What Are Your Thoughts About How the Internet is Creating New Media Options?

[pameladlloyd]

Today on LinkedIn, Ralph Lagnado, who identifies himself as a "Senior Planner, International Digital Media at Woo Agency," posted the following question:

Are we resurrecting online the branded entertainment methods of the early television industry?

We've all seen great examples of that.

Take that Youtube phenomenon Fred. With nearly 250,000 subscribers, Fred's YouTube channel is the fourth most subscribed in the site's history. One of his most successful videos "Fred on Valentine's Day" is a piece of entertainment that perfectly aligns with brand ZipIt, an instant messaging product.

I had the temerity to post the following answer:

There's a lot of creative activity online these days. Some of it is created by amateurs such as the YouTube series, Fred, that you mention, or by apparent amateurs such as “Where the H*ll is Matt?”, in which a young man has received sponsorship for a YouTube series that features him dancing in various locations around the world. But, I’ve also recently encountered experiments by professional writers who’ve banded together to create series of stories that corresponds to a TV serial (Shadow Unit) and “Dr. Horrible’s Sing Along Blog,” a video production created by Joss Whedon, along with numerous others. The Shadow Unit production includes “extras” that use multiple Internet resources to create an imaginary world bigger than the stories themselves, with a Wiki about the “show,” a forum, and LiveJournal pages for some of the characters which extends the imaginary world of the show into a “real-world” contemporary space. Alternatively, the Dr. Horrible production has an online comic book on Dark Horse Comics and multiple social networking sites (MySpace, FaceBook, Twitter, and Digg) and is being spread by “word of blog” on LiveJournal (and possibly other blogging sites).

Much of this recent creative activity wouldn’t have been possible even a few years ago and is a result of the greater bandwidth and improved Internet technologies now available. But, I’m not sure the best comparison is really early television. In many ways, this suggests to me the explosion of pulp fiction of the 1930s and 40s, or the early silent film industry; both of which were widely diverse and experimental approaches to our changing world.

I also included the following related links:
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=zlfKdbWwruY (for "Where in the Hell is Matt?")
http://shadowunit.org/index.html
http://www.drhorrible.com/

If you're on LinkedIn, you can see my answer, along with the answers of any others.

I'd be interested to know what you think about all this.

Comments

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

This is a cool thing--completely at random, the song I was listening to when I came to read your entry was Praan. So you writing your entry and I reading your entry had the same musical experience.

I saw the first episode of Dr. Horrible today. Am I right in understanding it's only like three or four episodes long in total? My daughter broke to me the bad news of the final episode--not sure how I feel about that, but I really enjoyed the first episode.

The Internet still feels like a big adventure to me--worth the dangers for the fun.

[pdlloyd.livejournal.com]

This is a cool thing--completely at random, the song I was listening to when I came to read your entry was Praan. So you writing your entry and I reading your entry had the same musical experience.

Yes, that is really cool. It's not a song I'm likely to have found without the Matt video, either. *g*

Yes, there are only three Dr. Horrible videos and I've seen them all, now. I've got mixed feelings. I loved the first two acts, but I'm not thrilled with specific elements of the third. Not wanting to provide a spoiler for people who haven't finished out the set, I don't want to be too specific, but to echo a comment I saw on a blog (sorry, I don't have a link) this wasn't necessary.

I'm not sure, now that I've seen the whole thing, whether I'll ever buy the DVD. If the third had not had the bad news you refer to, I certainly would have wanted it. One of my writing instructors, or maybe a writing workshop leader, referred to the contract between the writer and the audience for a story. The type of story and how its presented, along with other factors I'm not remembering clearly enough to express, create an expectation which, if not met, results in a breaking of the contract. I feel that Joss Whedon missed the ball on this. The production starts as a not-all-that-dark comedy, which is not how it ends.

I think I still want the music, though. I loved the score.

The Internet still feels like a big adventure to me--worth the dangers for the fun.

Yes. It helps, too, that many of the dangers (spyware, viruses, etc.) can be dealt with. As for the dangers of disappointed expectations, well, life's full of those, there are never any guarantees.