Is It Really Big News That TV Folks Have Discovered The Internet?
from the only-if-to-note-that-it-sure-took-them-long-enough dept
A few weeks ago, there was a lot of buzz around Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog, a short series of internet video, created by director Joss Whedon, and using a few well-known actors. We had a ton of people submit it, and the press went nuts over it. While I actually enjoyed the videos, I had a difficult time understanding why this was big news. Plenty of people create online videos -- some more professional than others. About the only thing that could be said for the story was "A few TV people discover the internet... years after everyone else."And yet, now we're seeing more stories along those lines. The NY Times notes how a bunch of Saturday Night Live writers and cast members spent the summer creating their own comedy short video as well, and the story is basically the same: TV people discover the internet. In both cases, the push wasn't that "hey, the internet is actually a good platform for video" but the silly writers' strike had them bored, so they focused on creating stuff for the internet.
Again, I'm not entirely sure why this is seen as a big deal. TV people recognize what plenty of others have recognized for years, and it's suddenly newsworthy? If anything, the news peg here is that it sure has taken these TV folks a long time to realize that producing content for the internet makes sense.
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News Reporters discover the internet and find that some TV Folks are already there
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That is the big deal, sort of. When those few people have the ability to shape the entertainment landscape, even a little bit, then their actions are slightly more newsworthy than your average YouTube phenom.
Using the internet as the medium for their art also blurs the line more between those two most popular time wasters, and legitimizes web content more to those few who have not yet embraced the internet fully. Most notably Hollywood producers who see the internet as the enemy, and not a tool.
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Missing the mark?
Of course it could be the news media is just figuring out the Internet is here. That would be no surprise.
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World Wide Web
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I thought the story was..
..And, last I heard one week after release, Whedon had not yet made up the money invested in the production. It had a ton of hype, but very little direct sales.
So, while internet distribution exists, the take-home from the experience would indicate that it is not yet mature enough to make a profit. We can probably expect a few more stories like this one over the next few years as other attempts are made to test the waters of the medium.
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Re: I thought the story was..
I also know people that pirated it, because Hulu wouldn't let them see it and they couldn't purchase it without a credit card.
I would be interested in seeing how much Whedon actually spent on it though and its download numbers.
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Its Celbrity . . . thats all
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Tommorrow on Techdirt:
"Newspaper states that the sky is blue. Is this really news? I feel so compelled that it is not, that I will post about it on my blog!"
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RE: I thought the story was..I thought the story was..
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I think you missed the story on this one.
The interesting thing about this uproar over Dr. Horrible isn't that somebody created content for the internet, it's that 'professional Hollywood people' created GREAT content specifically for the internet. Most content created for the internet so far has either been A) replayed from TV skits, B) not professionally done with this type of budget and professionalism, and/or C) not really that great. This content meets all 3 criteria, and that's really where the WOW factor comes in.
The rest of the story lies in the economic model, and whether we can look forward to seeing more of this type of production. Is Whedon able to make money on this? Or even leverage the exposure to create another business venture that makes money? If not, Dr. Horrible may sound the death toll for great, professional, internet-only content for quite a while longer...
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Re: I think you missed the story on this one.
Chet - I think you're right about what the real story is here.
With regards to the economic model, I think a massive mistake has been made - by restricting the freebie stuff to a geographic region (US-only), the people behind this venture have fundamentally misunderstood the intrinsically global (I'm tempted to use the William Gibson phrase "post-geographic") nature of the net.
And this is where I think such experiments will fail - as long as the old media content-producers keep trying to force their view of the world (i.e. as a number of geographically-defined distinct/separate markets, where they can set different price-points/licenses in different geographic areas) onto a global network like the internet then they're working against their potential customers.
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But there was no "we're doing this US-only" decision made about this project.
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Re:
"There were technical glitches at launch that geographically hobbled the Hulu stream (then fixed by Hulu's coders staying up all night to do so)"
The Hulu stream is still hobbled - it shows a message saying "We're sorry, currently our video library can only be streamed within the United States".
There's a link to find out more, which leads to an FAQ answer saying:
"For now, Hulu is a U.S. service only. That said, our intention is to make Hulu's growing content lineup available worldwide. This requires clearing the rights for each show or film in each specific geography and will take time. We're encouraged by how many content providers have already been working along these lines so that their programs can be available over the Internet to a much larger, global audience. The Hulu team is committed to making great programming available across the globe."
So the problem is definitely Old Media "rights/distribution" issues - albeit the fault of teams of lawyers representing old media companies that have crippled Hulu to force them to fit their old view of the world, rather than a specific decision by Whedon & Co.
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