While it certainly helps that the very successful webseries “Dr. Horrible’s Sing-A-Long Blog” featured a name cast and was created by the much loved (especially by the net-saavy) Joss Whedon, there is a lot for all of us to learn about how to monetize web video.
The secret for Dr. Horrible lies in the use of release windows much like the movie studios have employed for decades.
First, the episodes were available for free streaming online, but only for a limited time.
Next, you were able to pay to download the episodes at iTunes for a small fee. The fee was fair because now you had a version that could travel with you.
Now, Joss and company are releasing a jam-packed DVD with all sorts of value-added extras for even more money.
I’m sure there is a TV license window yet to be exploited as well.
Oh, there’s a soundtrack available, too.
Not only was Whedon able to get enormous amounts of free press and fan favor from the free release but he has understood how to build on that base to actually come out with some cash in his pocket.
While every webseries is not going to be able to do exactly what Whedon has done, it is very important to understand all of the distribution channels that exist and examine how each can best be exploited for your project.
Good article in TubeFilter, too.
I am hard-pressed to think of a more overused, misrepresented and misunderstood concept than “viral vidoes.”
A quick look at either Yahoo’s or Time’s 2008 “Top 10″ lists makes it pretty clear that there is no real definition of what makes a video viral other than it was seen on the internet, that it was relatively short and that it was seen by a lot of people.
In fact, Yahoo lists the now-famous Shiba Inu Puppy Cam as a “viral video” even though it was a live-streaming event, not a standalone video at all.
In addition, it doesn’t seem to matter who made the video or even whether it was made for the internet originally or not. That’s how clips of Sarah Palin being humiliated by Katie Couric somehow become on par with Joss Whedon’s elaborate internet series “Doctor Horrible’s Sing-A-Long Blog.”
We all know that this is the time of year for lists, and that we all love lists, but it would be nice to see everyone drop that “viral video” tag and just list your ten favorites. That’s what it looks like you’re doing anyhow. Now just admit it.
It all started with the rise of the UGC video and YouTube. People went nuts. Look at all the viewers!
After watching from the sidelines for a bit some big media companies decided they should be getting those viewers. Following some deep study of internet content everyone decided that the thing that really worked online was comedy.
A flood of “pro” content hit the interwebs and suddenly everyone from Warner Brothers to Sony had their own dedicated comedy video website.
A year later and none of these sites or any of their shows have gained wide-spread acceptance or notice. Most have completely failed by any reasonable assessment.
One could argue that most of these efforts failed because, a) they weren’t very good and b) they weren’t publicized.
Of course, if you are a big media company, it can’t be your fault. It must be the genre’s fault. So, after a year of failing with comedy comes a big wave of Sci-Fi web shows:
“Not all of these will succeed, but science fiction already has a strong track record online. lonelygirl15 turned from a vlog into a thriller with tech overtones. Sanctuary was one of the early big-budget sci-fi series, it was even picked up to run on the Sci-Fi Network. And most recently, Joss Whedon’s Dr. Horrible’s Sing Along Blog darn near crashed the Internet.” (via)
Check out NTV’s whole post for a good look at what’s to come. When these fail, due to being not good, I’m sure everyone will move onto proceedurals – it’s what saved the networks, at least for a while.
Joss Whedon, of “Buffy, the Vampire Slayer” fame, has created an original web series called Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog
In an attempt to cashify this project, Joss is trying out the following scheme (via NTV)
“The plan (which was first posted as a comment on a fan site, I believe) is to release the three parts of the 42-minute project on July 15, July 17 and July 19 respectively, for free. But at midnight on July 20, “They will vanish into the night, like a phantom (but not THE Phantom – that’s still playing. Like, everywhere.),” as Whedon put it. After that, the whole thing will be available for purchase.”
This raises a couple of questions. First, how does one make something disappear from the internet. There seems to be no lack of ways for people to obtain their own copies of any video released to the net regardless of format or encryption. Second, once it is released on DVD, the film and all the extras will be ripped and distributed via P2P sites.
So, is this a great plan for cashifying web video? We’ll have to wait and see but I don’t think this is the magic formula.
Related articles by Zemanta
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=efa4d9ec-390f-419a-9727-3d214ab14fb0)
Uncategorized | admin | 
December 17, 2008 5:19 pm | 
Comments (4) 
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=0ba1c0f7-14ba-466f-b272-5be021a288c7)
Subscribe