Favourite posts and webseries: Lonelygirl15 - the first social media online drama?

Reposting some of my favourite posts through August -- Here's lonelygirl15.

Trailblazer in the effects a 2-way transaction with your audience can have on your web series narrative...

If you've never seen or heard of this webseries, you might like to skip down to the "ABC Nightline Interview With The Creators" video below...

---

(Original post here)



From wikipedia:-

"lonelygirl15 was an interactive web-based video series which began in June 2006, and ended on August 1, 2008.

The show focuses on the life of a fictional teenage girl named Bree, whose YouTube username is the eponymous "lonelygirl15", but the show does not reveal its fictional nature to its audience.

First Blog / Dorkiness Prevails


After the fictional status of the show was revealed in September 2006, the show gradually evolved into a multi-character show including both character videoblogs and action sequences, with a complex story universe involving "trait positive girls" who are sought by an evil organization called "The Order".

Lonelygirl15 first came to international attention ostensibly as a "real" video blogger who achieved massive popularity on YouTube. The show was eventually proved as a hoax by suspicious viewers as featuring a fictitious character played by American-New Zealand actress Jessica Rose.

The three creators of Lonelygirl15, first revealed by the The New York Times, were Ramesh Flinders, a screenwriter and filmmaker from Marin County, California, Miles Beckett, a surgical residency dropout turned filmmaker, and Greg Goodfried, a former attorney with Mitchell, Silberberg and Knupp, LLP.

The series began on June 16, 2006, and was slated to run through August 1, 2008. New videos appeared, at a clip of four to five a week, first on YouTube and lg15.com, also on MySpace. As of July 2008, the series has had more than 110 million combined views."

More here:-
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lonelygirl15

New York Times Article here

LONELYGIRL15 EPISODE ONE DETAILS

LONELYGIRL15 EPISODE 2 - Purple Monkey


LGPEDIA DETAILS


LONELYGIRL15 EPISODE 3 - School Work in Summer... BLECHH!!!


LGPEDIA DETAILS




"LONELYGIRL15" WEB SERIES HOME SITE HERE:
www.lg15.com

"LONELYGIRL15" SHOW FORUM HERE:
www.lg15.com/forum

"LONELYGIRL15" BEHIND THE SCENES BLOG HERE:
http://inside.lg15.com




"LONELYGIRL15" YOUTUBE CHANNEL HERE:
http://www.youtube.com/user/lonelygirl15


ABC NIGHTLINE INTERVIEW
with the creators of lonelygirl15 (From November 2006?)




Behind Lonelygirl15 (interview) - From January 2008


Rocketboom field correspondent Chuck Olsen interviews Miles Beckett and Greg Goodfried, the creators of lonelygirl15.


Lonelygirl15: The Resistance on Tilzy.TV


Miles Beckett and Greg Goodfried - creators of Lonelygirl15 and Kate Modern and founders of new media company EQAL - talk with Josh Cohen of Tilzy.TV about LG15: The Resistance, why the series is different, and how the LG15 world comes to life.


'Lonelygirl15' creators Beckett, Goodfried discuss new drama - from Sept 2008


"We call the shows that we produce 'social shows,' and they're very different from a TV show or a film,"

"The way that you actually construct the narrative, the way that the plot points flow over the course of the week, the way the site interplays with the video, the way the community works together and talks to the videos and talks to the characters, is all different,"




LONELYGIRL15 FAN NEWS SITE - LG15 TODAY


CLICK HERE for all posts labelled LONELYGIRL15

CLICK HERE for all NOTABLE EXAMPLES OF WEB SERIES

CLICK HERE for all links to MYSTERY web series

CLICK HERE for all FAVOURITE POSTS

Favourite webseries posts: UK Online Drama Series - KATEMODERN

Re-posting some of my favourite posts through August.

Partly to pick out anything useful, partly because some have gone missing from my blogger search box. This is so Google doesn't forget me.


The reason this is a favourite is because I wrote on Season 2. It's what got me into web series.

The Lonelygirl15 creators gave me a glimpse into a world where you can have a two-way interaction with the audience.

It's nuanaced. Somewhere between a focus group and being heckled on stage.

Everyone who works on the show are fans of the show - alongside the other fans of the series.


The mistake I made, and alot of people in the TV industry still make, is to compare webseries to TV Drama.

If you're disparaging about this show - the writing, the acting, the quality of production... then surely the traffic and number of video and profile views it gained in one year is all the more disproportionate and remarkable.


I think it, and Lonelygirl 15 shows the way for having good interactive storytelling technique. The production values are intentionally low - it was meant to look as if the characters were uploading themselves - but that aside, I think these shows are landmarks in showing how a community can be built around a show, rather than a one-time-viewing audience figure.

This whole blog is about finding examples of that kind of transaction with the audience.


If you'd like me to send these links for webseries creators to you directly, why not sign up here so I can send them via email?!

----------

(Original 2008 Kate Modern post here)



From wikipedia:-

KateModern is the sister series of lonelygirl15. The series, which was announced on April 16, 2007, began filming on July 9 and the first video, Fight and Flight, was released on July 16. The show is produced by LG15 in partnership with Bebo. It ended on June 28, 2008, slightly less than a year following its original release.

KateModern is set in East London, England, and bears many similarities to its parent series. Both Kate and Bree are avid video bloggers and carry a dark secret. There is an alternate reality game component of the series as well.

KATEMODERN HOME SITE:
You could either watch the show here, on the KateModern bebo site

"KateModern ran from 16th July 2007 to 28th June 2008 and was produced by the creators of lonelygirl15 - EQAL. During it's highly successful year long run it was nominated for two TV Craft BAFTA awards, a Webby Award and won the Broadcast Press Guild Award for Innovation 2008."

www.bebo.com/katemodern

Or here on the lonelygirl15 katemodern show site:
www.lg15.com/katemodern

KATEMODERN WIKI, on the LGpedia:
http://www.lg15.com/lgpedia/index.php?title=Image:KM_Portal_Season_2.jpg

And the Production Team even have their own bebo profile:
http://www.bebo.com/KateModernProduction



KateModern Forums are here:
http://www.lg15.com/katemodern/forum/

GMTV Behind the Scenes item on KateModern here:






Here are some press articles on the show...

Kate Modern herself was killed off at the start of the second series; a bit of a bold move you might think, but the format of the show means it is constantly breaking new ground.“You can interact with the story, talk to the characters, comment on the plot – we get feedback all the time,” explains Rushton.

“What I find so interesting is the fact that people are coming together and discussing the show, but they’re also coming together to discuss things that lie outside of the show that affect them. People actually come to you on Bebo and share their experiences and they feel like they’ve got a place to do that. It’s the way that communication is going.”

The Independent
http://www.independent.co.uk/student/student-life/music-film/modern-miss-817538.html

We told you last month about the planned wrap-up of KateModern, the very successful Internet television show exclusive to the AOL-owned Bebo social network.

Well, today’s the day that all is put to pasture. KateModern is having its finale, and it’s going out with 12 episodes in 12 hours. The countdown to the series close began earlier this morning and will stretch to 7PM EST, with hourly videos releases complemented by live chats with and among the fanbase.

In fact, due to its viral achievements EQAL was able to secure both a $5 million Series A funding round and CBS partnership in the space of a single month.

Mashable.com
http://mashable.com/2008/06/28/katemodern-2

BEBO's Kate Modern has become an internet sensation since being launched a year ago.
More than 66 million people have logged on to view the interactive online drama's 'webisodes' since July 2007.

TV Biz has an exclusive preview of this week's season 2 finale for your pleasure. It features Ralf Little and man-of-the-moment Noel Clarke - who wrote, directed and starred in the Kidulthood and Adulthood films.

The Sun
http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/showbiz/tv/article1345446.ece

Who killed KateModern? It's the question that has been occupying several million minds since the beginning of the year, when the heroine of the eponymously named online drama met her end. Kate, for those who have been living in a bunker since July 2007, is, or rather, was, a troubled teenage university art student living in London. She had a dark past that she was unable to remember and was somehow connected to a secret organisation called The Order.

The Guardian
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2008/mar/03/digitalmedia.web20

Social networking site Bebo is to shock fans of hit online drama Kate Modern by killing off its eponymous star in the first episode of its new series.

The series' first sponsors - which get to see their products placed within the video - will be Cadbury's Creme Egg and Toyota's youth-targeted car Aygo. Sponsors of the first series included Microsoft, Procter & Gamble, Warner Music, Paramount and Orange, which each paid up to £250,000 to appear within the show.

No figures have been revealed about what each company might pay to be involved with the second series.

However, each company stumps up cash based on the amount its brand is integrated into the storyline, which includes monitoring the number of times it appears in the video and is mentioned in the script.

The Guardian
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2008/jan/16/bebo.television

KateModern, the flagship online drama broadcast by social networking site Bebo, will wrap up for the last time at the end of June, it was announced today.

The last part of series two will air on June 28, with Bebo promising a "high octane" ending with multiple episodes.

Featuring Royle Family star Ralph Little, the interactive drama has run for more than 300 four-minute episodes since it launched in July last year, racking up more than 57 million views.

Bebo wanted the show to "encourage unprecedented interactivity" with its audience and has also tried to distinguish itself from rival social networking sites by building up original content.

Users are given interactive tools to "talk" to KateModern characters and producers from the series, suggest storylines and solve puzzles in the plot.

The Bebo president, Joanna Shields, said KateModern has "created a new genre and demonstrated the power of media on a social network with gripping storylines and peerless production values".

The Guardian
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2008/may/12/bebo.web20


CLICK HERE for all posts on KateModern

CLICK HERE for all the FAVOURITE POSTS

CLICK HERE for links for some other shows you should check out


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Webseries Storytelling - The Ludic Marker (Letting your fans know its a web series?)

Via the awesomeWebSeries Today
Great blog post on this very specific aspect of online storytelling, written by Tom Liljeholm

The uncanny valley of Transmedia Storytelling

The ludic marker was a way to inform participants that they were taking part of something fictional. There were three main ways to create a ludic marker;

•The popup disclaimer, leaving websites themselves intact and ‘unharmed’ by the not-so-seamless conducts.

•The constant marker, putting a symbol, logo or other common denominator on all pages and content, making sure that when participants understood that they were in fact playing a game, they would not have to doubt weather or not new content was a part of the experience or not.

•The spectacular setting, where the story was simply so unbelievable that it had to be obvious that it was not real.

I have seen a growing trend of making transmedia experiences ‘seamless’. A lot of people seem to think that immersion can only be achieved when people actually think that a story is real. I am here to tell you why you are wrong and why that is bad.

MORE HERE:- http://tea4twoentertainment.tumblr.com/post/6520633671/the-uncanny-valley-of-transmedia-storytelling

Tom Liljeholm on TWITTER @tomliljeholm

CLICK HERE for all posts labelled RECOMMENDED READING

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CLICK HERE for all posts labelled TIPS


Finally, if you'd like me to email these blog posts to you directly, just click here to try it out! THANKS!

KateModern on The Money Programme - Media Revolution

Mentioned this almost exactly a year ago here!http://storygas.blogspot.com/2009/03/katemodern-and-me-on-money-programme.html

Here's an extract.

KateModern Mention on TV




From BBC News Money Programme:-

A decade ago, the UK was a net importer of television programmes. Now we're one of the most powerful players on the international television stage, exporting more than half the world's TV "formats".

Consumers are changing the way in which they watch television
But a transformation in the way viewers consume television is turning the industry's business model on its head and threatening the long-term future of this, one of the UK's most significant creative industries.

'Profound' changes
All the UK's major broadcasters have set up websites to allow viewers to watch their programmes via the computer, while social networking sites such as Bebo are carrying television content and even originating their own shows.

As the lines between television, the internet and social networking sites blur, this presents exciting but controversial new opportunities to bring advertising revenue into programmes.

Experts predict a future in which broadcasters gather substantial amounts of information about viewers and sell this data to advertisers who target their messages much more precisely than at present.

CLICK HERE FOR FULL ARTICLE


CLICK HERE for more posts labelled INDUSTRY

CLICK HERE for all posts labelled UK

CLICK HERE for all posts labelled KATEMODERN

CLICK HERE for all posts labelled LONELYGIRL15

CLICK HERE for all posts labelled FUNDING

Favourite Posts - KATEMODERN - online drama web series

Started StoryGas just over a year ago, and now going through the blog archive to pick out notable shows and favourite posts.

I'll try to update some of the entries along the way too, and don't forget you can CLICK HERE to get these posts sent direct by email.


From November 2008...

This is KateModern - Original Post here.




From wikipedia:-

KateModern is the sister series of lonelygirl15. The series, which was announced on April 16, 2007, began filming on July 9 and the first video, Fight and Flight, was released on July 16. The show is produced by LG15 in partnership with Bebo. It ended on June 28, 2008, slightly less than a year following its original release.

KateModern is set in East London, England, and bears many similarities to its parent series. Both Kate and Bree are avid video bloggers and carry a dark secret. There is an alternate reality game component of the series as well.

KATEMODERN HOME SITE:
You could either watch the show here, on the KateModern bebo site

"KateModern ran from 16th July 2007 to 28th June 2008 and was produced by the creators of lonelygirl15 - EQAL. During it's highly successful year long run it was nominated for two TV Craft BAFTA awards, a Webby Award and won the Broadcast Press Guild Award for Innovation 2008."

www.bebo.com/katemodern

Or here on the lonelygirl15 katemodern show site:
www.lg15.com/katemodern

KATEMODERN WIKI, on the LGpedia:
http://www.lg15.com/lgpedia/index.php?title=Image:KM_Portal_Season_2.jpg

And the Production Team even have their own bebo profile:
http://www.bebo.com/KateModernProduction



KateModern Forums are here:
http://www.lg15.com/katemodern/forum/

GMTV Behind the Scenes item on KateModern here:






Here are some press articles on the show...

Kate Modern herself was killed off at the start of the second series; a bit of a bold move you might think, but the format of the show means it is constantly breaking new ground.“You can interact with the story, talk to the characters, comment on the plot – we get feedback all the time,” explains Rushton.

“What I find so interesting is the fact that people are coming together and discussing the show, but they’re also coming together to discuss things that lie outside of the show that affect them. People actually come to you on Bebo and share their experiences and they feel like they’ve got a place to do that. It’s the way that communication is going.”

The Independent
http://www.independent.co.uk/student/student-life/music-film/modern-miss-817538.html

We told you last month about the planned wrap-up of KateModern, the very successful Internet television show exclusive to the AOL-owned Bebo social network.

Well, today’s the day that all is put to pasture. KateModern is having its finale, and it’s going out with 12 episodes in 12 hours. The countdown to the series close began earlier this morning and will stretch to 7PM EST, with hourly videos releases complemented by live chats with and among the fanbase.

In fact, due to its viral achievements EQAL was able to secure both a $5 million Series A funding round and CBS partnership in the space of a single month.

Mashable.com
http://mashable.com/2008/06/28/katemodern-2

BEBO's Kate Modern has become an internet sensation since being launched a year ago.
More than 66 million people have logged on to view the interactive online drama's 'webisodes' since July 2007.

TV Biz has an exclusive preview of this week's season 2 finale for your pleasure. It features Ralf Little and man-of-the-moment Noel Clarke - who wrote, directed and starred in the Kidulthood and Adulthood films.

The Sun
http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/showbiz/tv/article1345446.ece

Who killed KateModern? It's the question that has been occupying several million minds since the beginning of the year, when the heroine of the eponymously named online drama met her end. Kate, for those who have been living in a bunker since July 2007, is, or rather, was, a troubled teenage university art student living in London. She had a dark past that she was unable to remember and was somehow connected to a secret organisation called The Order.

The Guardian
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2008/mar/03/digitalmedia.web20

Social networking site Bebo is to shock fans of hit online drama Kate Modern by killing off its eponymous star in the first episode of its new series.

The series' first sponsors - which get to see their products placed within the video - will be Cadbury's Creme Egg and Toyota's youth-targeted car Aygo. Sponsors of the first series included Microsoft, Procter & Gamble, Warner Music, Paramount and Orange, which each paid up to £250,000 to appear within the show.

No figures have been revealed about what each company might pay to be involved with the second series.

However, each company stumps up cash based on the amount its brand is integrated into the storyline, which includes monitoring the number of times it appears in the video and is mentioned in the script.

The Guardian
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2008/jan/16/bebo.television

KateModern, the flagship online drama broadcast by social networking site Bebo, will wrap up for the last time at the end of June, it was announced today.

The last part of series two will air on June 28, with Bebo promising a "high octane" ending with multiple episodes.

Featuring Royle Family star Ralph Little, the interactive drama has run for more than 300 four-minute episodes since it launched in July last year, racking up more than 57 million views.

Bebo wanted the show to "encourage unprecedented interactivity" with its audience and has also tried to distinguish itself from rival social networking sites by building up original content.

Users are given interactive tools to "talk" to KateModern characters and producers from the series, suggest storylines and solve puzzles in the plot.

The Bebo president, Joanna Shields, said KateModern has "created a new genre and demonstrated the power of media on a social network with gripping storylines and peerless production values".

The Guardian
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2008/may/12/bebo.web20




CLICK HERE for all posts on KateModern

CLICK HERE for all the FAVOURITE POSTS

CLICK HERE for some other shows you should check out

Favourite Posts - LONELYGIRL15 - online drama web series

Started StoryGas just over a year ago, and now going through the blog archive to pick out notable shows and favourite posts.

I'll try to update some of the entries along the way too, and don't forget you can CLICK HERE to get these posts sent direct by email.


From November 2008...

This is LONELYGIRL15 - Original Post here.




From wikipedia:-

"lonelygirl15 was an interactive web-based video series which began in June 2006, and ended on August 1, 2008.

The show focuses on the life of a fictional teenage girl named Bree, whose YouTube username is the eponymous "lonelygirl15", but the show does not reveal its fictional nature to its audience.

First Blog / Dorkiness Prevails


After the fictional status of the show was revealed in September 2006, the show gradually evolved into a multi-character show including both character videoblogs and action sequences, with a complex story universe involving "trait positive girls" who are sought by an evil organization called "The Order".

Lonelygirl15 first came to international attention ostensibly as a "real" video blogger who achieved massive popularity on YouTube. The show was eventually proved as a hoax by suspicious viewers as featuring a fictitious character played by American-New Zealand actress Jessica Rose.

The three creators of Lonelygirl15, first revealed by the The New York Times, were Ramesh Flinders, a screenwriter and filmmaker from Marin County, California, Miles Beckett, a surgical residency dropout turned filmmaker, and Greg Goodfried, a former attorney with Mitchell, Silberberg and Knupp, LLP.

The series began on June 16, 2006, and was slated to run through August 1, 2008. New videos appeared, at a clip of four to five a week, first on YouTube and lg15.com, also on MySpace. As of July 2008, the series has had more than 110 million combined views."

More here:-
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lonelygirl15

New York Times Article here

LONELYGIRL15 EPISODE ONE DETAILS

LONELYGIRL15 EPISODE 2 - Purple Monkey


LGPEDIA DETAILS


LONELYGIRL15 EPISODE 3 - School Work in Summer... BLECHH!!!


LGPEDIA DETAILS




"LONELYGIRL15" WEB SERIES HOME SITE HERE:
www.lg15.com

"LONELYGIRL15" SHOW FORUM HERE:
www.lg15.com/forum

"LONELYGIRL15" BEHIND THE SCENES BLOG HERE:
http://inside.lg15.com




"LONELYGIRL15" YOUTUBE CHANNEL HERE:
http://www.youtube.com/user/lonelygirl15


ABC NIGHTLINE INTERVIEW
with the creators of lonelygirl15 (From November 2006?)




Behind Lonelygirl15 (interview) - From January 2008


Rocketboom field correspondent Chuck Olsen interviews Miles Beckett and Greg Goodfried, the creators of lonelygirl15.


Lonelygirl15: The Resistance on Tilzy.TV


Miles Beckett and Greg Goodfried - creators of Lonelygirl15 and Kate Modern and founders of new media company EQAL - talk with Josh Cohen of Tilzy.TV about LG15: The Resistance, why the series is different, and how the LG15 world comes to life.


'Lonelygirl15' creators Beckett, Goodfried discuss new drama - from Sept 2008


"We call the shows that we produce 'social shows,' and they're very different from a TV show or a film,"

"The way that you actually construct the narrative, the way that the plot points flow over the course of the week, the way the site interplays with the video, the way the community works together and talks to the videos and talks to the characters, is all different,"




LONELYGIRL15 FAN NEWS SITE - LG15 TODAY


CLICK HERE for all posts labelled LONELYGIRL15

CLICK HERE for all NOTABLE EXAMPLES OF WEB SERIES

CLICK HERE for all links to MYSTERY web series

CLICK HERE for all FAVOURITE POSTS

How To Make A Hit Internet Show #3 - On Online Regulation

Don't know where exactly, but this would fall somewhere in the ever-growing "How To Make A Hit Internet Show".

It's a response to an excellent article written by Bill Thompson on bbc.co.uk about online regulation.

There are often moments during the widespread adoption of transformative technologies where an old way of thinking or doing business is so threatened by the new possibilities that its adherents call on those with political power to "Do Something!"
It never works.

If the music industry had spent more time thinking of ways to deliver great music to its customers over the internet and less lobbying politicians and suing potential customers it would probably be thriving by now.

Book publishers, less certain of their own importance, are taking notice of the exciting experiments at Faber & Faber and Penguin instead of looking for protectionist legislation to keep the new media world at bay.

The full article is here:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7644849.stm

And these are extracts from an email I sent.
###
Since December last year, I was on the writing team for an online drama called katemodern.

You may have heard of it -- it was, apparently, the first online drama made in the UK, and one of the first in the world (certainly in the UK) to embed itself on a social networking website (bebo)
www.bebo.com/katemodern
and was the UK spinoff of the American online phenomenon lonelygirl15.

katemodern got 61 million video hits, and 6 million profile views on bebo.
The show ended this summer as scheduled - sorry, bear with me, there is a point to this email! - and I now give talks to and consult for [large and small] media organisations.

It feels as if I was hurled on an exponential learning curve, and am now try to bring others up to speed on what I glimpsed writing 70 odd episodes, (storylining 140 odd episodes), as to the potential of interactive drama - while you're making it along with your audience interacting with and commenting on it.

The way I try to explain it is that it feels like working in television drama in 1950.

"Everyone is trying to think of it, and critique it, and work in it, as if they are radio drama producers.
But it's not radio, it's television. But we dont know what the medium can yet fully achieve! We just know it's not radio, theatre, or cinema."

Anyway - wanted to share this story with you.
This is a blog devoted to the show lonelygirl15, it's called lg15today
http://lg15today.blogspot.com

It's written and maintained by fans of the show.

Have a look at this article from a couple of weeks ago.
http://lg15today.blogspot.com/2008/09/note-about-removal-of-video.html

Note About Removal of Video
Due to it's use of nudity and adult themes, a video was removed from the blog by myself after a lengthy discussion with community members and a consensus that this was the proper action to take. The author of the post has been contacted and informed of the removal and why it occurred. Anyone wishing to discuss the matter further can contact me at xxxxxxxx@xxxxxx or can PM me in IRC.
Thank you!

-- I read some of the comments, and apparently, the post didn't have a harmful intention behind it. That's not what's interesting.

What's interesting, for me, is the *the community* decided it wasn't right for lg15today.

lg15today's *audience* decided it wasn't appropriate.

Not the makers of lonelygirl15,
Not the authors of lg15today.blogspot.com
Not the company that hosts the blog,
Nor even the ISP.

*The Audience*, *The Community* decided it would be best to take it down.
For the first time, we have a medium which allows *the audience* to moderate content.

To flag up and vote down the inappropriate.
To decide amongst ourselves (as an audience) what is safe and appropriate and what we would like to be associated with.

As an audience, we're not quite ready for what exactly that means.
But we're all learning. And becoming more 'literate' and experienced audiences.

It's a fascinating time out there, as content adapts to the technology.
And even more fascinating as we, the audience, adapt the content to fit what we as a society feel is best.

Full HOW TO MAKE A HIT INTERNET SHOW article by clicking on here.

Web shows and live events - KateModern style

Found this great academic post exploring the live events on KateModern, and what that means for the medium of online shows.


From mediacommons.futureofthebook.org:-

However, (the clips) from web series Kate Modern, show how online video content is also working to recapture the ephemeral moment of broadcasting. Hosted by the social networking site Bebo, the series presents a form of entertainment that simultaneously utilises the ‘anti-ephemeral’ archive capacity of the internet whilst promoting a ‘hyper-ephemeral’ mode of engagement. The former is clear in the total length of the series (almost 14 hours over the two seasons) and the permanent access to the series offered through its website (www.bebo.com/katemodern). The latter is evident through techniques such as marathons, where viewers were invited to remain at their computers for 12 hours as new videos were released hourly, and quizzes that formed part of the narrative and viewers had to solve before the next episode.

MORE HERE:-
http://mediacommons.futureofthebook.org/imr/2009/02/16/10am-carnaby-street-kate-modern-and-ephemeralisation-online-drama

(Click here for more articles labelled RECOMMENDED READING)

.

The Great Internet Video Lie

Interesting blog post here: (from a tweet @capsulefilms)

From the mark cuban weblog:-

Internet Video. Its the salvation for content creators everywhere. Its the end to dependence on the big bad meanies, the cable and satellite companies. Right ? Hell no. The concept that “over the top” video creates a valid business alternative for content creators is as misguided an internet business myth as there is.

For grins, lets say you want to start a business for which you want to stream, live or on demand, any video. Any quality. You want the ability to reach merely 10k simultaneous viewers. Not a big number. In fact , its a tiny number. Its certainly not competitive with any form of traditional TV, but its a starting point. So to stream 10k simultaneous streams, what are your choices ?

Can you just do it from a PC in your dorm room ? From your house on your cable or DSL line ? No. You will need an outside vendor in order to offer a mere 10k simultaneous streams. Which leads to the question of who can provide a service as simple as 10k streams ? Who can do it with any level of reliability ?

MORE HERE:-
http://blogmaverick.com/2009/01/27/the-great-internet-video-lie/


But isn't it the legacy media’s job/ obsession/ 'reason for being' to try to get as many viewers for a single piece of content at time of release - say one million hits - rather than, say, 400 hundred pieces of content each pulling in 2500 hits.

And that’s before you even consider an editorial ability to build a community around that stream of content, and the ability for the audience to comment, post video responses, make content, to contribute to the stream (eg LG15: the show is yours, lg15today.blogspot.com, or even skulladay.com)

Surely the strength of internet content is that it isn’t a one way transmission?

I think I’m thinking, you don’t necessarily need 10,000 people to view a single piece of content simultaneously in order for something to become huge…?

What do you think?
See COMMENTS below

500,000 Visits for LG15 Today!!!!!

One of the inspirations for starting StoryGas - and still one of the best places to track web series, and follow how communities form around content is
lg15today.blogspot.com


From lg15today.com:-

It is just a little under two years since LG15 Today launched and a few minutes ago the blogspot passed the 500,000 visit landmark with over 797,000 page views.

A long long time ago the 436 had taken away the official chat on the lonelygirl15 web site so a few fans got together to create the LG15 Addicts Userplane chat site. While chilling there the concept of the collaborative valentines card was hatched. It was a huge hit and it became quite apparent that given the opportunity this community had a huge capacity to collaborate creatively using the tools provided by the Internet. It was out of that spirit and the open free philosophy of lonelygirl15 comments that LG15 Today was born as a collaborative blog with the goal of keeping the community up to day with what was going on in the Breeniverse. Whether it be lonelygirl15 news, community videos, a snow ball fight on comments, lonelypirates15, the latest ARG puzzle or any of the other antics that were taking place in the community we wanted to find a way of keeping the community up to date on what was going on.

MORE HERE:-
http://lg15today.blogspot.com/2009/01/500000-visits-for-lg15-today.html

They link to great nuggets like this too - Miles Beckett and Greg Goodfried of EQAL talking about the history and issues surrounding the writing and production lonelygirl15 and KateModern, and how they would describe them as "Social Shows".
(Here below I think talking at the launch of the Polish lonelygirl15 spinoff, n1ckola).

Lonelygirl15 - The show is yours...

Interesting things going on in the Breeniverse at the moment.

And another great example of the ability of web series to generate content creation amongst the show's community.

From inside.lg15.com:-

Thanks so much for watching LG15: The Resistance, we’re thrilled that you enjoyed the show! We’ve talked a long time about increasing the prominence of community shows on LG15.com. We’ve read your comments, watched your videos, and asked ourselves the question, “What would you do?” What characters would you develop? What story would you tell? With this in mind, we’re excited to announce a new chapter in the ongoing LG15 Universe: The Show Is Yours.

Also from inside.lg15.com:-

Do you think you have what it takes to make the next LG15 series? Here’s your chance! Submit your ORIGINAL LG15 PILOT and get the chance to see your show be the featured content on LG15.com.

The chosen video pilot may be turned into a full-length social show, which will be the featured content for eight (8) weeks beginning in February 2009.

The Pilot:
Your pilot must be derivative of the LG15 Universe by building upon the mythology of lonelygirl15, KateModern, and LG15: The Resistance. For more information on LG15, please read the LGPedia, the #1 resource on all things LG15.
The pilot can either be Episode One of your proposed show or a Pilot Presentation, which gives a general idea of the look and feel of the proposed show. It must be no more than 5 minutes in length.

MORE HERE:-
http://inside.lg15.com/2008/12/16/lg15-the-show-is-yours-submit-your-pilot/

LG15: The Show Is Yours is also tracked on the lonelygirl15 fansite lg15today.blogspot.com:-
http://lg15today.blogspot.com/search/label/The%20Show%20Is%20Yours
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All smiles as web shows come of age

Great article forwarded to me by Kirill writer, Andrew McCaldon, from last week's Observer.

Excellent overview of the recent history of Online Drama and Comedy by Ajesh Patalay.

From The Observer:-

It started with a girl named Bree. At least that's what she said her name was. She was 16, American and girlishly pretty. In June 2006, under the name LonelyGirl15, she posted her first video online. It lasted a minute and a half, was shot in her bedroom and showed her talking direct to camera. She namedropped a couple of other video bloggers (vloggers) and pulled a few funny faces. 'What you need to know about my town,' she said, 'is that it's really boring. That's probably why I spend so much time on my computer, I'm a dork.' That was it. Typical of the confessional teenage vlogs circulating the web at the time.

A few days later, the next video appeared, showing Bree goofing around with a puppet monkey. In the third, she talked about being home-schooled and imparted some trivia about Antarctica. Pretty mundane stuff. It wasn't until the sixth vlog, entitled My Parents Suck ..., that the tone shifted: in it she complained that her parents had forbidden her from going out with her friend Daniel on account of her 'religion'. It wasn't clear what religion this was. Within hours the video had notched up 50,000 hits. (The previous postings had counted 50,000 to 100,000 hits in the course of a week.) Two days later the tally was up to half a million. Suddenly LonelyGirl15 was a phenomenon. With each new video, as parental tensions heightened and suggestions of the occult crept in, the buzz grew ever greater.

MORE HERE:-
http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/2008/dec/14/internet-web-series

Ajesh Patalay also lists 10 web shows to watch:
1. Seth MacFarlane's Cavalcade of Cartoon Comedy
2. Smart Girls At The Party
3. 50 To Death
4. Easy To Assemble
5. Kirill
6. Sorority Forever
7. The Guild
8. House Poor
9. Blahgirls
10. Sanctuary

It's a great article, but... there's just one TINY fragment of a sentence with which I really can't agree:

"Scoring a web series hit, however, is still no cinch. Even shows whose view count passes 100,000 in the first week (a fair index of success) can find it hard to sustain."

100,000 in the first week = a fair index of success?
That sounds a bit like "sunset media" industry talk.

Surely one of the strengths - opportunities - of the web is the ability to build a following from scratch. To whatever number of hits... over whatever length of time.

Unless I've misunderstood the article, applying a criteria of "TV Overnights" to the 'first week of uploading' feels incredibly bogus. There may be a time for shows to reach the stage of gaining 100,000 hits per week. But to judge the success of a show by numbers "in the first week" feels hugely misleading.

How about the size of the community around a show?
How busy the message boards or forums?
How many unofficial fansites linking to the home site?
How many members or fans signed up on the home site, or bebo, or MySpace, or Facebook?

Surely these are better indicators of the health of a show. The quantum shift for all of us is stepping away from the methodology of measuring TV shows or film "on release", towards tracking communities of fans over time.

We haven't developed ways of measuring, recording and sharing these 'other' indicators. Not to an 'industry standard'. And it doesn't fit the way sponsors or networks currently operate, so I think we'll continue to see sentiments such as
"shows whose view count passes 100,000 in the first week (a fair index of success)"
in the industry for some time to come.

What do you think? On "Comments" below.
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Weekend Video: Entertainment execs talk with Rafat about Hulu, YouTube and more

From Guardian PDA Digital Content Blog:-

During the second session at our LA year-end Digital Media Review and mixer, paidContent's founder, publisher and editor Rafat Ali led a panel with Albert Cheng, executive vice-president of digital media for Disney-ABC Television Group; Miles Beckett, co-founder and chief executive of EQAL and co-creator and executive producer of lonelygirl15 and KateModern; and Lewis Henderson, senior vice president - head of digital for William Morris Agency.

Among the topics they covered were plans for 2009, indie content developers and those online video giants called YouTube and Hulu. Find out what Cheng had to say when he admitted ABC was not on either YouTube or Hulu and Rafat asked, point blank, "Why?"

MORE HERE:-
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/pda/2008/dec/22/digitalvideo-youtube

Interesting for me...
13.30
How replicable is the lonelygirl15 model? (Creating a studio from one hit)
14.30
Primary focus: "We are an audience company... our goal is built around building community based websites with very rich social features..."
17.45
Seth McFarlane deal with Google - (that's fine but what I want to know is) "how do you get something that's unknown distributed effectively?"
19.00
"we really believe in building a community around the brand... so there should be a fully featured rich social network around that branded show... that should be the home and everywhere the content goes should increase the distribultion and reach... increase your eyballs...
But ultimately serve to drive people back to the site, so that for the content creator... they have a much more bankable and long-term monetisable asset."
21.00 - 23.03
On Product Integrations.
24.45
ABC-Disney on geo-fencing
26.25
Why aren't you guys (ABC-Disney) on YouTube?
29.20
"We love YouTube - we see Youtube, Flickr, Photobucket as services..."

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Online drama... With The Angels

From With The Angels:-

Welcome to Hollywood. People come here to find - in Taffy Simpson's words - their "time to shine." Fresh off the Arkansas farm, Taffy moved to Los Angeles three months ago to become a “Professional Production Assistant.” But the best-laid plans can go awry, and now she's sharing an apartment with Ashley, an ambitious but slightly unhinged aspiring actress, in a run-down building on the beach in Venice. Too shy to talk to anyone, Taffy uses her video camera to get to know her neighbors.

There’s Andy, Ashley’s secretly smitten best friend; Trey, a screenwriter whose fear that he’s become a has-been has him perched on the edge between “jaded” and “bitter;” “Secret”-touting Life Coach Miranda; and the Mystery Man from Apartment 6, who is – well, a mystery. All of them share with the camera things they can't share with each other, creating a funny and moving commentary on God, fame, love, sex, cars, music, TV - and all the other things we put our faith in.

MORE HERE:-
http://www.strike.tv/show/with-the-angels/

EPISODES 1-8 HERE:-



From WithTheAngels YouTube channel:-

Taffy's roommate Ashley and her best friend Andy throw a party, but Taffy isn't in a partying mood. Things look better in the morning, though, as Taffy tells us about her new life and her thwarted plan to attend the Sunshine Film Academy. New-agey neighbor Miranda pushes some of Taffy's buttons, and another neighbor, TV writer Trey Alan Gordon, just might give Ashley's career a jump start. We learn that sometimes there's more to friendship than meets the eye as Andy's feelings for Ashley come into focus.

MORE HERE:-
http://www.youtube.com/withtheangels

"WITH THE ANGELS" SHOW HOME SITE:-
http://www.strike.tv/show/with-the-angels/

"WITH THE ANGELS" SHOW TWITTER
http://www.Twitter.com/withtheangels

"WITH THE ANGELS" WRITER - MARY FEUER'S BLOG
http://maryfeuer.blogspot.com/

****STORYGAS INTERACTIVE RATING*****
WITH THE ANGELS
Can you embed? YES from youtube
Can you comment? YES on home site and on youtube
Also on youtube? YES
Forums? YES on www.strike.tv
Blog? On Twitter and Writer blog
*********************************************

LG15: The Resistance -- Season 1 Finale "12 in 12"

LG15: The Resistance (from the studios of Lonelygirl15) - Season 1 ENDS TOMORROW in the now-traditional "12 in 12"...
...12 videos in 12 hours.

From InsideLG15:-

12 videos

12 hours

12.12.08

the day begins at 8:oo am PST (4PM GMT)

MORE HERE!:-
http://inside.lg15.com/2008/12/01/lg15-the-resistance-presents-day-of-atonement/

and the shows appear here:-
http://www.lg15.com/

...community reaction and updates here:-
http://lg15today.blogspot.com/


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What is StoryGas?

In 2008, I was a writer on Season 2 of the Online Drama KateModern: storylining 157 and scripting 74 webisodes in six months. The series gained 66 million video hits - and a community response so seemingly disproportionate to the short daily episodes we were delivering.

Something else was going on, and I was getting first hand experience (guided by the path blazed by Miles Greg and Amanda - The lonelygirl15 Creators) - a transaction with the audience which is vastly different from the one we're used to in TV, Radio and Film production.

The series was being produced while the audience was able to comment, contact, contribute to and discuss - and feedback from that community was incorporated back into the series. Which, in turn, strengthened and grew the community around it.

Since the show came to an end in June this year, I have given talks on what it was like working on KateModern, and "Writing Online Narrative" more generally - and found myself referencing the same shows, links and sites. It seemed crazy not to have a place where I could 'bank' those, and update them with more news and links as I stumble upon them myself.

Welcome to StoryGas!

The posts here are biased towards...

- Online narrative

(rather than factual or entertainment series,
such as "Black Cab Sessions"
StSanders' surreal genius Shreds,
or BBC News' "The Box")

- Live action

(rather than animations like Salad Fingers
or Charlie The Unicorn)

- 'Open' shows

(produced and uploaded while the audience are (or were) able to contribute, rather than 'closed' series which are completely produced, done and dusted, before uploading).

This is probably the biggest difference between "Online Narrative" and say, a TV show on, say, BBC iplayer. The definitions of 'ongoing' are still bedding down - a 'closed' one-off show such as Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along-Blog could be seen as part of the ongoing community around Joss Whedon's content, or the completed series of The Guild as part of a larger building of a community around that show...


So this is the blog. In the meantime I'm working on 3 commissioned online shows, and hope to share gossip from them with you here as they progress.

Feel free to say HI by clicking on anywhere marked "Comments" -- there are already others out there writing and producing online shows... with exactly the same questions as you -- we can help each other out with the answers!

NEIL MOSSEY
www.neilmossey.com/

You can email direct - storygas at gmail dot com

But... to be honest... the QUICKEST way to get something on to the site is to leave a COMMENT under the latest post, or right here, so everyone can see your link...

IF YOU'D LIKE YOUR SHOW TO GET A PLUG HERE...
This blog is a bank of the shows I'm watching - which means there will always be a backlog.

You can really help me to help you by sending/pointing me towards:
- a nice EYE-CATCHING PICTURE, logo, screenshot or any or all of these
- EMBED CODES for the episodes you like best, or which best introduce your show to a new audience
(I avoid autoplay they are pain in butt - width bigger than around "400" is tricky too - this is why I tend to link/embed YOUTUBE vids... they just... work).
- a PARAGRAPH explaining what the show is
- all the LINKS you think a new audience would appreciate to 'get' your show.

These things really will put you at the top of the list of what to watch next!

And if you like what I've done, feel free to buy me a coffee.
Thanks for the support!