'Survivorman' Les Stroud launches online competition

As you may know, I'm a longtime fan of Les Stroud, former star of Survivorman. While some may have dismissed it as just another reality series, Survivorman was pretty hard core. In it, Les showed how he could survive alone in the wild for a week with few supplies. To raise the bar even higher, he filmed everything himself.

This week Stroud launched a new online-only show called SOS Island: Survival of the Smartest. This time he hosts while 16 contestants use their survival skills to stay on a remote island. The contestants will be active on social media during the competition, allowing viewers to interact with them in real time.

While the overall concept sounds Survivor-esque, there are several elements I like about this:

1. It's a global competition.Contestants come from all parts of the world, not just the U.S. In the first episode, you'll meet folks from Turkey, the U.K., South Africa, Russia, Israel, Italy, Thailand, Jordan ... the list goes on.

2. Everything happens live. Most televised reality shows are so heavily produced and edited now that there's nothing "real" left to air. Stroud embraces the power of social media and allows contestants to use it to help win (or lose) the game.

3. The grand prize is ... AN ISLAND. Yep, the winner of this show walks away with his/her own private island (worth $100,000). While I might prefer a nice vacation home in Maine, I suppose an island would allow me to re-enact any lingering Lost fantasies.

Watch episodes of SOS Island every weekday at 3:30 p.m. ET live or on demand at sos-island.com/episodes. Viewer voting kicks in next week, after the final contestants are selected.