FountainHead Springs Cheap Knockoffs
Online video is just television on the cheap, right? We’ll do our own hair, makeup, and craft services, thank you very much! OK, maybe a little too cynical, but now just imagine online video (a.k.a. TV on the cheap) on the cheap. Silicon Alley Insider points us to FountainHead Studios, which launched five new web series today at the AlwaysOn conference.
Writes SAI,
“we checked out one of their shows, Stockrockets.tv. We were temporarily confused, because it looked a lot like Wallstrip, our favorite CBS-owned Wall Street video show. Then we watched some more, and we figured out the difference: Wallstrip is smart and watchable.”
Stock Rockets is a ripoff, no doubt. Pretty girl + green screen + clip art + ironic eyebrow arch + theme of stocks at new highs. No, it’s not patentable. One thing Wallstrip doesn’t have is a host named Barbie Hargrave.
Also in the gang are a tamer cousin of Wine Library TV (that would be Must Love Wine) and a glammed-up Ctrl+Alt+Chicken (known as 2MinuteChef.tv). Plus two horoscopes shows, one in English and one in Spanish! But hey, everything’s derivative. Until the rest of y’all try something besides girl + camera + news, these guys aren’t all that bad by comparison.
Comments (5)
Linkbacks (2)
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[...] effort to produce great webcasts, and every one of their efforts so far fail miserably (hat tip to NewTeeVee). Compare Stock Rockets, for example, to WallStrip … clearly a ripoff attempt, but it suffers [...]
Webcasts are hard to produce well, harder…
— 6:49 AM on February 15, 2008
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[...] aquisition, people thought the purchase of Wallstrip would be the first of many. It even spawned a few rip offs . Conversly, it’s canceleation was thought of as an omen for the crumbling video [...]
My Top 5 Favorite Canceled Web Series «…
— 9:30 PM on February 24, 2009
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and it even has the word “rocket” in it! lolz
That was painful to watch! I’m all about the ’strip.
How do they even make these shows, I could never even dream of knocking off someones concept the way they are!
I remember thinking that when Geek Brief launched, it was a clear knock off of RocketBoom. Quirky girl in front of a back drop talks about internet culture and tech. But since then Cali has obviously solidified herself as the leading gadget vlog. It just takes time to settle into your niche. You can’t blame Fountain Head for being inspired by currently popular shows and taking their own swing. It’s a lot of work to put together these shows. Give ‘em some credit! If they don’t find their own voice, they’ll be dead in two months.
Yea, I wonder what the producers were thinking there
This string caught my attention, but still a little surprised there isn’t as many comments as I expected. I’ll keep checking back since this is a hot topic for me personally.