August 2nd, 2007
Lonelygirl15 gets some "exclusive" MySpace company
The season finale of the hit web video series, Lonelygirl15, is to be available exclusively on MySpace. Lonelygirl15 already has an ad-revenue sharing deal with YouTube and Revver, so this is a major coup for the News Corp-owed social networking site. And in an interesting and innovative twist, the final episode will actually be twelve episodes, published every hour from 8am Pacific time this Friday — turning the whole thing into a twelve hour event. A sure way to generate buzz and drive a concentrated amount of traffic to MySpaceTV.
The MySpace deal is testament to the success that Lonelygirl and its recent spin-off, Kate Modern, are having.
As NewTeeVee notes:
The team behind Lonelygirl — Greg Goodfried, Miles Beckett, Mesh Flinders — is not only getting to keep the rights to their content and creative control over it — they’re having people squabble over the right to pay their bandwidth fees.
This has also led to Bebo, who are exclusively syndicating Kate Modern, being able to sell ads at traditional TV prices.
For MySpace the deal provides more evidence that the social networking site’s strategy, in fending off the challenge of Facebook, is to continue to play on MySpace’s heritage as being about connecting content — both professional and user-generated — with users, and creating social interaction around that content. Remember how the site exploded onto the scene, in-part, by leveraging its LA-centric music base. Add photos and video content into the mix, and the site is really a new media property in the image of its sugar daddy, Rupert Murdoch.
It also marks the continuation of the battle between MySpace and YouTube, as the former continues its push into Internet TV.
See also: MySpace to launch Internet TV show?
Steve O'Hear is a London-based consultant, educator, and journalist, focussing on the Internet and all aspects of digital technology. See his full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations.
