An internet series, not a TV show

An internet series differs from a show on TV in few important ways...

Hollywood has long provided us the television template with comedies like ‘Friends’ and ‘Seinfeld’, and also we’ve seen it broken with dramas like ‘The Sopranos’. But regardless of the franchise, certain things were common from the pilot to the finale, like episode length and commercial breaks. Internet series don’t have a mold, yet. Beverlywood is amongst the first to try and establish one. Two challenges present themselves, when trying to develop this new internet series model.

The first challenge is audience familiarity. The masses have long been accustomed to set formats like a three or a four act structure, depending on genre. Audiences have internal clocks telling them when an episode is about to reach a turn in the story, or the ultimate climax. Whether serial or episodic, innovation usually comes in how TV’s old formula is executed, not reinvented. On the web, audience attention span for video length changes all the time. Internet series can be seen growing gradually in episode length, as cyberspace itself evolves around it. Where the average online clip used to be no longer than a minute, technological improvements have allowed people to easily email videos that are over 3 or 4 minutes long. Hence, there is no set standard for episode or ‘webisode’ length these days.

The second challenge facing any developer of content for a web audience, is one of standards in advertising. Many forms of ad placement, both passive and active, have been tried. These include ‘skins’ surrounding a media player, pop up ads, static text, and a lead-in commercial. To complicate matters, different portals such as youtube, myspace videos, or google videos may have their own unique restrictions. The internet being a diverse community, opinions on how this will evolve are as plentiful as blogs. Each internet series must pick it’s method of incorporating ads just like it needs to choose a server. That choice, depending on it’s audience, can determines whether it sinks or swims.

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