JETSET Signs with Next New Networks

JETSET is the first established web video show to sign with Next New Networks, the company promising to federate the professional web video world (in a distributed way, of course). In a relationship launching Monday, NNN will be selling sponsorships and doing cross-promotion for the show, which offers capsules of Internet and pop culture for young adults.

JETSET’s co-creators Zadi Diaz and Steve Woolf will continue to own and distribute the show as they have since they started it nine months ago, they said in a phone call on Saturday. NNN has a contract to help monetize the show for the next 12 months, but no further details were disclosed. “They’re focused on the business part, so we can focus on the creative,” Diaz said of the deal.

“It’s about finding a way to make money, not to put a point on it,” added Woolf. “It’s not our forte to go out doing ad sales. We want to make shows, build a team, and run a production company. This gives us breathing room and takes a lot of weight off our shoulders.”

JETSET, part of Diaz and Woolf’s company Smashface Productions, is viewed 30,000 times per day across various distribution points, the two said. Full episodes (released weekly, usually) get 30,000 to 40,000 total viewings, and bits and pieces get wider distribution through a deal with the teen social network Tagged.

Diaz and Woolf said that as part of their ongoing quest to make their show interactive, they’ve recently started experimenting with incorporating an alternate reality game, adding hidden messages and an underlying narrative to recent episodes. That’s a method that’s proved extremely successful (in terms of popularity, not necessarily money) for the folks who make Lonelygirl15.

Further coverage: Next New Networks is attempting to combine old media wisdom with new media flexibility, as we wrote recently. Jackson included a meeting with the JETSET creators in his reflective Lunching in LA series.