30 Rock’s Keith Powell Goes Web

At this point, it is fair to say that there is a specific genre of webseries featuring actors with varying levels of existing exposure playing slightly modified versions of themselves.

The best of these, in my opinion, remains Mayne Street on ESPN.com, but these things tend to be pretty subjective.

This certainly isn’t a genre birthed by the web.  In fact, most of these series owe a certain creative debt to “Curb Your Enthusiasm.”  Of course, with the relatively low costs of creating a webseries, many of these stars are free to basically do whatever they want without the pressure of creating a hit.

One of the latest entries into this genre is “Keith Powell Directs a Play,” starring Toofer from 30 Rock.  A funny premise in which a (we hope) egotisically enhanced version of Keith Powell sets off to direct a regional theater production of Uncle Vanya.

Here’s episode one:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jEzVhlY6BHY&hl=en&fs=1]

Unfortunately, it looks like this series is facing a problem similar to so many attempts at episodic online content – a massive dropoff in viewership after the first episode.  In this case, on YouTube, episode one has been viewed just over 100,000 times.  Episode 2 sees that number drop to just over 10,000.

This will remain the biggest challenge facing webseries creators both large and small – how to maintain an audience after the buzz of episode one wears off.

Those who answer that challenge will be the winners.

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Little Kids Love Live Video

There is a bunch of interesting data from the latest study from Nielsen Online (as highlighted by CNet).

First off, I am sort of amazed that the youngest category is 2-11.  Yup, 2-year-olds are watching web video.  How much?

“On average, the kids watched 51 video streams from home during April, spending almost two hours on video clips. That usage outstrips the average of nearly 75 million adults who regularly view video clips at sites like ESPN.com and CNN.com. On average in April, adults of voting age watched 44 video streams, for about 1 hour and 40 minutes of their time.”

Even more compelling, or as CNet puts it…

“Slightly disturbing, the site with the highest concentration of 12- to 17-year-olds, or 44 percent of this age group, was Stickam.com, a hub for live Webcams of people in their bedrooms. Atlantic Records and Epic Records were runners-up in that category.”

A tad sensationalist perhaps as a quick look at Stickam will show that the main reason for all the bedrooms is that’s where the kids have their computers and webcams.  It is not a seething hotbed of teen sex, as the media hopes/fears.

Instead, it is an interesting step for live video – something that older generations seem to shy away from.  The ability to do easy web-video chat has been around in one form or another for a while now and I see very little evidence of its adoption by the 30+ set.

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