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MOVERS & SHAKERS By Richard Siklos January 26, 2000


Pseudo's Josh Harris: The Warhol of Webcasting?
His company is one of those trying to build the equivalent of TV networks online. But Harris is pushing his content further than most

In the dwindling hours of the last millennium, on a stretch of lower Broadway just a few blocks from New York's City Hall, Silicon Alley oddball Josh Harris threw what he hoped would be the party to end all parties. Called Quiet, it was anything but. Harris had sunk a small fortune into the bash: He commissioned artists to design a bizarre temporary commune inside two big downtown warehouses and outfitted it with food, drink, and disk jockeys. Hundreds of guests gathered in this "synthetic community" with about 100 volunteer "citizens," who were sleeping, eating, bathing, and doing whatever else they felt like doing together over the New Year's weekend -- all very publicly. In fact, nearly every move was recorded by more than 100 video and film cameras. Harris' plan: to create a feature film that would be shown in theaters, a daily TV show on cable, and live Webcasts of day-to-day life in the commune.

This is the future of entertainment, according to Harris -- or at least one potential future. He foresees a time when every person who wants to can be the star of their own "show" -- recorded with cheap video cameras and aired on Web sites. "Andy Warhol was wrong," explains Harris. "People don't want 15 minutes of fame in their lifetime. They want it every night. The audience wants to be the show."

 

Although it is gaining attention, so far Harris' business is on the fringe -- like his aesthetics
 

That's certainly true of Harris, the 38-year-old founder of high-tech market-research firm Jupiter Communications Inc. and now chairman of Webcaster Pseudo Programs Inc. His current company is one of several that are trying to build the equivalent of TV networks online. But Harris is pushing content further than the others. He wants to be to Manhattan Web culture what pop artist Andy Warhol was to New York City in the late-'70s glitter era. Although it is gaining attention, so far his business is on the fringe -- like his aesthetics. "Josh is doing interesting things, and Pseudo is operating in an interesting space," says the Web chief at one media giant who knows Harris. "But it's not quite on the radar screen yet."

That's because Pseudo is, for now, a collection of 50 niche TV shows -- on everything from hip-hop music to performance art to space exploration -- produced cheaply and aired by still-rudimentary streaming video technology to folks who click to pseudo.com. The idea is that Pseudo can identify viewers for specialized programming: They aren't necessarily part of a mass audience, but they're still attractive for carefully targeted advertisements.

This business plan may sound iffy, but Harris has certainly tasted success in the past. A former new-media analyst, he started Jupiter in 1986 and served as its president and CEO until 1994, then as chairman until 1997. Even though it made the Ventura (Calif.) native a rich young man, working at Jupiter was "like homework" to Harris, and he wanted to participate in shaping the online world, not just forecasting it. He started Pseudo in 1994, initially to manage the chat function of the Prodigy online service.

PRO WRESTLING CHANNEL. As Internet access bandwidth improved, he saw the potential of streaming audio and video -- and that's what Pseudo is about today. Web surfers can tune into a gaming channel, allgames.com; a channel about urban music, 88hiphop.com; a show in which former NFL football quarterbacks sit around and talk; and one about professional wrestling called &Justice For Brawl. Pseudo now produces 60 hours of original programming a week and expects to double that output by the end of the year. So far, the site attracts about 300,000 unique visitors per month, and much of its fare is of roughly the same production quality as a public-access cable show. The company raised $18 million last summer from backers including Intel, Tribune Co., and Sycamore Funds.

Just when Pseudo is beginning to gain momentum, though, Harris is moving on to his next big thing. After a long hunt for a CEO, the company just hired David Bohrman, a former senior executive at cable-TV channel CNNfn, for the slot. While waiting to complete Bohrman's hire, it was Pseudo President Tony Asnes, rather than Harris, who was beefing up the sales force and preparing for another round of financing this year en route to an attempt at an IPO next year. "Josh is still involved in some of the financing and strategy issues," says Asnes. "Lately, though, he's been really focused on his project."

WOULD-BE VAMPIRES. That project is Quiet. Harris first proposed the idea for Pseudo, but the board thought it too risky and controversial. So Harris opted to fund it personally. Fortunately, Jupiter's own IPO had given Harris a nest egg worth somewhere around $20 million. Still, he holds out hope of eventually selling the documentary to Pseudo -- though he's also talking to MTV and the Sci-Fi Channel about getting involved. He envisions a daily half-hour cable TV "newscast" about the goings on in Quiet -- once he gets it going on a more permanent basis -- that will draw a cult following to its Web site.

The New Year's bash was nothing like you'd see on "Must-See TV." Among the crowd were a group of street chess players holding a tournament and a group of would-be "vampires" -- freaky types outfitted with fangs and white contact lenses. Most of the official commune members were free-spirited types who heard of Quiet by word of mouth. "A friend of mine told me about this party that this millionaire was throwing every night till the millennium," says Mathew Kopp, a 28-year-old performance artist and playwright who came in from Chicago. "He said there was going to be free food and a place to stay."

On the night of the party, Kopp, like Quiet's other residents, including Harris, was dressed in standard-issue bright orange pants and a beige shirt. Just about every move was recorded by roving camera operators or stationary video setups. Each of the 80 Japanese capsule hotel sleeping berths was equipped with its own camera, for instance. Toilets were set against walls with no doors or partitions, and a big, octagonal shower stall with three heads and glass walls was plopped right in the middle of the floor, with a DJ next to it spinning tunes. This, and the machine-gun firing range, were just some of the creature comforts that Harris dreamed up with a cadre of hip artists.

 

Ashkan Sahini, an artist in real life, would pull people out of their sleep capsules and grill them over their wine preferences
 

But scenes of people partying can grow old fast, so Harris arranged for a little tension. Participants were subjected to an extensive "interrogation" in a stark white tiled room, and their personal information was fed into a computer. That set the stage for random interrogations by a team of artists known as the Bureau. Head interrogator Ashkan Sahini, an artist in real life, would do things like pull people out of their sleep capsules and grill them about their preference for white wine over red. "I am the asshole of this event," Sahini said with considerable pleasure. "This is a society, and we will flip the rules around." Sahini was accompanied by someone who introduced himself as Zero Boy, his platinum-haired "bodyguard," who was dressed in a tight-fitting Soviet colonel's uniform and carried a megaphone. What was that all about? "I'm a mercenary," Zero Boy explained through his megaphone. "I have my own trip."

Several days into the new year, Harris sits in a West Broadway coffee shop sipping a cappuccino. He and Pseudo have just been slapped with a sexual harassment suit by a former female employee, but Harris was sanguine. "It's two years old," he says. "We're not worried." Besides, he was busy contemplating Quiet's aftermath. His Amex bill has come in for the event: $762,000 was the final tally. As it happened, Quiet was closed down by the police on New Year's morning, citing fire safety violations. Harris is not displeased -- he says he put go-go dancers and a "XXX" sign in the front window of the Quiet warehouse in hopes that New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani might drive by.

Now he has a nice clean ending for his film. Before long, Harris expects to have Quiet up and running again, and ultimately he dreams of taking it on the road to Tokyo or Berlin, where localized versions of the "show" can be created. He knows it all sounds a bit much. "Three years ago, people thought I was a complete idiot -- they couldn't figure out what Webcasting was," he says. "I know I have a hit here. Now, I'm just going to leverage it."

Is this the future of television? Maybe, maybe not. But say this about Harris: He throws a heck of a party. And if Pseudo does goes public, he'll look back on this adventure in Web artistry as his true Quiet Period.

Siklos is Media editor for Business Week in New York.


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Josh Harris
Josh Harris: Chairman of Pseudo Programs


WEB POINTERS
Click here to visit some of the sites mentioned in the story:
Pseudo
Jupiter
allgames.com
88hiphop.com



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