Annie Tsai

Bio:

I'm a Producer Relations Associate at blip.tv, which means I work with content creators as a liaison between them and the blip tech team, helping producers make their shows profitable and sustainable. I also host the show "blip on blip," which gives a behind the scenes view of what working at blip.tv is like. In the past, I worked as a production intern at Next New Networks, and as a correspondent for Epic Fu and Rocketboom.

• Title: Producer Relations Associate at blip.tv
• Age: 25
• Location: SoHo
• Contact: annieisms, @annieisms

In 2006 you were part of Tellabs campaign called “Inspire the New Life” where in the video you say, “I do have a MySpace page, it's actually a very big part of my life.”  Is that MySpace page still around?  Also, what did you think of the recent MySpace redesign?

That quote will forever haunt my life, ha! Yes, that page is still around, in fact I just went to go look at it: http://myspace.com/ohannie - don't judge, you had one too. Anyway, I still very badly want to meet Bill Nye the Science Guy. Does he live in New York now? Can you guys hook that up?

The redesign is a lot cleaner than I remember MySpace to be, but this is how I feel about the new logo: -____- (Look, it matches!)

You built your first website (Annie’s World of Craziness) in the 6th grade with some self-taught HTML skills. Can you tell us what was on the first website and how long it took you to put it together?

The first website I ever built is very similar to the way my website looks now: lots of pink and overzealous use of punctuation. It took me several days of intensely studying other sites' source code and creative use of the bevel tool in Paint Shop Pro to put together that masterpiece. Thinking about it now brings a nostalgic tear to my eye.

The coolest thing I had was somewhat of an early image macro: I drew a .GIF of a girl named Phoebe, with a speech bubble coming out of her mouth. Each week I would change the text in the speech bubble to a new, funny (ha) saying. She was like, Phunny Phoebe or something and people could adopt her by hot-linking the image on their own websites. This was really a trend back in late 90s websites, I swear.

Based on your bio above, your current duties at blip.tv includes both working with content creators and being a content creator yourself by hosting “blip on blip.” Where would you like to be in 10 years?

Hmm, ten years from now? I barely know what I'm doing tomorrow night. Okay, that's a lie - I'm doing my laundry.

I love what I'm doing now and with blip on blip I can still be creative. Web video is a very exciting space to be in, especially now and over the next several years. In ten years I'd love to still be working with creative and technically-inclined people, pushing pixels around and making the Internet go.

In most bios about yourself on the Internet you mention that you eat a colossal amount of food. Do you prefer to cook or dine out? Also, since the blip.tv office is approximately one block from our office at Simande, we’re curious... what do you think is the best place to eat around the blip.tv HQ?

I do like to experiment with cooking but my current kitchen leaves a lot to be desired, so I mostly dine out. Blip buys lunch for its employees every day. In the NY office, we order delivery from a rotating roster of restaurants, and by far my favorite thing to order is the pan-fried udon noodle lunch special from Soho Sushi. It comes with miso soup and I usually add a salmon roll or agedashi tofu to my order. In fact, I think I'm going to order that for lunch today, yay! After work, I love the fish tacos and grilled corn at Cafe Habana or La Esquina.

 Part of your job at blip.tv is to help content creators make their shows profitable and sustainable.  What is your main piece of advice for someone who wants to get into the business of creating a show for the Internet?  

From my time working in web video, the most important thing I've learned is the most successful producers treat their show as a business, not a hobby. That means making your show a sustainable production, being consistent, and engaging with your audience. The best shows are not necessarily the most shiny, slickly-produced shows either; rather, they have interesting content that brings viewers back every day or every week. You also have to be patient - overnight sensations are very rare in the world of web series. That's called a viral video and does not a sustainable business make. ;)