Long-form content, of course, has been a fixture in the online video world for some time now — Kevin Pollak’s Chat Show, just as one example, launched back in 2009. But what we’re seeing now is the spread of longer runtimes into least-suspected places — such as YouTube.

Of the shows being funded by YouTube’s made-for-web initiative, many have pushed beyond the five-minute barrier, some notable examples including Wil Wheaton’s Tabletop (on the Geek and Sundry network) and the sitcom portion of the Fine Brothers’s MyMusic.

“I think our creators always wanted to make longer content — we’re just reaching a certain point in the lifecycle of online video where people have the command over the audience and the budget to make longer video,” YouTube Next Lab director Tim Shey said via phone. “More creators are building huge audiences on YouTube, and once you build a loyal audience online, they all tend to want more.”

Actor/producer Wilson Cleveland observed this first hand with his branded series Leap Year — which is why episodes of the show’s second season, premiering June 18th on Hulu, stretch out to 20 minutes or more. “We got so many comments and Tweets last season from fans wishing episodes were longer,” he said via email.

In addition, a longer runtime gave Cleveland and collaborators Vlad and Yuri Baranovsky more creative and advertising real estate: “Creatively, Vlad, Yuri and I wanted to tell deeper stories and develop these five characters, which longer episodes allow us to do. From [sponsor] Hiscox’s perspective, longer episodes provide more opportunities to appropriately showcase the brand around the show it sponsors.”

This Week In-esque The Lip.tv, which launched in December 2011 and will soon be joining The Young Turks network, is another company taking advantage of the web video world’s increased attention span, with five shows targeting niche subjects including wine, documentaries, and the media. Past guests have included Mad Men creator Matthew Weiner, Courtney Love, Young Turks host Cenk Uygur, Bad Religion bassist Jay Bentley and actor/director Adrian Grenier.

While posting modest viewcounts for its episodes, which range from 40 to 50 minutes, “We get about 36 minutes out of most viewers, which we’re happy with,” CEO Michael Lustig said via phone. In addition, viewers who find archived episodes through search have a retention rate of 75 to 90 percent, which is why The Lip focuses on keeping its content evergreen.

“The whole argument about people being ADD is nonsense, and it’s not fair to them. We approach our audience as really smart, enlightened consumers, and they respond to that,” Lustig said.

Just because audiences are willing to watch longer content online, though, doesn’t mean that audience retention is any easier — an issue YouTube now addresses directly with the Audience Retention analytic, which breaks down peaks and drop-offs for every 10 seconds of the video. The newest edition of the YouTube Creator Handbook advises:

“Improve the format or pacing of your videos and find optimal video length by examining the graphs. Identify the parts of your videos that are most interesting to the audience (peaks), and at what points viewers fast-forward or abandon the video (drops) – these patterns will highlight needed changes to content and/or packaging.”

“It’s the ones who work the hardest to understand their audience who are the most successful,” Shey said.

Cleveland isn’t too concerned about Leap Year‘s ability to hold its audience, largely because of its primary hosting platform: “The Hulu audience is accustomed to watching longer videos and if they weren’t our primary partner, we may have thought twice about going longer.”

However, Leap Year will be using the YouTube annotation feature to “chapter” episodes posted there, allowing users to skip around within the video. I previewed the first episode on YouTube, and found that I was able to use the annotations to do things like skip past the show’s opening credit sequence and go back to previous chapters — as if I were watching the show on DVD.

The obvious truth about web content stretching in length is that services like Hulu and Netflix have conditioned viewers to watch for longer, using whatever device happens to be handy. “People are increasingly comfortable with iPads and iPhones to watch longer-form content — when you find something you love, it doesn’t matter how long it is,” Shey said.

“What’s encouraging to me is that the platforms are becoming networks funding their own original series,” Cleveland added (such as Netflix’s Lilyhammer or Hulu’s Battleground). “These series are on-par with the broadcast and cable fare audiences have already been comfortably consuming on these same platforms for years. THAT’s the marriage of TV and digital programming realized.”

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Which is why I spent a day talking with some people who have been involved in the business of online video since its earliest days about whether or not it’s time to retire the phrase and come up with something that better captures the medium. I expected to write an obituary for the “web series.” Instead, I came to the conclusion that it’s here to stay, at least for the time being.

A big reason for that, according to Blip.tv VP of Content Steve Woolf, is that it’s the one term that people recognize. When Blip.tv relaunched the site last May, they settled on the tagline “discover the best in original web series,” but Woolf, who produced the long running series Epic Fu prior to joining Blip, wasn’t for it at first. “I didn’t like term web series — I never have. Coming to it as a producer, it always felt like we were saying this was the minor leagues,” Woolf said in a phone interview.

But when Blip tested a number of terms with focus groups, “nothing resonated with the public like web series did. People didn’t warm to it, but they knew what it was — there was instant recognition. The public needs to have some sort of term to attach to this stuff so they understand what it is.”

That’s not necessarily a good thing, according to producer Wilson Cleveland, who shared this via email:

When the Leap Year trailer was first released on Hulu last summer, I asked my 64 years-young mother to email the link to 10 of her friends of similar age and introduce it simply as “a new series Wilson’s working on.” All 10 watched and responded with various comments. Then I asked her to send the exact same link to 10 other friends of similar age, but to call it a “web series.” This time, four people claimed “the link doesn’t work;” two said the “video won’t play;” one asked “what channel is this on?;” one asked “How do I find this so I know when to watch?” Only two out of the second 10 watched the trailer without any questions or issues. Not exactly a scientific study but it made me wonder if placing the word “web” in front of “series” or “show,” could be hurting the cause at raising the broader awareness we need to grow.

Black Box TV producer Tony Valenzuela doesn’t call his show a web series — instead, he calls it an “online series.” “Online series speaks to me more — ‘web series’ could be anything. Phil DeFranco is a web series to me,” he said via phone.

But Tim Shey, who co-founded Next New Networks and, following its YouTube acquisition, became director of YouTube Next Lab, still actively uses “web series,” because it differentiates web content from television. While all entertainment might be heading towards convergence, that’s still a bit far away, and in the meantime web content is still very different from broadcast.

The differences between web and television are numerous. Just as one small example: Currently, television is still being made with the assumption that it’ll be primarily watched on large screens; producers aren’t necessarily thinking about production on a cross-platform level. Web producers can’t get away with that. One thing Valenzuela pointed out is that he realized that the on-screen text of Black Box TV episodes couldn’t be too small, because people watching on phones wouldn’t be able to read it.

Really, when you think about it, it’s hardly a surprise that so much web original content, even scripted series like The Guild, is based around vlog-style presentation. One thing that resonates across all screen sizes is a close-up on a person’s face, and accordingly the medium has evolved around that.

One of the biggest arguments against the term “web series” is that it doesn’t account for the fact that the web is only one place people are consuming content. But if you’re watching a web series on your smartphone or your television, it’s still something that originated from the web, and carries with it that legacy. “I think the ‘web series’ concept has evolved from being a type of entertainment that was ‘platform specific’ to one that’s ‘platform agnostic,’” Cleveland said. “The evolution of digital technology has been the most significant change agent in the evolution of the ‘web series’ simply because the delivery platforms have changed.” Cleveland’s branded comedy Leap Year, for example, was distributed via Hulu Plus, and was thus watchable across all platforms, including television.

The big differences between web content and television are in the production values, though that gap is closing with each passing year; the subject matter, which leans more toward niche audiences; the emphasis on audience engagement; and the genres that have been successful.

Valenzuela believes that a subtle AMC drama like Mad Men or The Walking Dead just won’t play online, as too much of the action is too subtle to hold fractured attention spans. “Cerebral dramas online have a really hard time getting an audience,” he said. The best dramas are lean-back experiences, and shows that originate on the web will always struggle with that limitation.

Woolf observed that while so much viewing of broadcast content is occurring online, “When you’re going to Netflix to watch a show, you probably intend to go full screen and invest in that show. It’s still a different experience than going to Blip and searching through shows there — you might have chat going, you might have email going. But when distribution to television is easier for web series, scripted dramas will have an easier time.”

In the meantime, as Shey pointed out, “Serialized storytelling is not an underserved audience — there are so many places you can go for that. The web serves audiences that aren’t served by traditional media.”

What’s working against the term “web series,” in the long term, is audience perception, but that’s set to change as the term becomes less about what web content isn’t and more about celebrating what makes it great — the interactivity, the originality.

“It’s really too early a medium and art form to know what we should call it,” Shey said. “‘Web series’ is really just a point of origin. But the answer is not going to come from top down. Ultimately, it’s going to come from the audience.”

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It’s not hard to see how creators benefit from this relationship, as partnering with a brand means a reliable source of cash to put a project into production; it’s not a gamble like many independent productions can be. But I’ve often wondered why brands sign up for these series — and, specifically, how those brands measure their return on investment. Can you put a price on word-of-mouth? Turns out the answer is yes.

Wilson Cleveland of CJP Digital has made a name for himself as a producer of branded content; his first show, The Temp Life, is heralded as one of the first-ever branded web series, and since then he’s produced shows for brands including Trident, the Better Sleep Council and Spherion.

And in working with brands, he’s created a formula by which the actual monetary value of a branded web series can be measured for the brand. “We’re in a position to calculate a different kind of ROI than ad plays and impressions,” Cleveland said via phone. The basic purpose is to evaluate things from an earned media perspective.

For example, Cleveland has a new web series, Leap Year, premiering this Tuesday Monday on Hulu. The show, produced with Attention Span Media and Yuri Baranovsky’s Happy Little Guillotine Films, depicts a contest between five startups (founded by five friends), all competing for a half million dollars in funding. The show is sponsored by Hiscox Small Business Insurance, stars Baranovsky, Cleveland and The Bannen Way‘s Mark Gantt, and includes appearances by Guy Kawasaki, Gary Vaynerchuk and Mashable editor-in-chief Adam Ostrow.

I just spent a paragraph describing the show, along with an embedded version of the trailer. In doing the math for Hiscox, Cleveland would calculate the value of that mention by measuring the “column inches” I devoted to it in this piece, and then use GigaOM’s ad rates to determine how much it would have cost to actually buy an ad of comparable size on our site. A media mention in a bigger publication, like Fast Company or The Hollywood Reporter? It’d be worth more.

Other metrics that come into play include social media stats like Facebook fans. Social media strategy firm Vitrue recently developed a valuation that determined the value of one Facebook fan to be $3.60. Leap Year, as of last Friday, had 4,373 people following it on Facebook — that’s a value of $15,742.80 in marketing dollars.

In addition, every view of Leap Year will count as an advertising impression for Hiscox, as each episode begins with a full-frame “Presented By” mention for the company. (It’s also the closest Leap Year gets to in-show branding.)

This sort of measurement has evolved out of the PR world — but things work differently when a branded series is being managed by an ad agency. An ad agency, according to Cleveland, will guarantee a certain number of impressions to to a client (which may or may not include “buying” views with auto-playing ads).

But when a branded series is treated like a PR initiative, there’s more risk but potentially greater reward. Cleveland, who managed distribution and marketing for the second season of Easy to Assemble, said that through the collective efforts of the entire ETA team, Season 2 of the IKEA-branded series generated $80 million worth of publicity for the Swedish furniture company. The actual budget for the show was much, much less.

Cleveland’s methods are specific to his approach, but there’s a core element that carries through across all branded productions. For example, Scotty Iseri (of Scotty Got An Office Job fame) produced the holiday-themed web series Merry Holidays for help desk startup Zendesk.

With approximately 35,000 views, it wasn’t a smash success — but 27 percent of those who watched clicked through to the Zendesk site. In addition, they received a 48 percent uptick in unique hits and 22 percent more Facebook fans, plus press mentions on Boing Boing, Time.com and other sites that might not have otherwise covered the B2B company.

“To me it was an issue of small audience, but the right audience,” Iseri said via email.

The key for Cleveland is telling stories that are “tangentially relevant to what the client does” — which is why a series sponsored by a job placement site is about temping, and a series sponsored by a small business insurance company is about the founding of start-ups. “It’s a visual narrative illustration of whatever PR story they want to tell,” he said.

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Starring proven players like Illeana Douglas, Tony Janning and Brian Austin Green, directed by folks like The Bannen Way‘s Mark Gantt, Sandeep Parikh and Shannen Doherty, Suite 7 features an impressive array of talent involved with this project, and it pays off with a series of seven unique and intriguing episodes.

While the stories are on the surface all about a relationship between a man and woman two people, they do demonstrate some considerable range — from a couple coming to terms with divorce to newlyweds fighting over a found fortune to a starlet abducted by an aspiring screenwriter. And each allows the talent represented to flex their skills: For example, the episode Soulmates, written and starring Douglas, has her signature self-effacing charm, but it’s nice to see her stretch beyond her Easy to Assemble persona and create a new character.

For Richer or Poorer, written by Parikh and Janning and directed by Parikh, is by far one of the stand-out entries, thanks to the high energy direction and hilarious performances by Janning and Tara Perry. It’s also slightly shorter than the others, which do suffer from feeling a bit overlong. There’s a theatrical feel to the bulk of the series, which is one way of saying that the plotting feels a little slight at times, with many episodes representing nice illustrations of scene work as opposed to engaging storytelling.

This focus on character over plot does enable some great moments of acting, though — Doherty is extremely compelling as a newly single woman in the upcoming installment Company, directed by Mark Gantt, and in another episode made available for review, Brian Austin Green is actually really funny, playing a role that straddles his awkward teenage roots on 90210 and his tougher persona on Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles.

According to executive producer Wilson Cleveland, the first four episodes of Suite 7 has received 200,000 views since December 17th, and it’s now available on Hulu and YouTube, with more distribution to come. And the intrusion of the Better Sleep Council branding is minimal — the only element being that most of the episodes involve characters wanting to get a good night’s sleep. Subliminal messaging in high quality content: Possibly one of the better strategies out there for a branded series.

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The seven installments of Suite 7 includes, in alphabetical order, the following cast:

• Craig Bierko (Damages)
• Wilson Cleveland (The Temp Life)
• Henry Dittman (Greek)
• Shannen Doherty (Beverly Hills 90210)
• Illeana Douglas (Easy to Assemble)
• Brian Austin Green (Beverly Hills 90210)
• Marc Hustvedt (co-founder of Tubefilter)
• Tony Janning (Legend of Neil)
• Eddie McClintock (Warehouse 13)
• Brandon Molale (Reno 911!)
• Jaime Murray (Dexter)
• George Newbern (Nip/Tuck)
• Tara Perry (The Legend of Neil)
• Milo Ventimiglia (Heroes)

Doherty, Mark Gantt, Michael Kang, Paul Lindsay, Sandeep Parikh and Ventimiglia have pulled directing duties on episodes penned by Yuri Baranovsky, Bierko, Cleveland, Russ Cundiff and Dino DeMillo, Douglas, Janning and Parikh as well as Susan Miller.

Each of the seven episodes tells an individual story set inside the same hotel suite; according to the press release, the Better Sleep Council is hoping the series will spread a positive message about “the benefits of a good night’s sleep.” It’s kind of like the 1995 film Four Rooms, in which Quentin Tarantino, Robert Rodriguez, Allison Anders and Alexandre Rockwell made individual shorts set in a hotel, except with high-profile web series talent (and without Tim Roth creeping up the joint).

Most of those involved have a previous relationship with CJP Digital, which produces branded series The Temp Life and brought together an equally large cast for The Webventures of Alden and Justin.

“When it came time to cast Suite 7, we wanted to give these actors, who have been so great to CJP and our clients, a broader creative opportunity,” Cleveland (who, aside from acting and writing duties, also serves as executive producer) said via email. “So when we initially contacted people, we led with the opportunity to write and/or direct an episode for them to appear in.”

And for Cleveland, the project brought personal rewards: “Shannen [Doherty] directed the episode I wrote and suggested Brian Austin Green. The idea of bringing those two together on a project for the first time since 90210 was a total fan-gasm for me. I was a bit of a 90210 fan, and they had a blast working together again. Brian is so ridiculously funny in this and Shannen is a truly brilliant director.”

Suite 7 will premiere Dec. 17, following the release of an introduction on Dec. 10. Subsequent episodes will debut weekly on Fridays.

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1. What’s the one big issue/law/attitude/restriction that you think is holding back the industry?

Discoverability. Right or wrong, if the industry is going to move forward, we need to goose demand among the masses, that 92 percent already watching some form of web video on Hulu, YouTube, news sites or wherever, that may have never even heard of a web series. I’m not suggesting we change what works on the web by watering down our shows old media-style but the reality is there are millions of future web series fans out there who fall within every niche who just don’t know what they’re missing.

The more the web video industry can be appropriately associated with what the general public is familiar with — namely film and television — while maintaining the medium’s unique value proposition, the more original web series will be discovered as a result of that association.

2. What industry buzzword do you never want to hear again?

I could live without hearing the term “viral video” ever again. What’s more annoying than hearing the term itself a good four years past its relevance, is this notion perpetuated by marketing execs who should know better that these one-off phenoms can somehow be manufactured for their benefit. If you still think you can orchestrate a video to “go viral,” there’s a great deal on a gently-used island in Second Life you might be interested in.

3. If someone gave you 50 million to invest in a company in this space, which one would it be? (Mentioning your own doesn’t count.)

Clicker, because I think they are in the best position to become ground zero for the general public to discover original web series. It’s what the YouTube Shows directory should have been. Since Clicker is an independent aggregator of all online programming including television, film and web originals, chances are anyone who goes there to find an episode of The Office can also discover The Temp Life or Jake & Amir or Squatters. Clicker features web series on their homepage right alongside TV fare, which only helps improve the awareness and discoverability I was talking about earlier. They’re furthering the notion that one day it won’t matter which medium your programming is produced for because there’s an audience for everything and a good show is a good show. I get asked “so, what’s a web series?” at least once a week and I always school them with a quick click over to the Web Originals section of Clicker.

4. What was the last video (that you weren’t personally involved with) that you liked enough to spread to others?

The Auto-Tune The Guild Season 3 recap was brilliant. The Guild and Auto-Tune the News are two of my favorite shows and I’m a sucker for a good cross-over.

5. WILD-CARD: After having been involved with three different branded content series, what would you say is the trickiest part of working with a brand partner? And how do you make sure that your “branded content” isn’t really just an overlong commercial for a product?

One of the reasons brands partner with CJP is because we are part of a marketing communications firm and take a different approach to branded entertainment than a pure-play ad or media agency might. Our clients know going in that we create/produce/promote these shows as an extension of social media communications to engage their intended audiences as opposed to replicating their TV ads on the web.

I think in general, one of the more challenging aspects of working with a brand partner is getting them to trust your expertise in a field that is new to them with as much trust as you’re putting in their expertise about their business. Marketing executives are not experienced producers and vice versa. They’re not as familiar with how certain aspects of the entertainment industry work. Presumably that’s one of the reasons they hired you.

As a producer, you need to be really candid from the beginning. Chances are, this is the brand’s first web series you’re producing, so you sometimes need to remind them they are spending money to create their own media property to tell their own story. Over-using the actual on screen isn’t necessary. There is a reason people fast-forward through ads on their DVR: because they can. The sponsor is certainly aware of this, which is likely at least one reason they are investing in creating an entire web show in the first place, but sometimes they need to be reminded. Online we’ll patiently sit through a 15 second pre-roll on Hulu because we know at the other end we’ll be rewarded with that episode of Glee or The Real Housewives (don’t judge me) we hate ourselves for missing. With brand-sponsored web shows, if the “reward” is the ad, you’ve just lost your audience.

It is incumbent upon creators and producers to have these conversations early or throughout if necessary. Because if a sponsored series is poorly received for being contrived in an overly-branded kinda way, guess who loses? We do [as a community], because it’s easier for marketing executives to chock the fail up to web video itself being an imperfect or ineffective medium for brands. We can’t afford for that to happen, folks, and you don’t need me to tell you why.

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Sponsored by Trident Layers gum, Webventures stars Justin Tyler and Alden Ford as two hapless dudes hoping to get Felicia Day to star in their web series, assuming that will be the key to Internet fame and fortune. The five episodes ruthlessly parody major web series like The Guild and The Bannen Way, but do so with the guidance of some of the best comedic talent in web content today, thanks to direction by The Guild‘s Sean Becker and writing by Legend of Neil‘s Tony Janning and Sandeep Parikh. An almost countless number of web video stars appear over the course of the often very, very funny series, making it “the most epic Love Boat episode ever!”, as producer Wilson Cleveland said in an interview today with Pink Raygun.

Just one problem: The entire series was constructed around the Streamy Awards, with major plot points actually filmed at the event (including an onstage interruption captured during the live broadcast). The decision to do this, however, was made without realizing how badly things might go at the actual show. So I asked Cleveland a few questions via email about the architecture of the series and how Trident reacted to the execution of the awards (including the truth behind the rumors that Trident tried to get its sponsorship money back afterwards). An edited version of our conversation follows.

NewTeeVee: Were you worried, given how poorly received the Streamys were, that Webventures would be rejected by the web series community?

Cleveland: Not at all. In fact, we had the complete opposite reaction. In the days that followed, I was flooded with emails, DMs and Facebook messages from the community (including all five Streamys producers, I should add), saying they would do whatever they could to promote the series and support Trident. These are very smart people who know the web video community can’t afford to damage its perception of value (because it remains a “perception” by most brands, though it’s getting better), or appear unworthy of investment to advertisers — given that is where the majority of the sponsorship/funding is currently coming from. If you look through the comments for the fourth episode, where we reveal the onstage stunt with Justin, Alden and Felicia as part of the Webventures narrative, a lot of people commented that Webventures, in retrospect, ended up being the best part of the Streamys.

NewTeeVee: In the immediate aftermath of the awards, there were multiple rumors that sponsors wanted their money back — producer/host Jace Hall specifically called out Trident as one of them. Did Trident want to pull out of the project? And why did they ultimately not do so?

Cleveland: I have no doubt Jace overheard something to that effect. I think in the immediate aftermath anyone, whether it was a sponsor, nominee or attendee who had paid to be a part of that night, wanted their money back…with interest.

The truth is, like any major brand would in that situation, Trident had to review its options about moving forward, considering unlike many other sponsors, their affiliation with the Streamys was technically only the beginning of a much broader project that was literally tethered to the events that took place during the award show itself. Here was a brand that had spent the five days leading up to the Streamys funding a web series about two guys on a road trip…to the Streamys.

I give Trident an enormous amount of credit in deciding to move forward with Webventures. A lot of factors went into that decision, but the brand ultimately decided it would be unfair to judge the value of an entire community based on what they’d seen that night. That’s another reason I believe why the community has been so supportive of Webventures; it was like being given another chance to reinforce the value of what we’re all ultimately trying to do here.

I should also note that the Streamys producers apologized to the brand representatives immediately after the show and soon thereafter collectively delivered a plan designed to recoup a major portion of the brand’s initial sponsorship investment, which was much appreciated. Not a lot of people know that.

NewTeeVee: Can you clarify that?

Cleveland: The inappropriate content prevented Trident from leveraging certain components of the sponsorship package we’d negotiated prior to the event (in particular, we had the brand name and logo removed from on-camera segments [of the Streamys footage available online] that had inappropriate content…which was most of it). The Streamys producers came back with an equivalent dollar amount to cover those components and reallocated it for things like ads on the Tubefilter homepage, signage at meetups, etc. [For those unaware, Tubefilter's principles are also the producers of the Streamy Awards.]

NewTeeVee: Should the opportunity to create a web series around next year’s Streamys (or some other awards event) arise, would you do it? And what might you do differently?

Cleveland: I would absolutely do it. What I would do differently? I’d probably ask to see a final script as part of the contract, just so there were no surprises. I don’t think anyone could have foreseen what ended up happening in terms of the content, at least not to that extent, but If the series were tied into the content of the live show and dependent on the particulars of the brand/story, I’d make sure the host would be held as accountable as the producers in case he/she went too far off-book.

According to Cleveland, the series has received “one million unpaid/organic views” in just one month — which may in fact make it one of the few major success stories to come from this year’s Streamys after all.

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