Lonelygirl15 finale: 12 in 12

It seems like such a long time ago but I guess it was last summer.

From Mashable:

"the Season One finale of Lonelygirl15 (yes, there may be another series) will be debuted exclusively on MySpaceTV on Friday, August 3rd.

But wait, there’s more: this “12 In 12″ event means 12 LonelyGirl15 segments run at a rate of one per hour for 12 consecutive hours.

Beginning 8am Friday, you can start watching the segments, with another one coming down the drip-feed each hour of the day.

Each segment is only 1 to 4 minutes in length, meaning you’ll need to find something else to do for the other 56 minutes of each hour - no doubt MySpaceTV hopes you’ll stick around and view other clips."

Lonelygirl15 gets Product Placement Sponsor

Lonelygirl15 breaks down another wall with a product placement by Hersheys.

From the Next Net:

"At least Hershey's, the sponsor, will be eating that scene up. Goodfried says that Loneygirl15 gets 1.5 million views per week, or 300,000 to 400,000 per episode. While he wouldn't say exactly how much Hershey's is dishing out for the product placement, he confirmed that it was in the same range as what Diggnation gets from its sponsors (which is as much at $10,000 per show per sponsor). Says Goodfried:

It won’t make us rich by any means, but it helps cover the production costs. It's cool for us because major brands are treating our show as a major media entertainment property. "

Meta thinkd2c

Looking back over '06 stats. For the year thinkd2c received 16,700 page views. I didn't bother checking my Adsense account but I am sure '06 yielded 10's of dollars from Adwords.

Almost half of all traffic came from Google. The most popular content items were "lonelygirl15" and "silvercasting." 110 different countries accessed the blog at least once, but the biggest hits came from the US, UK and Canada.

The most disappointing event of the year happened late. One day of feverish blogging, I saw something odd on Rik Riel's blog and logged it so I could check it out later. It was a hoax post and it was pretty funny. The "breathless" editors at Second Life Herald got all worked up about it and I thought - here we go, time to get some major traffic! But no major traffic ensued.

I think '07 is already shaping up to be a big year for things we like at thinkd2c. I hope you stop by often for a survey of interesting d2c tidbits.

Lonelygirl15 and Product Placement

Lonelygirl15 is not content with the revenue from Revver alone. Now the creators are gunning for product placements.

From ClickZ:

"Bree is a fictional character, but she lives in the real world," Greg Goodfried, one of the creators of scripted video blog Lonelygirl15, told ClickZ. "She interacts with products on a daily basis. She has to use a cell phone. She has to drive a car."

Going forward, ad products will be more creative. Sponsors will be attached to specific sections of the site, such as the video responses or the forum. A sponsored video contest might take the theme "Proving Science Wrong," a takeoff on Bree's tongue-in-cheek video entries of the same name. "We'd let people upload their own 'proving science wrong' videos. Have it sponsored by, say, HP and [the winning] fan gets a new laptop," said Goodfried."

MashableLabs: Video Sharing on MySpace

MashableLabs has a great review of all of the video sharing sites that feed MySpace.

From the post:

"Not surprisingly, there’s a glut of web sites offering free video to share on blogs and social web sites. Each wants to grab a piece of the pie and grow big before they drift into obscurity. Only a few will survive the shakeout and likely will be the ones already established, or those with deep enough pockets to play catch-up. Newer sites like Revver didn’t even make the top 10 list and must innovate or go the way of Movie.com into obscurity."

Going Mainstream: Youtube and Myspace

After a sleepy summer of big time experiments it looks like this Fall will be the time when all of the R&D goes mainstream.

Mashable:

"In what’s becoming a familiar story, YouTube favorites Joe Bereta and Luke Barats (aka BaratsAndBereta) have signed a comedy deal with NBC. The six-figure contract will enable the pair to develop low-cost sitcoms and sketches.

But as we saw with the lonelygirl15 phenomenon, TV contracts aren’t the only way to monetize popular clips - shows can go it alone by joining revenue sharing sites like Revver (Metacafe is also working on a rev share scheme). And if YouTube were to offer a similar system of ad revenue sharing, there’d be even less motivation for the talent to sign contracts with TV companies."

MultiChannel News:

"The program, Project MyWorld, features three young women from Los Angeles traveling the world to meet friends they’ve met on social-networking Web site MySpace (www.myspace.com).

“We are investing in original programming as a point of differentiation to attract and retain customers,” DirecTV executive vice president of entertainment Eric Shanks said Friday.

DirecTV is developing additional original programming for its channel 101 -- the same channel that will carry Project MyWorld and that currently runs weekly music program CD USA.

He added that the three stars of the show -- Shaina Fewell, Renee Intlekofer and Taryn Southern -- developed the concept and pitched it to DirecTV themselves.

DirecTV has already shot 10 episodes of Project MyWorld. The company -- which has already reserved rights to slap the Project MyWorld brand on everything from lunchboxes to CD covers -- may pick it up for additional seasons if it generates buzz, he added."

A Fool's Advise for Loneygirl15

The fall out continues for Loneygirl15, Youtube and the "new form" of entertainment.

From the Fool:

"This newfound freedom for the creators comes at a time when the Warholian window of opportunity is starting to close -- unless they can smash a permanent hole in the pane by flexing their creative abilities.

It isn't as hard as you think, really. Here's a potential three-step plan to keep the brand going.

• Unless the producers already have plans for delicious plot twists with a satisfying -- or at least unforgettable -- resolution at the end, let the audience take over. Institute polling features and let viewers dictate the direction to take the story at key forks in the storytelling road.

• Indie music has been a major feature of the Lonelygirl15 series, so rally the citizenry by having artists submit music and take the track-selection process public. There may or may not be a DVD product out of Lonelygirl15, but there can definitely be room for a CD soundtrack.

• Embrace the wide range of expectations. Some folks want to see the love story blossom. Some want to see a darker bent emerge. Others want to see the unauthorized Cassie Is Watching scavenger hunt for clues evolve into more interactive sleuthing. You can do it all, as long as you are able to spin off the fringe elements while making sure the edgy detours still intersect with the main story down the line.

It's not too late for YouTube or Lonelygirl15, but both companies have the same problem: protecting their turf in a landscape that is perpetually changing."

The New Lonelygirl15

The new Lonelygirl15 site is up, "A Tribute to Lonelygirl15."

TechWeb:

"The inventors -- Greg Goodfried, 27; Miles Beckett, 28; and Mesh Flinders, 26 -- plan to take the video-saga experiment in social networking much further by using technology to build a Web-site community around the show.

But while technology appears to inspire the trio's creativity, some technology insiders believe the sociological aspects have proved more powerful because through social network sites, technology enables people to peer into the life of others.

"People have a voyeuristic interest in seeing what other people are doing, saying or thinking online," said eMarketer senior analyst Debra Williamson. "It's a big part of why YouTube has exploded in popularity in recent months. Lonelygirl15 seemed authentic and real, and people were drawn to that."

Blogger Anthony Citrano, co-founder of the PopTech conference, said the Lonelygirl15 phenomena wouldn't have been possible five years ago. "Today, millions of people have access to broadband technology, whereas that wasn't the case five years ago, but we're naturally curious creatures," he said."

Jessica Rose's (Lonelygirl15) CBS Interview

This is funny. Its hard to be old in the time of the Internets.

Lonelygirl15 ID'd

The New York Times has been all over this story. Here is the dirt.

NYT:

"The woman who plays Lonelygirl15 on the video-sharing site YouTube.com has been identified as Jessica Rose, a 20-ish resident of New Zealand and Los Angeles and a graduate of the New York Film Academy. And the whole project appears to be the early serialized version of what eventually will become a movie.

The masterminds of the Lonelygirl15 videos are Ramesh Flinders, a screenwriter and filmmaker from Marin County, Calif., and Miles Beckett, a doctor turned filmmaker. The high quality of the videos caused many users to suspect a script and production crew, but Bree’s bedroom scenes were shot in Mr. Flinders’s home, in his actual bedroom, typically using nothing more than a Logitech QuickCam, a Web camera that retails for about $150.

Mr. Flinders and Mr. Beckett obscured their location by sending e-mail messages as Bree from various Internet computer addresses, including the address of Creative Artists Agency, the Beverly Hills talent agency where the team is now represented."

TechCrunch: Top Social Networkers Get Paid

TechCrunch has a really good, long post about the recent activity in the social networking world.

From the post:

"Of all of these examples, the Lonelygirl15 controversy is probably the most timely and interesting, but I think all this sheds light on some of the recent Digg/Netscape debates. As my friend Alex Williams puts it, viral media sites are the new Star Search and recognition of top users, be it through financial compensation and/or status, could be a key driver in making these sites viable.

And conversely, commercial activity is possible in these communities but the format it can take is still up for debate: Paris Hilton no, Tea Partay yes, but for short campaigns and Lonelygirl15 maybe - I don’t think there’s consensus, or any indication that model could be reproduced well enough to be sustainable. As a proof of concept though, it was fascinating.

Advertising in these spaces well takes a whole lot of skill and we’ll see far more people fail than succeed, but occasional success could help build tolerance for the bulk of attempts instead of a wholesale rejection of commercial engagement with viral media communities. Companies are struggling to find people capable of pulling off advertising in social media spaces. Second Life is a whole other can of worms."

Loneygirl15: Brought to You by the CAA

The news is out that Lonelygirl15 was a project from within the walls of the CAA.(1) I think its pretty clear that the experimentation phase of the new art form is almost over.

From the forum post:

"Thank you so much for enjoying our show so far. We are amazed by the overwhelmingly positive response to our videos; it has exceeded our wildest expectations. With your help we believe we are witnessing the birth of a new art form. Our intention from the outset has been to tell a story-- A story that could only be told using the medium of video blogs and the distribution power of the internet. A story that is interactive and constantly evolving with the audience.

To enhance the community experience of Lonelygirl15, which you have already helped to create, we are in the process of building a website centered around video and interactivity. This website will allow everyone to enjoy the full potential of this new medium. Unfortunately, we aren't programmers. We are filmmakers. We are working furiously to complete the website, and hope to have it up and running shortly. "

LA Times:

"No one has publicly come forward to lay claim to her work, but she is starting to look as connected in Hollywood as any starlet. Three lonelygirl15-obsessed amateur Web sleuths set up a sting using tracking software that appears to show that e-mails sent from a lonelygirl15 account came from inside the offices of the Beverly Hills-based talent agency Creative Artists Agency.

Since June, the videos have regularly made it to the top of YouTube's daily "Most Viewed" list, averaging about 200,000 views each, with several topping 600,000 — viewership many cable TV executives would kill for."

dana boyd:

"I like the idea that it is an art form but i also think it's part of what Henry Jenkins calls Convergence Culture. Regardless, it's super cool that people are using new media to create narratives. They are telling their story, truth or fiction. Of course, this makes many people very uncomfortable. They want blogs and YouTube and MySpace to be Real with a capital R.

In many ways, i have to admit that i'm sad that the truth is out. I was really enjoying the suspicion. Far more than any episode of Lost or reality TV show. I was enjoying not knowing who was behind it and spending hours speculating and trying to find hints. I was enjoying watching a community of people talk endlessly about what they thought might be going on. Sure, the videos were quite endearing (although the ending of Poor Pluto disturbed the hell out of me) but do i just want to watch the videos by themselves? I'm not sure. I think i liked them for the mystery.

Regardless, i absolutely love the way people are using all of these new social technologies to create cultural experiments. To me, this signifies the importance of social media."

Lonelygirl15 Makes the NY Times

The Times predicts Lonelygirl15 is the birth of a new art form.

From the article:

"From her first video, posted June 16, she’s doled out new chapters in two-­minute chunks, each with an alluring title such as “Boy Problems,” “Dad ‘Talks’ to Daniel,” and “What Did Daniel and Dad Talk About?” And lots of viewers are caught up in her micro-soap; her videos have totaled almost 2 million views, her “channel” is the fourth most popular on YouTube, and the New York Times’ Virginia Heffernan recently lobbied for her to get her own TV show.

The best scenario is that she’s a sleeper agent in the employ of MTV, or VH1, or some as-yet-unidentified entity, and that others will follow her fictional lead. Imagine how much fun J. J. Abrams of Lost could have with a YouTube-based conspiracy story. Or forget that—imagine what fun you could have with a camera, a computer, and a catchy idea. Of course, as a necessary side effect, YouTube will be flooded with crap. (Or even more flooded with crap.)

But the weak story lines will wither and the smartly crafted ones will blossom, just as Lonely­girl’s have. And maybe this, and not some NBC shows for sale on iTunes, is the future of television—or the promised land of a new narrative form. If so, we might look back at Lonelygirl15 as Moses with a monkey puppet."

I tried to get the good looking girl to front for my new art form experiment. Note to self - less Sony nightcam.