch, there is also a live chat on the side of the video so you can talk about the wildlife with other viewers. There is a counter to see how many other viewers are watching at any given time, and every time I watch there are at least 100, sometimes more than 500. All footage is archived, so that you can visit the best moments caught on video, like the one below, which is the very first time these leopard cubs were seen by the crew. (Warning: cute overdose ahead.)

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