I first heard about this guy Justin Kan over at Jeff Yang's "Asian Pop" column: Man With a Cam. The 23-year-old Bay Area entrepreneur recently launched Justin.TV, an around-the-clock, real-time, all-access broadcast of his life. Like The Truman Show. Or EdTV. Basically, Justin wears a camera 24 hours a day, 7 days a week ("Even in the bathroom. Even on a date."), and you get to watch it all. Whether or not you want to watch it all is another question entirely, but so far it's proven to be a very interesting experiment. Interesting in theory—the prospect of mobile personal video streaming for everyone—though not necessarily in execution, because Justin's day-to-day life is actually pretty damn boring. For instance, as I write this, Justin's broadcast has been live for 15 days, 23 hours and 28 minutes. It's 11:29 PM PST and Justin is sleeping. And he'll probably be like this for the next 7-8 hours. Not exactly riveting, but what do you expect? This ain't 24. But people are watching: IT'S JUSTIN, LIVE! ALL DAY, ALL NIGHT! Justin is a bonafide sensation. The website's traffic has apparently exploded and given way to a huge following of fans. The guy is getting noticed on the street, asked out on dates, and treated to dinner by complete strangers. Corporate sponsors are starting to line up to get in on the product placement. Heck, Justin could meet you on the street and make you famous. It seems that a star has been born—yet another Asian American personality gains notoriety through the internet. The major drawback is, of course, if he acts like an ass, everyone sees it. Let's hope he doesn't become known to everyone as "that Asian guy who acts like an ass" ...and broadcasts it all over the internet.
