Lizzie Bennet, a reinterpretation of Pride and Prejudice created by Hank Green and Bernie Su, updates Jane Austen’s often-adapted classic novel for the social media age: The series, which began as a vlog created by Lizzie (Ashley Clements), modern-day grad student, now spans across at least three YouTube channels and multiple Twitter, Tumblr and Facebook accounts.

Since April 2012, Lizzie has been uploading video diaries about her mother’s obsession with marital status, her sister Jane’s romantic drama, and William Darcy, the snobby friend of Jane’s crush. The vlog approach has kept Darcy literally out of the frame until this Thursday, when he (Daniel Gordh, whose casting had been kept secret) burst into Lizzie’s office to admit that his “heart has overwhelmed his judgment.”

The episode, “Are you Kidding Me?”, recreated one of Pride and Prejudice‘s most memorable scenes (Darcy’s surprise proposal) and racked up over 100,000 views in its first 24 hours online; its release was surrounded by hundreds of #darcyday Tweets and Tumblr posts from the show’s primarily young female audience, who had “all the feels”:

I have never been this exited about a video before in my life #DarcyDay

— That french girl. ∆ (@Perriiineee) November 1, 2012

I just keep rewatching #darcyday. @hankgreen and @realkgreen picked the perfect Darcy.

— Kat High (@zoeythekat91) November 3, 2012

@elizabethdz Is it possible to have a #DarcyDay hangover? Is that a thing? Like I was drunk on my emotions, and now I’m not anymore … ?

— Elly (@elissacameron) November 3, 2012

It was this level of fan engagement that not only made #darcyday a landmark one for the series, but helped it recently secure a deal with DECA for infrastructure and financial support.

“This is something that doesn’t come around that often — it’s high-quality, it’s of the platform, it’s scalable. We just pursued them until they did a deal,” DECA CEO Michael Wayne said via phone. DECA is now a co-owner of the series — as well as future adaptations using the same format. (Jane Austen wrote more than one book, you know.)

“They’re able to take over responsibilities like payroll — we can now focus on the actual show,” Su said via phone.

“What they do is very much in line with what we do — they’re very excited by content that’s made for and watched by women,” Green added. Green, Su and the writing staff retain 100 percent creative control over the show.

Lizzie Bennet‘s roots were relatively humble: Green, one half of the the popular Vlogbrothers team, got the inspiration for the series from his wife, a devout Pride and Prejudice fan who exposed her husband to the multitude of previous adaptations. “I had the idea that it would be cool to convert a piece that was in the public domain into a video blog, but it was just an idea. I didn’t have any way to execute it. I’m a very different kind of content creator,” Green said.

Su, however, had previous experience creating narrative content, including the award-winning series Compulsions. So when Green and Su met for the first time, Green mentioned the idea, and Su became interested — the two of them spent a year developing the concept before the first episode finally made it onto YouTube.

Initial production on Lizzie Bennet was funded out of pocket by Green: A few months into the series’ run, the show got to the point where the ad revenue from one month would pay for the next month of production, but according to Green, his initial investment was not recouped until they signed with DECA.

That investment has paid off: “Are you Kidding Me!” is (as of writing) at almost 200,000 views, but more importantly at almost 6,000 comments; Green said that episodes of the series get more comments than the Vlogbrothers did.

The show’s extensive transmedia components, covering characters and action happening off screen (Darcy has been tweeting off-screen for months), deserves a large portion of the credit for this engagement. “You don’t need to watch every episode or follow all the Twitters, but it adds to the experience. And it creates evangelistic fans, which is fantastic,” Green said.

In addition, the entire cast and crew uses social media to interact with fans, with Su and Green actively discussing the making of the show as it goes, going so far as to calm panicked fans and reblog fan fiction featuring them. “There’s always a fear that [the behind-the-scenes content] will kill the magic — but that’s like saying a rainbow is less beautiful because you understand refraction,” Green said.

The result is packed VidCon panels, over 100,000 YouTube subscribers, and nearly 10 million total views on the main Lizzie Bennet channel.

Socially Awkward Darcy is now a meme. (Via @missnoriginal on Twitter.)

I’ll be completely honest — the last narrative web series I saw build anything close to this intense a fanbase was The Guild. Lizzie Bennet fans are rewatching, reblogging, GIF-making, meme-generating superfans — the show has a hold on its fans on a level rare not just for a web series, but for media of any kind.

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DECA has had lots of success developing video properties like CoolMom and Good Bite. And so, the company is now bringing on partners to allow them to not just publish video into the broader Her Channel network, but also to create an opportunity for text publishers to leverage third-party videos on their sites and attain incremental video ad revenues.

Like AOL’s 5min and other online video syndication networks, Her Channel provides a platform to match up video creators and web publishers, all the while serving high-value video ads. Participating publishers can leverage the network with a Her Channel-branded media bar that runs across the top of the site, an interactive channel widget, embeddable video players that can be added to their sites and through customized partner pages that are hosted on HerChannel.com.

While DECA is trying to attract individual web publishers to be a part of its syndication network, Her Channel has also partnered with women’s blog network BlogHer, which gives it a potential reach of more than 35 million users. Already, after just a few months in existence, Her Channel has attracted more than 3.5 million unique viewers a month in March. Perhaps more importantly, the network amassed 17.5 million video views in that time.

But the key to making it all work is ensuring that the network can get high-value video ads against its videos. DECA CEO Michael Wayne said the network keeps the CPMs high, with a $20 CPM on the low end for a run-of-network ad campaign. The ad revenue is then split evenly between the video creator, the website publisher and DECA for providing the platform.

For DECA, the focus on women is tantamount to growing its business, especially after a few failed attempts at capturing new audiences. The company tried to appeal to young male audiences with investments in Smosh and projects like BushLeague.tv. But those investments have failed to pan out: Bush League was shut down about a year after launch and Smosh, while still around (and immensely popular) doesn’t really fit into DECA’s broader video ecosystem.

While the company is now focused almost entirely on the female audience (and plans to continue to do so), Wayne acknowledged that there’s an opportunity to bring in content that appeals to a wider group of people. Most of DECA’s — and Her Channel’s — content is built for women and young moms in their mid-to-late 20s and early 30s, but Wayne sees an opportunity to go beyond that by adding more fashion, style and even perhaps some entertainment content.

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Julia Allison, Meghan Asha and Mary Ramblin. Photo from the TMI Weekly blog.

It’s a quiet afternoon when my phone rings with an unknown number. I don’t get a lot of phone calls from unknown numbers, especially from people who have been the focus of both the New York Times and fierce reblogging sites, so it’s a bit surprising to discover that Julia Allison is on the line.

Allison was calling me because about half an hour earlier, I had emailed her about TMI Weekly, the show she co-hosted and produced for Next New Networks starting in the fall of 2008 — and I had used the word “cancellation” in doing so. So, before getting down to my real questions about the current state of the show, whose one-year contract was not renewed due to a mutual decision between the TMI team and NNN, we went back and forth briefly over whether or not the word is applicable.

The debate over using “the C word” didn’t surprise me. It’s not a pretty word, cancellation, so it’s not surprising that we tend to avoid it. In fact, as a community in general, we talk a lot more about the shows that are beginning than we do about the shows that are about to end. Which makes sense — for one thing, a lot of shows (especially scripted ones) have limited resources, and season finales are all-too-often series finales. For another, many creators and companies who are in the business of creating ongoing brands are still figuring out what this medium is capable of, and are constantly reinventing themselves and their projects.

Ryan Vance, Vice President of Programming and Production of Revision3, doesn’t like the word cancellation. “We don’t use it,” he said via phone, “though I’m not sure why.” He tries to exercise patience with the network’s programming, though a decision to end a show depends on how many resources it uses. “The more money you’re spending, the more pressure there is to do well right away.” According to him, however, most shows have a slow and steady rise, and so low-cost programming has a better chance of finding its audience.

One interesting element of Rev3′s philosophy is that even after they end production on a show, they keep those produced episodes online — in part because there’s an audience for the content, and also because they’re able to sell advertising on it. “It’s not a ton of money — our bread and butter is integrated advertising — but if someone wants to watch it, we can make a little money from it,” Vance said.

DECA CEO Michael Wayne, meanwhile, takes a different approach, as DECA removes its shows from the Internet following their cancellation. The reason for that, though, is the same reason they also don’t use the word “cancel”: for DECA, according to Wayne, a show isn’t just a show — it’s a brand and a standalone business.

So in considering whether or not to continue making a show like the now-defunct Bush League TV, “We look at it as: ‘Is this business heading into profitability or not?’” If it isn’t, they shut it down. “When you shut down a brand and you don’t take it offline, it can look bad, and that inevitably doesn’t reflect well on the company,” he said.

Of course, DECA’s focus has also changed dramatically over the last few years, as they’ve started almost exclusively targeting women over 25 with shows like Momversation and Good Bite, which partner nicely with brands. They only got to that place, though, after experiments like Bush League. “At the end of the day, you have to take risks, and you’re never going to be successful 100 percent of the time,” Wayne said.

For NNN, the philosophy is that “You put it up there, it works, you keep doing it. It doesn’t work, you don’t keep doing it,” according to VP of Programming Kathleen Grace. (Next New, like Rev3, keeps now-concluded series online as well.) But their philosophy also makes room for strong talent relationships. Just one recent example: Key of Awesome creator Mark Douglas created two or three other “cancelled” shows before finding success with his new parody series, and February was the best month yet for NNN’s traffic. The top video for the month was a Ke$ha parody created by him.

Meanwhile, NNN’s The Reel Good Show, featuring Jimmy Fallon nemesis Bobby Miller, ended last week — Miller, an established member of the Indy Mogul talent pool, is now promoting his short film Tub, which premiered at Sundance and will also be shown at the Slamdance Film Fest. And TMI co-host Mary Rambin, following the end of the series, is currently starring in the NNN series Life Experiment.

“When you’re a media company, you always have shows that come and go,” Next New co-founder Tim Shey remarked via phone when we initially talked about TMI‘s end back in December. “But it’s a very forgiving medium. You don’t have to think about cancellation in way TV does.” The catch of this is that these decisions are made quietly; currently there is nothing on TMIWeekly.com to indicate that the show is no longer in production, a situation not uncommon to most other shows. This has the benefit of allowing the show, on the surface, to still look active and interesting to new viewers. But I imagine that anyone who might actually have been following the show would have appreciated a farewell message of some sort.

If I were a producer of web video, I’d get two words tattooed on my body: adaptable and sustainable. So many shows have a short shelf life, but that’s no way to build and keep an audience — it’s the people who are in things for the long haul who, you know, stick around that long. However, it’s important to not be afraid of the “C word,” whether it stand for change or closure.

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Santa Monica-based Deca raised $10 million in a second round of funding, as was reported by socalTECH last week. Rustic Canyon Partners led the round, which also included previous investors Atomico, General Catalyst Partners and Mayfield Fund.

We are late to this story because we got held up tracking down a rumor that the round had come at a tiny valuation, which Deca CEO Michael Wayne flat-out denied today. Including the latest round, Deca has raised $15 million. It has just under 20 employees and seven properties, including its newest, Momversation, but not including the recently shut down Bush League.

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It’s not much of a surprise as the writing was on the wall for Bush League practically since its inception. The web is not short on programming for guys, and Bush League didn’t have any special hook that made it stand out in the crowd. (NewTeeVee contributor Steve Bryant referred to the group producing it as “charming ass-hats.”). Even Deca CEO Michael Wayne indicated that Bush League was not long for this world back in October, when he told ClickZ:

“The producers who pitched it were very talented, but the idea could have been more focused,” said Wayne. “After it launched, instead of standing out of the crowd it became one of a thousand sites targeted to young men.”

The golden age of web series has run head on into the economic realities, with a number of them getting the axe over the past year. Yahoo deep-sixed The 9, Revision3 canceled the shows Internet Superstar, Pixel Perfect and PopSiren, and CBS stopped making new episodes of Moblogic.

Are any of your favorite shows suddenly AWOL? Drop us a line and let us know.

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Apple doesn’t spell out whether the video podcast list is editorially created or based on hard numbers, but either way, new media shows are well represented on both the 2008 and Classics video podcast lists. Making the cut this year are:

2008

• Who What Wear – 60Frames
• Best of Current TV – Current
• Beginning Guitar 101 – ivideosongs.com
• ill doctrine – Jay Smooth (a Scam School – Revision3
• Howcast Food & Drink – Howcast
• Project Lore – Deca
• SuperNews – Current TV
• TPMtv – TPMtv (Talking Points Memo)

CLASSICS

• Ask A Ninja – Beatbox Giant
• Onion News Network – The Onion (which held the newcomer top spot last year)
• Wine Library TV – Wine Library TV
• Channel Frederator – NextNewNetworks
• Diggnation – Revision3
• Cool Hunting Video – coolhunting.com
• Hawaii Surf Session Report – surfsessionreport.com
• Geekbrief.TV – Cali Lewis
• Beautiful Places in HD – ON Networks
• Terra: The Nature of Our World – lifeonterra.com
• CHTV: College Humor Originals – CollegeHumor
• shralp!//snowboarding video podcast – shralp.com/snow
• Tekzilla – Revision3

Over on the oldteevee side of things, Gossip Girl Season 2 was the top-selling TV season. Joss Whedon’s uber-popular Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog (which technically isn’t a TV show) also cracked the top 10, beating out shows like House and Desperate Housewives. Of course, if NBC’s iTunes numbers are any indication, none of these shows are being downloaded in huge numbers.

TOP SELLERS: TV SEASONS

• Gossip Girl, Season 2
• Family Guy, Season 7
• South Park: Uncensored, Season 12
• Grey’s Anatomy, Season 5
• Mad Men, Season 2
• Heroes, Season 3
• The Office, Season 5
• Lost, Season 4
• Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog
• Grey’s Anatomy, Season 4

The Top Movie Downloads for 2008 on iTunes is ruled by The Dark Knight, a movie that as of now, can only be pre-ordered. Whereas you can kind of understand the popularity of certain shows on the TV side, some of the top movie downloads are a bit unexpected. Sure, WALL-E and Iron Man make sense, but Shooter? National Treasure 2: Book of Secrets? Jumper? Really?

TOP MOVIE DOWNLOADS

What, no Zoolander?

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SMOSH is Anthony Padilla and Ian Hecox, whose manic comedy videos have made the duo the third most subscribed YouTube channel, with more than 555,000 subscribers and more than 9 million streams a month.

Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed, but according to the press announcement, DECA will provide the web video stars with financing, ad sales, marketing, distribution and other business development as SMOSH tries to move beyond just being a YouTube partner into becoming a real business.

Perhaps seein’ gold in them thar Mileys and Efrons, it looks like both SMOSH and DECA are trying to build their very own web version of a Disney-like entertainment empire. In the press announcement, DECA CEO Michael Wayne highlights Padilla and Hecox’s “clean, funny content” and says he wants to build them into a “premier teen brand.” Makes sense given that SMOSH’s manager is the former president of TV animation at the Mouse House.

This is DECA’s third venture with high-profile web personalities. This studio is behind Boing Boing TV, and just this past summer it signed Diggnation’s Alex Albrecht (no relation) to create his new show Project Lore.

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Tell me if this premise sounds familiar. Albrecht sits around, drinking beer with his buddies talking about some nerd-friendly topic. This time instead of Digg stories (Diggnation) or movies (The Totally Rad Show), Albrecht will be talking World of Warcraft. News, glossary terms, strategy — all of it. “One of the things I found frustrating with WoW,” Albrecht said, “is that there is so much info but not really one good place to get the information.”

Episodes will typically feature Albrecht and his pals playing through an “instance” in WoW. If you don’t know what an “instance” is, you’re probably not a good candidate to watch the show (or maybe you’re the perfect candidate). But for those not looking for a new Internet addiction, an instance is a self-contained unit of the game where you battle 3 – 5 “bosses” (bad guys). Each of these bosses will be a single 3 – 5 minute episode. If the instance has five bosses, there will be five episodes that week.

The show has no official relationship with Blizzard (the makers of WoW), but will be distributed through ZAM Network, a massively multiplayer content network that reaches more than 17 million people and has signed on Falcon Northwest as a sponsor for the accompanying Project Lore site.

Unlike Albrecht’s other shows, Project Lore is not being produced through Revision3, but rather through rival new media studio Deca. Which, of course, everyone says they are fine with, and they probably are since Revision3 doesn’t want to lose one half of Diggnation and Albrecht’s high visibility will help sell Project Lore.

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“Moms don’t just eat, breathe and sh*t their kids,” Brogdon said to me in an interview. The format for the show is just Brogdon talking into the camera, making it more like a vlog than an actual “show.” Topics she’ll cover include kids books that suck, missing the work life and non-mom topics like politics. New episodes air daily.

Obviously I’m not the show’s target demographic (last time I checked, anyway), so the jokes whizz past me, but they seem funny enough for the yummy-mummy set. Brogdon’s delivery is a bit distracting, however. She has the mannerisms and vocal delivery of someone performing stand-up, but there’s no laughter, so it sounds like her bits are dying.

In the Motherhood‘s recent move from web series to TV show proves there’s a market out there to make moms laugh, but I think CoolMom will have to expand beyond just Brogdon.

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