Atom Rebrands, Relaunches, Releases New Series

The last remaining vestiges of dot-com survivor AtomFilms have been swept away as the site has officially been renamed Atom.com, gone all comedy and gotten a new look.

The content is still a mix of pro content (developed or licensed by Atom) and user-generated content — but gone are the dramas, the experimental shorts and the sci-fi. As part of Comedy Central, it’s all funny business now, which is good because lord knows between Funny or Die, College Humor, Crackle, the Independent Comedy Network, Comedy.com, Heavy, Break, My Damn Channel, The Onion, and Adult Swim, we were running dangerously low on places to find laughs online.

As it’s always done, Atom will split revenues with pro content creators. UGC’ers can earn some of that sweet rev share by winning the weekly “Upload Showdown” and getting bumped up to Pro status where they get a licensing deal with Atom and distribution across partners like Bebo, Veoh, Xbox Live and on Verizion, AT&T and AllTel systems.

UGC hopefuls can also get on oldteevee; Atom also launched Atom TV, a weekly show that runs late-night on Comedy Central featuring content from the site. Though oldteevee’s track record of shows featuring newteevee doesn’t bode well for Atom TV’s future (Web Junk, anyone?).

To kick off this new era for the site, Atom has launched four new original web series:

Border Patrol is a mockumentary about eager doofuses who voluntarily guard the U.S./Mexico border.

Steven & Stephen comes from the guys behind Adult Swim’s Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job! comes this animated series about twins conjoined at the crotch.

Stickman Exodus follows a group of stick figures as they travel through the dangerous world of a bored high-school student’s notebook.

Benny, Escaped Convict goes on the lam with a foul-mouthed rodent.

Will this move help Atom break into the big time? Though the comedy space is crowded, having a big name like Comedy Central on your side doesn’t hurt. And with YouTube getting into the indie shorts game, now was probably an opportune time to get more focused.

Disclosure: I used to work at AtomFilms.