• by Shankar Gupta , April 5, 2005

Former Vice President Al Gore and his business partner, prominent attorney Joel Hyatt, Monday detailed their plans for Current TV, a television network acquired by the two last year.

The new network, set to launch on Aug. 1, will cater to the 18-34 demographic group, the company stated Monday. It will also draw on search engine giant Google for a feature called "Google Current," which will be based on data from Google about popular search terms.

The information for Google Current will be culled from the research used to construct Google's "Zeitgeist" feature, which reports the top 10 most searched-for queries. Last week's top 10 list included the PSP portable game console, the actress Sandra Bullock, the famed O.J. Simpson lawyer Johnnie Cochran, who recently died, and the movie "Sin City," which topped box offices last weekend.

Google declined to comment on the deal, and calls for comment to Current TV were not returned by press time. In a move designed to promote consumer participation, Current intends to encourage viewers to submit content for the network. Current's programming will be presented in "pod" format, with short, 15-second to 5-minute segments that cover trends in technology, fashion, and entertainment, along with political and social issues. The channel will include both professionally produced segments and viewer-created content, which Current fans can upload via the channel's Web site. The submissions are then ranked by Web site browsers, and the top-ranked submissions are considered for broadcast. Current also plans to offer online courses to sharpen the skills of their citizen-journalists, aiming to create a trained pool of dedicated "Current Journalists."