If you’ve made one of the most popular films of all time on Hulu, what’s your next move? For writer Stevie Long and director/producer Joel Viertel, the answer was simple: Keep a good thing going. They’re making a series out of hit movie Strictly Sexual. Read more »
For Solo creator Jonathan Nail, producing his own web series was an opportunity to create a showcase for his acting. But after two years of hard work and thousands of dollars, he found that the rewards of independent production are not universal. Read more »
The Streamy Awards are returning for a third round sometime in 2012, thanks to a partnership with Dick Clark Productions, which wants to build the show into a franchise honoring web content. But after the failure of the 2010 awards, will the Streamys be welcomed back? Read more »
Big changes are in progress at YouTube, from how it interacts with creators to the site infrastructure itself. At the second annual VidCon conference in Los Angeles, YouTube used the opportunity try and sell some of those changes to the online video community in attendance. Read more »
This week’s drama between The Young Turks creator and host Cenk Uygur and MSNBC has a sad tinge of inevitability to it, given the compromises required by the mainstream media. The major twist is just how loudly Uygur is raging against his former employer. Read more »
While this year’s Emmy nominees once again neglected to recognize any web originals, that hasn’t stopped Hollywood from enlisting Internet-originating content for adaptation. But is Rhett and Link hopping to IFC and Lisa Kudrow moving Web Therapy to Showtime good or bad for web series? Read more »
This week YouTube revealed an experimental facelift for video and channel pages, dubbed Cosmic Panda and now open to the public. The site is actively seeking feedback from users, especially YouTube partners — so what do folks like the Fine Brothers and Ask a Ninja think? Read more »
The acclaimed British series Misfits couldn’t find a home on American networks. But that didn’t stop Hulu, which will be airing not just the first two seasons of the cult hit this summer, but the third season this fall when it premieres on British television. Read more »
As YouTube’s self-made stars have grown in popularity, a number of companies have been founded to maximize their online influence across multiple platforms. Here’s an overview of those working behind-the-scenes on big deals for Ryan Higa, Annoying Orange, ShayCarl and Mystery Guitar Man. Read more »
In what might be a first in the digital space, Break Media has signed web actress/writer/producer Taryn Southern to an overall first-look deal, and will work to not just strengthen her brand, but push it out on other platforms beyond the web. Read more »
What do you do when you release a single from a posthumous album? To promote the new release “Behind the Mask,” Sony Music and Radical Media turned to Michael Jackson’s fans — literally — for an epic crowdsourced music video featuring contributions from 103 countries. Read more »
In the web series world, creators often rely on brands to get their content funded. But why do brands sign up for these series? And how do they measure their return on investment? We set out to find out. Read more »
Social video sharing and discovery site VHX.tv is preparing to open up for public beta this Tuesday, after launching for private beta in early April. And with an eye-catching design and plenty of fun features, it might be the ultimate “what should I watch?” solution. Read more »
The upcoming Paramount flick Super 8 is meant to be an homage to Steven Spielberg’s early films, but it may be contributing to the rise of another kind of nostalgia: the old Super 8 film format, which is finding new fans in the digital era. Read more »
What’s Trending, created by Disrupt Group and hosted by Shira Lazar, goes live this Tuesday with a social media-focused take on current news and pop culture events. But will the show be able to capture the spirit of the internet on a live, weekly basis? Read more »
In the web series world, success can be tough to define — for every Guild there’s the series that did help its creator land a more prominent gig, or led to a bigger deal. So what are some wins for the space? Read more »
The British government is predicting two billion people may watch the wedding of Prince William to Kate Middleton on Friday, April 29. And with YouTube and other sites hosting live streams, that could be enough to bring down networks and sites around the world. Read more »
Despite an initially slow start, the first show of the YouTube-sponsored DigiTour offered solid proof that musical talent translates from a web cam to a live venue. And if it’s successful, touring might prove to be another monetization option for these artists. Read more »
With over $7,000 raised through crowd-sourcing and three days of shooting in the coastal mountains near Malibu, two women were able to do in seven months what Warner Bros hasn’t for almost a decade: Make an ElfQuest movie. Well, okay, not a movie, exactly — a trailer. Read more »
A behind-the-scenes book detailing the production of Dr. Horrible’s Sing-A-Long Blog has just been released, a few months shy of the seminal web series’ three-year anniversary. But looking back at the last few years, what did Joss Whedon’s “lark” really do for the web video world? Read more »
More than half the employees at web video start-up Blip.tv are active Tumblr users, which has created a public awareness of the company’s internal culture. It’s a unique example of how corporate communications can incorporate social media, but would it work for any ol’ start-up? Read more »
This spring, there will be a new edition of the Mortal Kombat video game and an accompanying web series directed by Kevin Tancharoen. Kombat‘s adaptation into a web series, though, is less a story of corporate synergy and more a tale of happenstance. Read more »
SXSW Interactive is a conference made for the iPad 2, but the timing of its release presented a huge problem for attendees who also wanted the updated tablet. Apple’s solution? A hastily-assembled pop-up store in downtown Austin, where I waited for hours for the ultimate prize. Read more »
Writer/director Sebastian Gutierrez’s newest film has a very clear distribution strategy: Available for free on YouTube, with commercial interruptions by sponsor Lexus. Is the Carla Gugino-starring Girl Walks Into a Bar just an experiment in web distribution — or the potential future of independent film? Read more »
Once a punchline to jokes about bad web design, the animated GIF has made a comeback. From TV recaps to Funny or Die, the once-obsolete image format has become a vital way of sharing moments online, escaping the meme subculture to hit the mainstream. Read more »
The ceremony for the 83rd annual Academy Awards is only officially being broadcast on ABC, but online there are plenty of options for getting a taste of the fun, including live-streamed red carpet coverage and premium apps for iOS devices that take you backstage. Read more »
Music subscription service Rdio, which exited beta last summer, has added a new platform for its on demand cloud-based library: the Roku. This adds Rdio to the list of streaming services discovering the unexpected popularity of music channels on the set-top box. Read more »
ABC and the Academy are going all out with a two-screen video experience for this year’s Oscars to accompany the telecast. But they’re also charging for it — a concept which runs counterintuitive to the reason for creating the two-screen experience in the first place. Read more »
Today on the Internet: YouTube wants to play ball — basketball and hockey, to be precise, Blockbuster has set its sale price at $290 million, and Al Jazeera English is now in talks to join US cable networks. Read more »
The TV series Firefly has already been brought back from the dead once — could it happen again? A new round of speculation kicked off by an offhand comment by Firefly star Nathan Fillion has fans buzzing — but what everyone’s forgetting is who owns the rights. Read more »
CBS and Netflix announced a deal that will bring “dozens” of CBS shows to Netflix streaming subscribers. The deal maintains CBS’s status as the only major broadcast network to keep its content off Hulu, and gives Netflix subscribers access to shows previously unavailable online. Read more »
8 Dates, directed by Matt Koval, is a sweet-natured, amusing series about a young woman attempting to conquer the dating world. It’s also a great example of YouTube interactivity, the value of soliciting guest stars and working to minimize the brand’s involvement in branded content. Read more »
Last night, representatives from The Fine Bros., Reckless Tortuga and Next New Networks (not to mention George Strompolos) dropped a whole lot of knowledge valuable to aspiring YouTube stars, including the importance of building a brand and the most effective ways to promote content. Read more »
AOL has grown its video business through acquisitions and in-house production — and seen that hard work pay off in traffic. AOL Video is now number five in unique viewers and number seven in videos viewed, in large part, because AOL has come to embrace third-party content. Read more »
A filing with the SEC today indicates Next New Networks is on its way to being bought out by Google any day now — a deal that makes a lot more sense, thanks to reports that YouTube is looking to enlist name-brand celebrities for original content. Read more »
What does the TV consumer of the future look like? What is TV becoming? The evolution of the format, technology and content was at the heart of today’s discussion at the 2011 TV Summit, with the ultimate conclusion being that TV isn’t really TV anymore. Read more »
Is your Roku just a box that streams Netflix? Well, it can do a whole lot more. In this week’s episode of Cord Cutters, Janko shows you how you can watch YouTube, enjoy locally-hosted videos and stream from your PC to the box itself. Read more »
Statistics presented by Nielsen tday suggest that fluctuations in cable subscription numbers are due not to cord-cutting, but “cord-swapping,” with consumers switching between different services. However, that still doesn’t explain the rise of broadband-only households among the under-25 set, who are embracing cable-free life. Read more »
The original Keyboard Cat video was filmed in 1984. Its star died in 2000. But the legacy of Keyboard Cat lives on, thanks to creator Charlie Schmidt, who has taken the brand and, with some inspiration from Banksy, found a meeting place between art and commerce. Read more »
The iconic web series is set for a fifth season, thanks to the return of regular sponsors Microsoft and Sprint. But what’s in store for Felicia Day and her fellow gamers? Will there be another music video? And will this be the last season? Read more »
