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Events
We are comm. - Fall 2008
Students Show Off Work with Help from HTVi
by Daniel Williams
There’s a new addition to the Hofstra University School of Communication, but don’t worry they didn’t use anyone’s tuition money to pay for it. In fact it is an absolutely priceless addition that is going to help the entire school broadcast to the world. This new addition is HTVinteractive.com (Hofstra Television interactive), and you won’t find this type of web based television on any other college or university website. HTVinteractive (HTVi) is an interactive web page that allows Hofstra students to post original content that they have created onto a website that is being run by Jamie Cohen. Jamie is Assistant Facilities Manager for the School of Communication and the web master and lead coordinator of HTVi.
Cohen thought of the idea whilst in a meeting on how students in the School of Communication could further interact. He immediately thought of three previous graduates who had a major success with mini webisodes (TV episodes aired online) entitled, “We Need Girlfriends” which were picked up by CBS. The three creators, Angel Acevedo, Brian Amyot and Steven Tsapelas, now have their own production company, Ragtag Productions. The success of these Hofstra University graduates gave Cohen the idea that if these graduates had created this show while at Hofstra, there must be more students with ideas for shows who need an outlet to broadcast them. Cohen says, “The goal of HTVi is for students to interact in the School of Communication and make and create original content that anyone can see.”
One show that is in the works right now is C-oh!-bra , which is a comedy about an 80’s rock band trying to make it big in 2008. These series are the types of content that Cohen hopes to post on the site but that’s not all that HTVi will broadcast. HTVi is not limited by any means to students in the School of Communication. While it is run by the Cohen and his communication department, anyone that goes to Hofstra University can propose an original idea that they would like to see produced and posted onto HTVi. What’s more is that the content you create is yours to own. The School of Communication has arranged for a dual ownership of the content that is posted on the website so if another Ragtag Productions were to happen, the students who created the content posted on the site maintain the rights to their content upon graduation.
The site is only in its first few months and already Cohen is feeling that this could be a huge step for Hofstra University and it’s School of Communication.