Web series
Encyclopedia
A web series is a series of episodes released on the Internet
Internet
The Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standard Internet protocol suite to serve billions of users worldwide...

 or also by mobile or cellular phone, and part of the newly emerging medium called web television
Web television
Web television, also commonly referred to as web TV, not to be confused with WebTV, Internet television or catch up TV, is an emerging genre of digital entertainment that is distinct from traditional broadcast television...

. A single instance of a web series program is called an episode (the term webisode
Webisode
A webisode is a short episode which airs initially as Internet television, either download or stream as opposed to first airing on broadcast or cable television. The format can be used as a preview, a promotion, as part of a collection of shorts, or a commercial.A webisode can be an episode...

 has been largely deprecated).

While the popularity of web series is continuing to rise, the concept itself isn't entirely new. Scott Zakarin
Scott Zakarin
Scott Zakarin is an American writer, film producer and new media entertainment pioneer.-Career:In 1995, while directing commercials and early interactive television tests for the Fattal & Collins advertising agency, Zakarin became fascinated by the Internet. He spent time in chat rooms and quickly...

 created the first advertiser supported web series in 1995, The Spot
The Spot
The Spot, or thespot.com, was the second episodic online story , after an earlier experiment by AOL's QuantumLink Serial, and pioneered the underwriting of bandwidth and production costs by offering paid advertising banners on the web pages and product placement within the journal entries...

. Homicide: Second Shift
Homicide: Second Shift
Homicide: Second Shift was a pioneering Internet web series that tied into the TV series Homicide: Life on the Street. The web-show started 21 February 1997. The show featured detectives of the homicide squad that worked the second shift, after the television detectives went home for the day...

was a pioneering Internet web series that tied into the TV series Homicide: Life on the Street
Homicide: Life on the Street
Homicide: Life on the Street is an American police procedural television series chronicling the work of a fictional version of the Baltimore Homicide Unit. It ran for seven seasons on NBC from 1993 to 1999, and was succeeded by a TV movie, which also acted as the de-facto series finale...

. The web series started in 1997 and was ultimately cancelled due to financial constraints and technological restrictions.

The rise in popularity of web series can be seen as a result of the increasing availability of broadband
Broadband
The term broadband refers to a telecommunications signal or device of greater bandwidth, in some sense, than another standard or usual signal or device . Different criteria for "broad" have been applied in different contexts and at different times...

 and the improved video streaming technology. This has allowed independent producers to create low budget series distributed on the Internet, but more recently major television production companies are using the Internet as a means of promoting their TV shows as well as developing specific media and shows for the Internet.

History

In 1995, Bullseye Art
Bullseye Art
Bullseye Art was a New York City based art collective that pioneered art and animation on the web. Founded in 1995 by Josh Kimberg, Nick Cogan and Ryan Edwards, the company gained fame for its creation of unique and offbeat interactive cartoons made using Macromedia Flash.Bullseye Art became well...

 was one of the first web publishers to create what became known as webisodes. The first few webisodic content to come out of Bullseye Art
Bullseye Art
Bullseye Art was a New York City based art collective that pioneered art and animation on the web. Founded in 1995 by Josh Kimberg, Nick Cogan and Ryan Edwards, the company gained fame for its creation of unique and offbeat interactive cartoons made using Macromedia Flash.Bullseye Art became well...

 included Porkchops, Internet the Animated Series and Rat Chicken. In 1998 Bullseye Art
Bullseye Art
Bullseye Art was a New York City based art collective that pioneered art and animation on the web. Founded in 1995 by Josh Kimberg, Nick Cogan and Ryan Edwards, the company gained fame for its creation of unique and offbeat interactive cartoons made using Macromedia Flash.Bullseye Art became well...

 had a hit with Miss Muffy and the Muf Mob,which lead to a development deal with MTV
MTV
MTV, formerly an initialism of Music Television, is an American network based in New York City that launched on August 1, 1981. The original purpose of the channel was to play music videos guided by on-air hosts known as VJs....

. Bullseye Art
Bullseye Art
Bullseye Art was a New York City based art collective that pioneered art and animation on the web. Founded in 1995 by Josh Kimberg, Nick Cogan and Ryan Edwards, the company gained fame for its creation of unique and offbeat interactive cartoons made using Macromedia Flash.Bullseye Art became well...

 also created Space Dog which gained popularity on Atom Films
Atom Films
Atom.com is a broadband entertainment network offering original short subject films, animations, and series by independent creators...

. The original Bullseye Art
Bullseye Art
Bullseye Art was a New York City based art collective that pioneered art and animation on the web. Founded in 1995 by Josh Kimberg, Nick Cogan and Ryan Edwards, the company gained fame for its creation of unique and offbeat interactive cartoons made using Macromedia Flash.Bullseye Art became well...

 content can be seen currently on the Magic Butter web network.

In 2004 to 2006, several independent web series began to achieve popularity, most notably Red Vs. Blue
Red vs. Blue
Red vs. Blue, often abbreviated as RvB, is a set of related comic science fiction video series created by Rooster Teeth Productions and distributed through the Internet and on DVD...

(created by Rooster Teeth). The series was distributed independently using online portals YouTube
YouTube
YouTube is a video-sharing website, created by three former PayPal employees in February 2005, on which users can upload, view and share videos....

 and Revver
Revver
Revver is a video sharing website that hosts user-generated content. Revver attaches advertising to user-submitted video clips and originally offered to share ad revenue with the video creators. Videos could be displayed, downloaded and shared across the web in either Apple QuickTime or FLV format...

, as well as the Rooster Teeth website. The series acquired audiences in the millions, with Red Vs. Blue
Red vs. Blue
Red vs. Blue, often abbreviated as RvB, is a set of related comic science fiction video series created by Rooster Teeth Productions and distributed through the Internet and on DVD...

receiving over 100 Million views during its 1st run. Sam Has 7 Friends, which ran in the summer and fall of 2006, was nominated for an Emmy
Daytime Emmy Award
The Daytime Emmy Awards are awards presented by the New York-based National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences and the Los Angeles-based Academy of Television Arts & Sciences in recognition of excellence in American daytime television programming...

 and temporarily removed from the Internet when it was acquired by Michael Eisner
Michael Eisner
Michael Dammann Eisner is an American businessman. He was the chief executive officer of The Walt Disney Company from 1984 until 2005.-Early life:...

.

Web television series have continued to gain in popularity and notoriety over the subsequent years. Some of the most notable web television series include Lonelygirl15
Lonelygirl15
lonelygirl15 was an interactive web-based video series which began in June 2006 and ran through to August 1, 2008. Developed under the working title The Children of Anchor Cove, the show gained worldwide media attention when it was outed as fictional in September 2006.-Overview:lonelygirl15...

, Beyond The Rave, MySpace Road Tour
MySpace Road Tour
The MySpace Road Tour is an original online reality format created and produced for MySpace Australia by production company FremantleMedia...

, Prom Queen
Prom Queen (internet series)
Prom Queen is the first web television series produced by former Walt Disney CEO Michael Eisner's new production company Vuguru and the returning web television production company Big Fantastic, the creators of Sam Has 7 Friends...

, Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog
Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog
Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog is a 2008 musical tragicomedy miniseries in three acts, produced exclusively for Internet distribution. Filmed and set in Los Angeles, the show tells the story of Dr...

, The Guild
The Guild
The Guild is an American comedy web series created and written by Felicia Day, who also stars as Cyd Sherman . It premiered on YouTube on July 27, 2007. Subsequent webisodes premiered on Microsoft's Xbox Live Marketplace, Zune Marketplace, and MSN Video. The webisodes were later made available on...

, I Kissed A Vampire
I Kissed a Vampire
I Kissed a Vampire is a vampire rock musical web series starring Lucas Grabeel, Drew Seeley, and introducing Adrian Slade. It was one of the most popular webseries ever to appear on iTunes and has been made into a two hour movie featuring 17 songs. The movie will premiere in the spring 2012...

, Spellfury
Spellfury
Spellfury is a web series.It is a live-action classic sword and sorcery tale with a sense of humor.Spellfury is written and directed by Travis Gordon and stars Julie O'Halloran as Druinia. Each webisode of Spellfury comes out roughly every two months....

, The Legend of Neil
The Legend of Neil
The Legend of Neil is a comedy web series distributed by Comedy Central's partner Atom.com and is a parody of the Nintendo game The Legend of Zelda. Sandeep Parikh of The Guild fame directs the series. Tony Janning writes for the series, and acts as the title character Neil...

, Red State Update
Red State Update
Red State Update is an ongoing online satirical political series of short films produced in the United States by performers Jonathan Shockley and Travis Harmon.-Jackie Broyles and Dunlap:...

, "Heff The Series"., Dorm Life
Dorm Life
Dorm Life is a mockumentary web series created by former students of UCLA. It follows the fictional lives of the inhabitants of the college dorm floor 5 South. It is produced by Attention Span Media, a Los Angeles based social media studio and is a 2008 Webby Honoree for Best Writing and Comedy:...

, Speedie Date
Speedie Date
Speedie Date is a web series which debuted on December 1, 2008 on Strike.TV, an internet portal created by Hollywood writers during the 2007-2008 Writers Guild of America strike. Each of the ten scripted episodes in the series is a different two-person speed date...

, Fred Figglehorn, The Annoying Orange, Seth MacFarlane's Cavalcade of Cartoon Comedy
Seth MacFarlane's Cavalcade of Cartoon Comedy
Seth MacFarlane's Cavalcade of Cartoon Comedy is an American cartoon web series created by Seth MacFarlane.-Background:The series, which consists of comic cartoon shorts unrelated to each other, is released on YouTube. The series, which aired several episodes a month, was originally sponsored by...

, The Bus of Laughter, Dinosaur Office, Looking For Grace, and many more. In 2009, web television series received their first awards show, the Streamys.

Production and distribution

The rise in the popularity of the Internet and improvements in streaming video technology mean that producing and distributing a web series is relatively cheap by traditional standards and allows producers to reach a potentially global audience who can access the shows 24 hours a day.

The emerging potential for success in web video has caught the eye of some of the top entertainment executives in America, including former Disney executive and current head of the Tornante Company, Michael Eisner. Eisner's Vuguru subdivision of Tornante partnered with Canadian media conglomerate Rogers Media on October 26, 2009, securing plans to produce upwards of 30 new web shows a year. Rogers Media will help fund and distribute Vuguru's upcoming productions, thereby solidifying a direct connection between old and new media.

Web series can be distributed directly from the producers' websites or online video sites such as YouTube
YouTube
YouTube is a video-sharing website, created by three former PayPal employees in February 2005, on which users can upload, view and share videos....

, Vimeo, or Blip.

Awards

The Webby Awards
Webby Awards
A Webby Award is an international award presented annually by The International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences for excellence on the Internet with categories in websites, interactive advertising, online film and video, and mobile....

, established in 1995, recognize top web series in comedy, drama, and reality categories. In 2008, the International Academy of Web Television
International Academy of Web Television
The International Academy of Web Television was founded in 2008 and is devoted to the advancement of the arts and sciences of web television production. In 2009, the IAWTV held the first Streamy Awards ceremony, an annual event created to recognize excellence in web television production. The...

 was founded with the mission to organize and support the community of web television creators, actors, producers and executives. It administers the selection of winners for the Streamy Awards
Streamy Awards
The Streamy Awards, popularly known as the Streamys, are presented annually by the International Academy of Web Television to recognize excellence in the arts and science of web television production, including directing, acting, producing, and writing. The formal ceremony at which the awards are...

, which awards web television and web series content.

Events and Festivals

Los Angeles Web Series Festival: the LAWeb Festival has been the first event in the world dedicated exclusivelly to web series.
The first season (2010) the festival awarded the american series "ABIOLA'S KISS & TELL TV", "PARTY GIRL PLUS ONE" and "DIARY OF A SINGLE MOM".

HollyWeb Web Series Festival: The inaugural edition of HollyWeb Festival is scheduled to occur on March 31st, 2012. It is a festival dedicated exclusively to web series, and will take place in Hollywood, California.

See also

  • List of Web television series
  • Web television
    Web television
    Web television, also commonly referred to as web TV, not to be confused with WebTV, Internet television or catch up TV, is an emerging genre of digital entertainment that is distinct from traditional broadcast television...

  • Tubefilter
    Tubefilter
    Tubefilter, Inc. is a privately held company based in Los Angeles, California that operates media properties focusing on the online entertainment industry. Tubefilter is best known for Tubefilter News, a blog targeted at the producers and distributors of web television content where the best in...

  • NewTeeVee
  • Streamy Awards
    Streamy Awards
    The Streamy Awards, popularly known as the Streamys, are presented annually by the International Academy of Web Television to recognize excellence in the arts and science of web television production, including directing, acting, producing, and writing. The formal ceremony at which the awards are...

  • Software design
    Software design
    Software design is a process of problem solving and planning for a software solution. After the purpose and specifications of software are determined, software developers will design or employ designers to develop a plan for a solution...

  • Email forwarding
    Email forwarding
    Email forwarding generically refers to the operation of re-sending an email message delivered to one email address on to a possibly different email address...


External links

  • CITYMOVIZ.TV, Le meilleur de vos webséries! Mes colocs * Wazz Art * L'histoire racontée par des chaussettes * Brèves de trottoirs * Le passé recomposé * In the bed with... * Rosalinde et bien d'autres...
  • New details revealed from Gateworld
  • Galactica Webisodes Threatened By Dispute], (Robert Falconer), Hollywood North Report, August 18, 2006
  • Sci Fi Pulse, the Sci Fi Channel's online webcast centre (only available to viewers from the USA)
  • Battlestar Galactica: The Resistance webisodes at Sci Fi Pulse (Flash
    Adobe Flash
    Adobe Flash is a multimedia platform used to add animation, video, and interactivity to web pages. Flash is frequently used for advertisements, games and flash animations for broadcast...

    required)
  • American Web Show
  • Original Web Series
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