I couldn’t be more excited to be joining The Academy and ABC once again as host of their digital experience for the 84th Academy Awards. This year, we’re adding another component to the online experience- What’s Trending will be producing “Oscar Dailies” livestreams and specials leading up to Hollywood’s biggest night.

It all starts on Tuesday from noon-1pm pt with a nominations special livestream. An all-star lineup of film critics and personalities will join us in studio and over Skype to look at the nominees announced that morning. We will then be airing special panels every week after that with Oscar winning actors, directors and producers to discuss their favorite movie moments and what it was like to take home the statue.

For more go to Oscar.com and follow us @WhatsTrending and @TheAcademy for updates.

In light of awards season, we decided to do a very special Partners Project highlighting the top filmmakers on YouTube to look out for in 2012:

Tags: abc, digital, filmmakers, oscars, shira lazar, the academy

Click the pic below to read more!

Tags: forbes, leslie bradshaw, shira lazar, what's trending

I had the opportunity to speak at the first ever US Do Lectures this past weekend where I spoke about curiosity, creativity and the YouTube DIY movement. It was an incredible and awakening experience to say the least. I have an entire behind the scenes vlog I shot that will be posted shortly. In the meantime, here’s a segment produced by Bloomberg who covered this very special meetings of the minds:

Tags: bloomberg, bloomberg tv, dolecturesusa, shira lazar

I was waiting for a flight to Vancouver for Launch Party at the Grow Conference when I got an email asking me to edit a recent post on WhatsTrending.com. They wanted me to take out “web series” and replace the writeup with the term “original series”. It made sense to me , considering that it’s been a stance we’ve taken with a lot of our online content including, What’s Trending.

We never looked at it as a “web series”. I’ve always described it as a broadcast quality show (some might refer that to a TV show) with the authenticity and interactivity of the web. Why alienate content as just being on the web? The fact is all content this day in age and even more so in the future will be available everywhere (mobile, tablet, laptop, tv screen, etc)- the creative around the content is what will be different. Will it look like a vlog, film, tv quality? We’ve also seen that there’s a pre-conceived notion around calling a series a “web show”. It’s just the reality of the situation.

Wilson Cleveland wrote a Tumblr post about that (link is below), giving his grandmother’s friends a link to his “original series” and another group a link to his “web show”. Which do you think had the most click-thrus? As much as the web have been a democratizing and liberating platform, as content creators we need to get ourselves outside of the web box. It’s not about trying to reach for TV, it’s just about giving digital video content the value it deserves for advertisers, viewers and ultimately ourselves.

Read the responses below from my tweet. What do you think? Let me know in the comments below.

Tags: shira lazar, shiralazar, tubefilter, web tv

I’ve been blogging and vlogging at CBSNews.com since September 2009.

Most of the time it was just me and my flipcam. My blog, On The Scene, gave me the opportunity to bring you on the scene quite literally with news makers and online influencers.

I got to interview everyone from Jamie Oliver, Demi Moore to Twitter founder Biz Stone and viral stars like Antoine Dodson and the infamous “Double Rainbow” man.

In the midst of it all, I began developing more of a show around the blog content I was doing called “What’s Trending”.

The idea was that it would be a live interactive show and blog that allowed me to take on everything from Internet memes to politics and pop culture.

A year and a half later, you can see the result of that HERE. The product doesn’t just include me either. I have an amazing team who keep the blog and show running 24/7.

Of course, there’s always you who inspire our stories, and us to push boundaries, listen and share. So thank you! I couldn’t be more excited about this new adventure- I hope you are too.

Here are some great recent press clips about the show- enjoy!

Gigaom – What’s Trending: A Sneak Peek at CBS News’ Social News Experiment

The Rise of participative TV (hint: that’s better than social TV)

Social Times  – Shira Lazar On Her New Live Interactive Show ‘What’s Trending’

Tubefilter – ‘What’s Trending’, CBS News’ Latest is More Than a Web Show

Lost Remote – CBSNews.com to debut social show ‘What’s Trending’

The Montreal Gazette – Westmount’s Shira Lazar gets new show

LA Weekly - Shira Lazar Discusses Her New Show What’s Trending, Daniel Tosh and Arianna Huffington

Variety – CBS News launches “What’s Trending”

Editorsweblog.org – CBS’s new social media-powered TV show goes on air

Fishbowl LA - From Hollywood, CBSNews.com taps into ‘What’s Trending’

BusinessInsider.com – CBSNews.com launches weekly webshow with Shira Lazar

Tags: cbsnews, shira lazar, what's trending

The 53rd Annual Grammy Awards are coming up this Sunday, February 13th. I couldn’t be more excited to be on board as host of the Grammy Live! webcast for the 2nd year in a row. Last year we went live over 72-hours bringing viewers behind the scenes of all the events leading up to the big show. We also went live on the red carpet and even backstage with all the winners. This year we’ll be doing the same, but obviously it’ll be bigger and even better.

Firstly, we’re going live on YouTube starting this Friday, February 11th at 5pm EST at http://youtube.com/thegrammys. I’ll be joined by the talented comedian Ben Gleib and veteran music journalist John Norris (Yay! I used to watch him on MTV back in the day, so I’m geeking out a bit here!).

You can read the press release HERE.

See you Friday – rock on!

Tags: ben gleib, grammy, grammy live!, john norris, shira lazar

I also recently posted on my CBSNews.com blog, about technologies that are giving a voice to citizens and journalists in Egypt who would have otherwise been cut off from the world.

Tags: bloomberg tv, cbs news, egypt, shira lazar

Tags: cbs news, gazette, PRESS, shira lazar

I made a fun cameo on the popular “Ask A Ninja” web show last week. Here’s my behind the scenes vlog from the shoot and you can see the entire bit below too!

Tags: ask a ninja, shira lazar, youtube

I’ll be honest, a big reason I wanted to be involved with “The Tastemaker” is that I was really drawn to the 2nd challenge, which contestants are taking on right now. Education is very important to me. My mom is a coordinator for children with special needs so I was lucky enough to grow up in an environment where learning was supported, nurtured and well, cool! While we have so many tools today that allow anyone to do anything and really manifest their destiny in so many ways without a formal education, we can’t forget the importance of knowledge and curiosity. That’s something that begins not only at home but at school.

For the 2nd challenge, we have teamed up with the “Get Schooled” campaign.  With assistance from Viacom and The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the “Get Schooled” campaign is working to engage and empower Americans to help improve high school graduation rates, improve college readiness and raise college completion rates. Each team of two has been given the task to create a PSA and urge their fans to create and upload their own as well. They were also given a director’s toolkit including graphics and celeb messages from Fantasia, Ludacris and Shaq to include in their videos. The winning PSA will not only appear on the show but on MTV. I have to say, I’m impressed with what each team produced. Watch the episode below and be inspired to submit your own video too by Tuesday Oct. 5th at midnight!

<br/><a href="http://tastemaker.msn.com/?vid=ca7428c3-ed53-4b6e-87fe-0c19f49559ec&#038;fg=sharenoembed" target="_new"title="The Tastemaker - Episode 6">Video: The Tastemaker &#8211; Episode 6</a>

Tags: bill gates, fantasia, get schooled, ijustine, ludacris, melinda gates, shak, shira lazar, tastemaker