You don't count justin.tv as crazy?

Yes, I have to agree that the technology behind justin.tv is quite interesting. Right now, it seems like it's only used by a bunch of exhibitionist and egocentric persons in a real TV fashion, but it will probably end up being used for more interesting stuff (like, say, a sailor racing across the world).

On the other hand, they'd be stupid not to go where the money is (that is, were all the MySpace generation kids are).

A sailor racing across the world would be dead boring in real time. It would be interesting to watch a half-hour documentary summarizing a couple months worth of travel.

Then again, I guess that's true for all kinds of reality TV we've seen so far, including justin.tv.

Most people are dead boring in real time; a sailor, an astronaut or any other kind of explorer is just a little bit less boring than a teenage girl buying whatever crap.

Lifecasting will attract a certain initial audience but to me its the least interesting thing about justin.tv They want to be youtube live. The opportunities for small theatres, musicians, sports, awards and presentations etc to create a live event online is huge. The difference between a youtube video that can sort of limp along without context for years to come, and a live event will be very important if they can do it right.

At the moment though, they just aren't set up to make short snippets of content from different broadcasters easily findable.

The distribution of tech is a problem as well. Another random idea; I wonder if they could set up a post based rental of equipment for one off events.

Wireless jennicam? Not crazy.

It's dramatically different not just technically but also in what it does to the subject's life.

It isn't. The tech is interesting, the content is not. As for what it does to the subjects' lives, I don't really care.

Congratulations, you're one data point.

I think it's the scale inherent in attacking these problems that's the main thing stopping YC from funding them. How much of a humanoid robot are you going to get built on 15k and 3 months?

Yes, it may be a factor. I like the idea of large projects undertook by individuals or small teams (because I'm always impressed by human creativity), but they are rare indeed.