Creators at SXSW Film & Interactive Festival

[buckwheat]

Greg, Miles and Mesh are giving a panel on LG this morning (11:30 MT) at the Southwest Film, Music and Interactive festival in Austin. The panel will be podcast later, time and day TBA. Check here to see if it's up:

2007.sxsw.com/coverage/podcasts/

Here's the program description:

Lonelygirl15 Case Study

Sunday, March 11th

11:30 am - 12:30 pm

Add this to your SXSW Calendar

From obscurity to popularity on YouTube.com, the people behind LonelyGirl15 talk about their experiences with online filmmaking and the swirling questions of what's real and what's staged.

Moderator: David Hudson Editor, GreenCine
David Hudson Editor, GreenCine
Miles Beckett Producer, Lonelygirl15
Mesh Flinders Producer, Lonelygirl15
Greg Goodfried Producer, Lonelygirl15

[milowent]

Photo by John Wiseman

a live-blogged entry from someone who attended the panel today:

sxsw.echoditto.com/2007/03/11/lonelygirl15/

"This is another attempt at liveblogging. So the thoughts might be a little scattered. But read the post and check out lonelygirl15.com

I’m at the “making of Lonelygirl15” panel. Lonelygirl15, the story about Bree, the 16 year old girl with a webcam and a crush on her friend Daniel and her weird parents set up to make a video about her life. As the world would learn later there is no 16-year-old named Bree. Lonelygirl15 is the brainchild of a former plastic surgeon intern, a lawyer and an out of work writer who was living with this grandmother.

Lonelygirl15 has gone from being a video diary to a soap opera. Daniel and Bree have run away from home and a video that was once about a girl and her webcam has become more artsy, cleaver and creative. Almost as though letting the cat out of the bag has allowed the show to grow the characters to develop and stay fresh. The lonelygirl15 fans are fiercely loyal and live on the site. The Lonelygirl15 creators uploaded a video during the panel and even before they pressed refresh, there were two comments on the video…this is before people actually watched the video.

I wonder if this has to happen with all webvideo. People are accepting the news style Rocketboom, Jetset or Ask a Ninja, but as shows start making real money, there are more opportunities to expand. Lonelygirl15 started in Bree’s room with one $125 camera, a bed and some stuffed animal. Now there are newly developed characters, spies, cults and puzzles for the audience to solve. The creators of Lonelygirl15 have invented an interactive world for users to play in. The creators of Lonelygirl15 answer every emailed question as the character the email was addressed to. Lonelygirl15 is a full time job filled with location shoots and coming up with Alternative Reality Gaming tools. The case study of Lonelygirl15 is going to be viewed as the first breakthrough webvideo show (or webisode). Lonelygirl15 might be the example of how webvideo breaks the back of television."

---

and a second one:

newteevee.com/2007/03/11/the-remarkable-lonelygirl15/

SXSW REPORT — “There are oftentimes responses before I can click back and view the video,” says Miles Beckett, who’s just pressed publish on his Wordpress draft, sending a new Lonelygirl15 video out to the world. He clicks over to the public version of the site.

“Nobody’s actually watched the video yet, it’s physically impossible to watch the video by now,” says Greg Goodfried, another of the Lonelygirl15 producers.

There are already two comments, written in the language of Lonelygirl15, saying “meep” which the guys say they guess has something to do with Road Runner, though they’re not sure, and “salute the general” which is in tribute to a user who often comments first on new videos. These first people were literally sitting on the site, waiting for a new video — an email couldn’t have gone out at this point. They are obsessed.

Goodfried calls it an anthropological experiment, saying the comments will come in waves — first, the “first!” crowd, then analysis of the video, then “what I ate for breakfast,” then speculation about when the next video will arrive.

The panel1 ends, and I go out to the press room to check it out in action. The page won’t load. When I finally get on and there are 78 comments. Looks like we are onto phase 2. Check it out for yourself."

----

and a third (did everyone watching have a laptop)?:

billetdoux.livejournal.com/556373.html

... 2.The Lonelygirl15 guys didn't really say anything too surprising, though they did reveal a hidden understanding and concern for interactive advertising, which I found moderately interesting. And they live posted a new Lonelygirl15 video from the stage, and we all got to watch the comments pour in in realtime. That was pretty amazing - talk about a ravenous fan base. And they seconded mine and Ben's philosphy that people don't care if things are "real" or not, so long as you treat the viewer with respect....

----

and a fourth, which contains some utter baloney in it:


blog.scrapblog.com/?p=29

SXSW panel on lonelygirl15

I’ve been curious about how lonelygirl15 started and grew so quickly to become such a strong and passionate community and went to see the Lonelygirl15 Case Study panel at SXSW.

After graduating, Miles was getting into podcasting and saw video starting to get online. So he thought about creating a fictional video blogger. Mesh was a screen writer and when he heard about Miles’ ideas, was immediately inspired by Orson Welles’ “War of the World”, in which new technology is used to perpetuate a hoax. So they created “The Order”, a religious movement Bree’s parents were involved in (and ultimately, the reason Bree decided to move away from home). They brought in Greg as well, who was a lawyer. Online video was at a nascent stage, so this was a good time to define the medium. There was no market research, so they had no idea of how to make it work, so they started posting and listening to the viewers.

They publish about 5 episodes a week, get about 200,000 to half a million views or more on each, have 87,850 subscribers and a fan base of 30,000 to 50,000 people who actively follow the show. They shoot everything as if it were real, and it is shot by a character’s point of view, for example, by Jonas or by Tachion. This gives a third-person, more cinematic look and they look for extra footage to use.

There are three parts to lonelygirl15:

- Video blogs, where Bree and the characters post about what’s going on in their lives.
- ARG’s, or alternate reality games with puzzles to solve. The community helps the characters solve the riddles and the shows character’s will acknowledge the fans on camera.
- They also weave in content and videos from fans, who become characters in Bree’s world. Some of these fan videos are really good, from a cinematic sense. They sometimes lead the fan base to actual physical locations, where they can find other hidden objects and clues.

When they started doing ARGs, the fanbase thought the point was to figure out who Miles, Mesh and Greg were and there were some real privacy issues for the producers. [milo adds: What ARG was there back then? None that I'm aware of.] They had to steer the fans back to the real point of the ARGs, which was to solve the clues in the show, and nothing else. But the ARG community has been key to the show’s success. [milo adds: the numbers simply don't prove this at all. The ARG is not followed by the majority of lg15 fans. The creators being people who love good stories was the key to the show's success.]


They don’t post videos on schedule, so people “live” on the website waiting for the episodes, and to be the first ones to post comments. The commenting goes on for hours, in a ritualistic way. The first posters post “first”, then there’s discussion about the video, then there’s speculation about the next, “new video”.

There was a bit of a backlash when they announced that lonelygirl15 was a produced show, but far less than they expected. That’s because people really knew from the beginning that the show wasn’t real, because Bree looks older than 15, because of the lighting, the camera work, etc. The fans decided to keep watch and suspend belief. [milo adds: ah, they got this right! we weren't all completely duped!]

As for the economic model, they are starting to monetize the show. Their site runs on Wordpress and they use Revver for the video hosting. Through the fall of last year, they started running out of money but received some donations from the fan base and soon after got some investment money. They will have more product placement in the video, but in a real way. In other words, these are real characters who use real products, so it makes sense to have branding on the show. They are now looking at syndication models as well and are realizing how many possibilities there are to monetize the show.

Overall, it was fascinating to hear this case study and a great inspiration to hear about how they started, how they listened to their community and how they adapted what they were doing based on the community’s reactions.
------------

[hyemew]

milowent said:

Daniel and Bree have run away from home and a video that was once about a girl and her webcam has become more artsy, cleaver and creative.

Wow, I can't believe how strongly I disagree with this statement.
The truth is the complete opposite.

[milowent]

#5 - this blog post is pretty much very detailed notes of who says what, its long:

blog.bibrik.com/archives/2007/03/sxsw_-_lonelygirl15_discussion.html

SXSW - LonelyGirl15 discussion

David Hudson Editor, GreenCine
Miles Beckett Producer, Lonelygirl15
Mesh Flinders Producer, Lonelygirl15
Greg Goodfried Producer, Lonelygirl15

Miles: a short format, about 5 videos a week. a popular serial drama.

Greg: there’s the top level show; then there is the interactive element, teaching the characters as real people. you can send private messages and we answer you back (my wife does that); you can text comments. they can make their own videos and interact with characters. we know the big plot points but there is a lot a smaller things that we use feedback on. eg bree giving a piece offering to Daniel after 1000s of emails back. (video: piece offering Aug 21 2006) got 650k views on YT. over course of week 1.5m-2m collective views per video. [milo adds: this is Peace Offering, lol]

Miles: that video was representative of what LG was. cheap video cam and bad mike.

David - can we back up and give a talk about the idea..

Miles: I was a plastic surgeon internship; saw rise of video on web. started own company to make content; on YT all the time, saw there was an audience there. wanted to create videoblogger, did story with mystery element. had idea in feb or so. met Mesh at party, shared idea and went from there.

Mesh - wanted to be a filmmaker; did internships etc. won panavision new filmmakers award, but still living hand to mouth, making ends make. about a year ago got hired to write first paid screenplay. when i heard the idea the first thing I thought about was Wells and War of the World, using new tech to tell a story. a cool way to make movies. we’ll do it for a few months, generate buzz and we will make a film about it. and that was kind of naive.

Greg - I’m a lawyer. met Miles in feb 06 when he was starting his company. Miles told me his idea; after hashing out the idea they asked me if they could be sued. he advised probably not, but yes shot. advice was don;t try and sell nor ask for money. he came onboard. we got together and did the show.

Miles: we thought it was good idea, if we could get a good story and actors then people would want to watch. we did not know the audience at the time as it was still techy and we did not know if the the reveal would drive away audience. we have a rabid fanbase, 30-50k people to day of people obsessed. when it revealed it was fictional, we gained a huge audience. some went away. we have 70% female, 14-40, cluster in mid 20s. [milo adds: wonder how they know this? is this just the "core" fanbase, or the greater fanbase?] I saw it as an opportunity for entertainment and tech. we have continued this and made it more elaborate. video 2 is Feb 10, 07. shows change in how it was a girl in bedroom and is now a more deeper, richer show, outside the bedroom. far more mystery. [milo adds: feb 10 is the human ransom, which currently has 327K views, far below Peace Offering] bree had to leave due to parents being part of The Order. we massively ramped up the plot. we realised we had to tell a far more compelling story. instead of the movie, we do it on the web. we shoot everything as if it is real, everything is shot as a character.

Greg: a character we had in London, we had to do everything in Uk time, we were loading video at 3am in morning to fit into character. [milo adds: wow, i never noticed this. i'm not sure there is ever a normal time to upload videos, as 3am PST would be 11am GMT, and that seems early to me.]

Miles: we see the video as being the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the experience. they are 2 minutes..but people spend a lot of time.

Greg - we do ARG elements, we do puzzles, the community join in to answer the puzzles, ie opening a flash file, with a riddle. feed across the video, and site. We weave in UGC. we show fan videos on site. people create themselves as characters. we invite them to tell stories. (showed UGC, which is driving an ARG etc)

Q: what kind of interaction are yu seeing around UGC?

Miles: there is not a lot of functionality around the UGC on site. You load stuff as a response and it is not that easy to follow a persons content. we are doing a rebuild which makes it easier to admin your own storylines, vote etc. we have discussion in forum and chatroom, wiki.

Q: how do you pay for it?

Miles: i was working 3-5 days a week on clinics, but slowly reducing hours. [milo adds: don't think i heard that before, though it makes sense.] got money from parents to pay actors so did not have to work (and be recognised). we were running out of money through fall, we got some fan donations, we have some investment now which helps and we are goign to an advertising model, and there is going to be product placement. there are post roll videos etc

Greg: it makes sense for them to use real products as they are set up as real people. it is a natural fit to have product placement. we can have access to brands for arg elements, partnerships etc to build real world elements.

Q: where are you distributing. where are you trying to go?

Greg - still YT and website. we are trying to build out a syndication model, which are open to monetisation. we want to drive people back to site as where all the functionality is.

Miles: the video only will be on the other site; the rest of the show and the deeper stuff is on our site. we are using tech features as part of the narrative. we had 35k people hit our chartroom the first time..we had about 20 rooms open the first time and people were relaying etc. people talked to the characters. We introduced Jonas as a fan and people debated if it was a show part etc.

Q: production values?

MIles: you can do a lot with time. we started with a desk lamp and a window; people debated whether or not we were real at the beginning cos of the lighting but it was just a lot of time. we shot from the character pov..depends on what kind of camera they would have.

Q: did you become famous?

Miles: we are represented by CAA (?)
Mesh - I’m using LG to write my own feature this year. we are developing film. [milo adds: cool!] still at early stages. we’ve only just got time to start thinking outside of LG. the first 6 months were a blur and 24/7.

Q: are you where you wanted to be?

Miles: this is exactly it. this is my dream. tech and film.. this is perfect we are in a good position right now, we have access to the traditional channels. after the announcement we did a tour of the Hollywood stuff. we got some offers, but turned them down. we really want to do internet and interactive and most people we talked to did not get it. we did not want things being an issues. we found people who wanted to share vision and invest.

Mesh: the technology is a door opener for people who did not have the money or knowledge to make these before. people can do it with a web cam and your little brother. we are only just realising what the possibilities are.

Q: did you guys participate in Lost ARG…any ideas from this?

Greg: i did not know what an ARG was 4 months. Now, they are really cool. we attracted the ARG community who thought we were making an ARG, and they started investigating us. a month after the first video, people started selling stuff. we trademarked it. people found it, under his dads address. they started to dig in. they ’stalked’ the family. we wanted to control press for reveal. the community was passionate but we had to point them away from us. we are going to do more arg stuff. live appearances are in the future, it;s a resource issue. we write, shoot, edit, so the more elaborate stuff we are waiting so we can do it right.

Q: can you express your creativity more now the cat is out the bag?

MIles: the initial thought was to create fictional video blogger I did not know how much they would think about it; I did not realise how much people would dig. as the press got more and more intense it was incredible stressful.. we did not know what the reaction would be, we anted to be cool not fool people. once out of the bag it was liberating,

Greg: we now have more freedom and they are not analysing everything. they got a botanist to look at plants, they analysed where we bought things from. we want to wrap our arms round these people as they will stay, they invested in in

Q: what was the backlash?

MIles there was a little backlash for far less than expected. people seemed to know it was fake all along. it got far more in depth. the vast majority knoew it was not real but were suspending disbelief.

Greg: the numbers are larger now, so people are still in it. we made a decision to answer all the questions to Bree, but answered none of the ones to the producers/actors. People are talking about it as a tv show now, not a web hoax.

Q: how are you handling the ‘fame’ between the 3 of you, the actors etc

Greg: we are closer now then before. Miles add I want to stay in the space, Mesh looking for other stuff. we can do a lot in a short time and then let people do other stuff. Jessica is under contract and is getting work, jessica just shot a film in Feb so we shot everything in Dec. [milo adds: some revelations here!]

Miles: it was an emotional rollercoaster. a t times we loved at times we hated.

Mesh: we could not talk about this to any one except with each other. we could only share with each other. i could not talk to my girlfriend (and we broke up) this was a big risk and it paid off in spades. we are best friends now.

Miles: we are uploading a video live. we are running on wordpress…and here’s us loading live.

10 seconds later..there were 2 responses. all going First! it goes from firsts, to discussion, then just general chat, then it goes for chants for new videos.

MIles: we post randomly. they live on our website. we have email, we have an rss feed. none of us are programmers,

Q: how did yo get publicity to start?

Miles: we used YT social network. we had created character on site and talked and commented in character for a few weeks. then we did a few responses to popular people. when we put the first one up, we already had a few 100 people. subscribed. we were active on commenting, adding friends. this was part of the story telling. after that, were these videos good.

Greg: we are getting hired to do this now for other people.

Q: you are turning down deals etc, you are monetising..are you running into problems with cpm etc.

Greg: we are feeling out the model as we go. it;s work in progress

Miles: the web model is different to tv…cpm on tv depends on quality. that model is startign to apply to us, advertisers prefer to be on lg15 and will pay it.

And that was that…

[hyemew]

If I can give one piece of advice, it's this:

MESH GET OUT WHILE YOU STILL CAN. This show is crashing and I am just so upset to see all your hard work and original promise being destroyed by all this idiocy. I mean why the heck is Greg still talking about "ARG"? What ARG? LG15 is NOT an ARG! Where are the ARG elements??!
I think a major plot spoiler is this "quest for an ARG", they keep trying to make it one but it's just not and really won't be. So, is OpAphid the ARG? OpAphid hasn't had a movie in over a month. Meanwhile Tachyon hasn't posted in over 2 months and is just Bree's girltoy friend now.
Is the ARG puzzles? Cause I haven't seen a puzzle in a long time, and frankly the ones which helped us crack Tachyon's code which gave us access to some stupid jpg of a watcher eye was pure idiocy! Come on!
Glenn, I know you sometimes read this, and I am NOT afraid to say that you are bringing down this series. You have essentially co-opted LonelyGirl, and by various methods you continuously promote OpAphid and this notion as LonelyGirl15 as an "ARG", despite the fact that goes against the entire spirit of the show. How can you maintain an audience with this?!

If you do read this, at the very least explain to me HOW do you see LG15 as an ARG and WHY?! Like I said, the past two puzzles led once to a phone number which had an inconsequential message from Daniel and once it ended up with a lousy jpg which meant absolutely nothing and was interactive thanks to listing 6 names for people that figured it out. Six people played a serious part in your ARG despite purporting to have "a rabid fanbase, 30-50k people to day of people obsessed". That you are doing this for essentially six people and a small core of Op-heads that play along when there's something to do, and comparing that with the 300,000-some youtube views it gets, shows the true interest your beloved ARG has with the REGULAR fan base. Stop trying to promote yourself and your baby at the expense of what MOST fans want and what's best for the show. I could keep going on and on, but I better stop. Just wanted to make clear I don't understand this obsession with ARG that Glenn has imposed onto the series and that Greg (who didn't even know what ARG was a couple months ago) seems to keep parroting as well, as if somehow LG15 is a viable ARG and that it helps the show. The Creators tend to be their own best spin-masters, and often I feel they are in their own world and exaggerate like heck. Someone please tell me there's a way to pull out of this death spiral the "ARG" has sent it into?

I'm just in mourning for the squandered potential. I wish Mesh could just get his own girl and start again, but Jess brought so much to that. I don't think any girl would do, it'd be hard to find another who'd do such a good job. I miss his amazing and witty writing though with a regular normal girl character. And lets not forget the amazing real-life story which goes along with LG15, starting again would be devoid of all that. I'm in mourning for what we had and how this constant empty "quest for an ARG" has brutally murdered the series even worse than Bree's dad was.

[Smashing]

I don't perceive any single person (or any two people) being at fault for the show's problems. I think they collectively share the credit and the blame. If anything, I think the problem is that there has NOT been a single controlling voice or vision guiding the show. Miles is often the director, but they all pitch in, all the while trying to pick up on the whims of fans. The biggest controlling factor to the story seems to be what locations they have access to. That's not anyone's fault. In this way there is a diffusion of responsibility. The creators all see this as a "ride" that they got caught up in, and have just been doing their best to keep the buzz going until they can parlay it into a paying gig one way or another. As long as the show is on, they can keep traveling the country and the world telling this same story over and over about the behind the scenes. They spin statistics to paint themselves in the best possible light, but they won't benefit from that long term. Either LG works or it doesn't, and if it doesn't, I don't think investors or advertisers will be fooled.

Whatever happens, the creators are going to ride this ride to the end of the line. And I keep waiting for that "next big thing" to come along so we won't have LG to kick around anymore.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not rooting against them by any means. If they can find a way to sustain LG, more power to them. But that seems less and less realistic as time goes by.

edit to add: "we have 70% female, 14-40, cluster in mid 20s."
I also wonder how they came by this info. I bet learning these numbers did affect the show. An appearance from Katherine McPhee is the biggest example I can think of. If they knew it before they conceived and cast the Jonas character, I'm sure it affected that choice.

[stantheman]

we have 70% female, 14-40, cluster in mid 20s

Somewhere I read that YouTube's viewership is dominated by teenage boys. A quick glance at LG15's YT comments from any video so far would seem to bear that out.

In a perfect world (by the Creators' standard) Bree would be a heroine to young females and the ideal character to pitch appropriately placed products.

However, the inconvenient truth is that dudes young and old make up the bulk of LG15's demographic. Oh sure, loads of chicks watch the show too, perhaps in increasing numbers with the addition of Jonas, but they're not as vocal.... I'm sure they know this is a series scripted entirely by men whose understanding of the female perspective is always, at best, second-hand.

I smell house of cards.

[Terryfic]

Wow Hye you are starting to sound more and more like BravesGirl5 post LG reveal. I think we all get it. You don’t like the ARG. You don’t like Glenn’s work. Neither do I, but I agree with Smashing that he isn’t the sole reason the show has fallen apart. There is a lack of authorship to the series and that has killed it more then anything. I think that they push the ARG so much because they think it is new and exciting. LG didn’t get press for being good, it got press for doing something relatively new – using YouTube to tell a fictional story.

I think they are all very much aware that the quality of LG is well below that of television and film so to compensate for that they are going to try to be ‘innovative’. Of course being largely ignorant of internet communities hasn’t helped them that much. They really aren’t cutting edge, but will continue to claim they are. They had never heard of online series (even though ScottZ & Paul have been making them for sometime) so they claim they invented the genre, they hadn’t really heard of ARGs before so they think what they are doing is really new and exciting when in fact they are kind of retreading work done by people years ago and aren’t even doing it as well. But in order to keep the image of being these guys that are breaking all this new ground they will continue to spin and pretend they are these visionaries.

My belief that they are fairly ignorant of the internet in general was reinforced by the way they describe the community on their website is as if that wasn’t how every online community functioned. I have long believed from how Miles ran the phorum that he himself had never used a forum before and this talk has cemented that idea in my mind. The idea of people ‘living’ on their website is more a testament to how online communities function in general and not anything specific to their show at all. You find the exact same behavior at the Brotherhood 2.0 site.

A long time ago I said I didn’t think that anyone involved in this series was smart enough to create new art. I don’t know if that is true or not, but I have listen to all of them talk about LG enough to come to the conclusion that that is not at all what they are interested in. They have never really talked intelligently about the medium or how it can be used in unique ways nor have they tried anything really interesting with LG in a long long time. I believe they are a group of people that got lucky with LG (not to say it wasn’t a good show, but the only reason they got attention was because YouTube exploded just as their show started) and now want to turn that into profit, by either making LG profitable (which is highly unlikely) or being able to get a job else where in the industry and avoid the long ‘breaking in’ process. I can’t imagine how frustrating it must be to be profit driven and using a medium that is defined by its free nature.

[milowent]

"Daniel and Bree have run away from home and a video that was once about a girl and her webcam has become more artsy, clever and creative."

"But the ARG community has been key to the show’s success."

These quotes, from the blogposts I quoted above, are really the source of Hye's frustration. Even if the creators didn't say exactly these things (we'll know when the podcast comes out), we have been getting the impression from the creators' lately that they believe the ARG is a key component of LG15's success. And that just isn't true.

Sure, there are lots of things you could point to as being problems with the show, but I think that overreliance on the ARG is a big problem. And from what I can tell, ARGS are not big audience draws. Unless the ARG is kept somewhat separate from LG15 as supplemental material (as the LOST ARG appears to be), I think it is damaging. ARGS are a niche. If someone developed a show strongly targeted to mormon polygamists, it just will not get a big audience. That's all there is to it.

Back in early October I was noting that the phorum was being overrun with cassieiswatching (CiW) followers. On October 5, 67% of all the posts all-time at the phorum were about CiW - and it was eclipsing lg15. It was also tainting the creators' view of average viewer reaction to lg15 videos.

And the funny thing is, CiW wasn't even that successful. Its first two videos - which were the most viewed and caused most of the CiW frenzy - got less than 25,000 youtube views each in their first month (this is my recollection, they have some more views now, but no CiW video ever approached the popularity in views of even a bad Bree video.)

CiW had the success it did have because it happened to come out at the same time the Creators came out. The first video was Sept 12 - the day Jessica was found. CiW siphoned off some of the millions who decided to check out LG15 that week. Whether OpAphid is better or worse than CiW, i have no idea. But it certainly generated far lower interest. That's how ARGS go. They are a niche.

I think there was an alternate path that Bree could have gone down. I also think its too late to go back.

But the focus can be returned to this key statement of the Creators, in their first missive:

"We are just like you. A few people who love good stories."

[Terryfic]

Although I agree with your numbers and conclusions, I think we all know that any figures from YT have to be taken with a grain of salt. When videos have a low number of views (as OA does) I’d argue 80% or so of them are people seeking those videos out, they are active fans. Where as once you get up to the view count that LG has I would say that upwards to 70% of the views are curiosity or hate clicks, yes they are still eyeballs, but if I were an advertiser I wouldn’t want my product associated with hate or indifference.

The true LG audience is closer to 50,000 at a very generous estimate and perhaps OA has a serious following of 100, so yes, based on these numbers (which I have just made up) LG is 500 times more popular then OA. But the question is, does this really matter? I don’t think anyone involved with LG really thinks the show can be turned profitable, but would rather use the fame they have attracted because of the show to get high paying jobs else where in the industry – this is already happening to a degree with the actors are getting other work and Mesh finding someone willing to produce a script of his.

When they first came out we all heard rumors of them going to meetings with network heads and such, these meetings didn’t pan out. Networks didn’t want to give creative control to a bunch of newcomers. I think they have finally realized that they will not be able to become contract IMS creators, as no one is willing to outsource that right now. But, big companies like ABC and Microsoft have outsourced ARGs before (Lost Experience and ilovebees), so now they are trying to jump ship and spin, spin, spin in order to change their image from IMS authors to ARG authors so they can still cash in on LG.

They have had enough experience speaking with (and lying to) the media that they know they can just say whatever and it will be printed. If they say LG is big because it is an ARG then the next time they are in a board meeting that is what will be true, not the facts. We all know Glenn is a big fan of wikipedia, they are all just trying to wiki their own fame so they are famous for what they want to be and not what they are.

[milowent]

terryfic said:

When videos have a low number of views (as OA does) I’d argue 80% or so of them are people seeking those videos out, they are active fans. Where as once you get up to the view count that LG has I would say that upwards to 70% of the views are curiosity or hate clicks, yes they are still eyeballs, but if I were an advertiser I wouldn’t want my product associated with hate or indifference.

I agree that youtube views of LG15 include lots of casual viewers. But I think the true number of haters is small. I think advertisers don't understand youtube enough yet (as the Variety article from a few days ago makes clear.)

I don’t think anyone involved with LG really thinks the show can be turned profitable

i can be naive, but if this is true, i am sad.

But, big companies like ABC and Microsoft have outsourced ARGs before (Lost Experience and ilovebees), so now they are trying to jump ship and spin, spin, spin in order to change their image from IMS authors to ARG authors so they can still cash in on LG.

Logical suggestion, Terry. Again, I am sad. I doubt the networks consult unfiction to determine whether an "ARG team" is legit.

They have had enough experience speaking with (and lying to) the media that they know they can just say whatever and it will be printed. ... they are all just trying to wiki their own fame so they are famous for what they want to be and not what they are.

I need to go listen to some Cure now I'm so depressed, Jadedryffic! They can say what they want, but it doesn't mean it will succeed. I want them to succeed.

[buckwheat]

terryfic said:

I don’t think anyone involved with LG really thinks the show can be turned profitable
.

Where did you get this Terry?

[buckwheat]

hyemew said:

milowent said:

Daniel and Bree have run away from home and a video that was once about a girl and her webcam has become more artsy, cleaver and creative.

Wow, I can't believe how strongly I disagree with this statement.
The truth is the complete opposite.

A chacun son . . . . no acountin' for taste Hye....

[buckwheat]

milowent said:

I need to go listen to some Cure now I'm so depressed, Jadedryffic! They can say what they want, but it doesn't mean it will succeed. I want them to succeed.

Cheer up Milo...from the sounds of the panel, everyone connected with LG is getting what they want (even Mesh is able to work on his screenplays) . . . . if that's not success, it's a good start and rare in the business...here at the Cove, of course, opinion may differ.....

[milowent]

buckwheat said:

milowent said:

I need to go listen to some Cure now I'm so depressed, Jadedryffic! They can say what they want, but it doesn't mean it will succeed. I want them to succeed.

Cheer up Milo...from the sounds of the panel, everyone connected with LG is getting what they want (even Mesh is able to work on his screenplays) . . . . if that's not success, it's a good start and rare in the business...here at the Cove, of course, opinion may differ.....

Good point. I'll go put on some Pipettes now. The best girl group since 1965.