by Marc Hustvedt on June 15th, 2009
Global web video site Joost announced last week that it was adding 12 new content partners to its roster, stepping up its offering of original web series content. While a number of the new additions are traditional TV series, a new handful of primarily web series makers are on the list.
The curated site favors a global audience, and all but a few of the new partners (RDF, Marvel, ReelzChannel, TOEI) are opening up their content globally without geo-blocking.
New web series content partners:
* MWG Entertainment (My Two Fans, Road to the Altar)
* Marvel Entertainment (Marvel Super Heroes: What The –?!)
* RDF Digital USA (RDF USA’s digital arm which has web series in the works)
* Vogue.TV (Model.Live, Trend Watch)
by Michael Shaw on June 15th, 2009
I was about to put Levni ‘Lev’ Yilmaz up on a pedestal as a new poster boy for alienation, but the guy has too many dating stories to displace Caulfield. For Yilmaz, girlfriend experiences seem to come relatively easy. Social situations do not. This much Yilmaz conveys as he successfully taps into an array of [...]
by Marc Hustvedt on June 14th, 2009
Well you can’t blame them for trying. YouTube continues trying to make some order from the chaos of 100+ million videos it has, adding a “Web Originals” category to its new Shows sections. The name isn’t great – aren’t the majority of YouTube videos web originals? Aside from that, it’s sporting a grand total of 14 web series right now. (14?!?)
Granted, this may be an early preview of the new section, but so far the list is anything but compete. The only common thread between the group is they all are YouTube partners, which might be a prerequisite for inclusion. On the list so far: Fred , Smosh, Prom Queen, The Guild (season 1), Roadents, University of Andy, Arby ‘n’ The Chief, Gemini Division, Affirmation Girl, WineLibraryTV.
by Joshua Cohen on June 12th, 2009
The online video advertising model isn’t broken. It’s yet to be discovered. Online video is the fastest growing medium in the history of the world, so it’s easy to forget the longest-running web series only dates back to 2003, YouTube launched merely four years ago, and it’s been just over three years since Steve Jobs [...]
by Marc Hustvedt on June 12th, 2009
Is mid-range web TV too risky?
The middle ground of web television, somewhere in between homebrew video blogs and high-end celeb-laden studio series, appears to be murky waters. The closing of digital studios 60Frames and maniaTV stand as somber reminders that web television is still shuffling to find its business model. And it’s boiling down to cost structure according to EQAL co-founder Greg Goodfried. EQAL
EQAL, founded by Goodfried along with Miles Beckett, is of course the web studio that made its mark with arguably the most successful dramatic web series to date, lonelygirl15, setting themselves up for top seat in the serialized drama space. Follow-up series like LG15: The Resistance, Bebo-backed KateModern and Polish-lonelygirl spinoff n1ckola basically locked up the genre for the venture-backed studio.
by Marc Hustvedt on June 11th, 2009
Web Television continues to grow up – first its own awards show and now its own version of television industry’s tried and true Upfronts. The first annual OnFrontNYC went down Tuesday in New York, bringing out over twenty different web content studios to showcase their web series wares to media buyers and digital ad agencies in attendance including Ogilvy, Digitas’ The Third Act and Deep Focus.
Numerous web series, or previews of them, were screened including the trailer for season 2 of the hit drama Prom Queen (above) from Michael Eisner’s Tornante Company and the creative team at Big Fantastic. Other notable series screened were Crackle’s action web series The Bannen Way, dark comedy Hillers, a news season of Illeana Douglas’ Easy to Assemble, Revision3′s new series Film Riot, along with The Mercury Men and a look at the new season of Attention Span Media’s brand-friendly Dorm Life.
by Joshua Cohen on June 11th, 2009
Jamison and I conceived of the Onfronts as an opportunity to elevate the status of original online programming. Internet video is still in its infancy and many advancements – in the form of distribution strategies, content quality, last mile technologies, and electronic program guides – need to take place before the medium fully matures. But [...]
by Lindsay Stidham on June 11th, 2009
A drive-thru kidnapper, an anorexic carton of milk, a ghost stripper? What do they have in common? They are all stars of videos on 5 second films.com, the site that unabashedly tells you they will waste your time, but not too much of it.
5 second films: There is a new film every weekday, and they are each exactly 5 seconds long. Everything on the site is written, directed, shot, edited, starring, designed and anything else by Brian Firenzi, Ben Gigli, Dan Hollister, Michael E. Peter, Michael Rousselet, Erik Sandoval, Jon Worley and co-creator Eric Forrest.
