Watch ‘Can We Do That,’ Win iPod

How do you get users to watch your web show? One way to do it is bribery. A new quiz vlog from the creators of online comedy show Can We Do That? called “3V” asks users to watch an episode, and then message them through video sharing site Veoh to be entered in a drawing for a free video iPod.

The best part is, Veoh is paying for the iPods, in addition to splitting ad revenue 50-50 with the Can We Do That? team. Cory Tyler, the producer behind Can We Do That?, struck up a conversation with Dmitry Shapiro, Veoh’s CEO, by sending him a message through Shapiro’s Veoh user page. After trading messages online, they met for a tete-a-tete in San Diego and came up with the idea for the giveaway.

Following up on an interview with Tyler when I last visited L.A., I talked to him Wednesday about the team’s ongoing plans for the show.

For starters, they took a look at what’s working online. “What we’ve learned is to shorten our stuff,” he said, pointing to the example set by Michael Eisner with Prom Queen, which runs only 60 seconds. “At first it was four minutes, now we’re looking at two minutes.”

They’ve stuck with the basic format, kicking off each show with a bikini-clad vixen followed by a punchy sketch about a fictional advertising production. They’re looking to produce another batch of 10 or 12 episodes, and will be producing one episode of the main show and two installments of the quiz each month.

The hope remains that an advertiser will get the hint and pay for a product placement, and Tyler promised that they’ll continue to “egg-on sponsors” by focusing episodes on fake campaigns for real products. Meanwhile, don’t expect them to change the tone of the content– the latest episode focuses on “D’s Nuts,” and an upcoming episode features an overworked Tyler having a divine vision of George W. Bush as God.

Does the edgy approach work? An episode that they posted on AOL’s Uncut Video garnered 20 million views after “going viral,” according to Tyler. Of course, unlike Veoh, AOL doesn’t have a revenue sharing model, so they didn’t make any money on all that interest. But it certainly supplied some promotional juice, and proves that being unabashedly sophomoric is an effective way to garner a broad audience.