Read, watch, review and rate The Web Files »

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• Premiere: July 8, 2009
• Length: 7-8 minutes
• Budget: Medium

Cast

• Host: Kristyn Burtt

Crew

• Director / Producer: Sandra Payne

While the opening sequence — shot film noir-style, with Burtt playing the role of detective — seems to imply investigative journalism, Burtt’s focus is on personalities and content, with minimal scoops in sight. The interview with MERRIme.com creators Kaily Smith and David Weidoff, for example, focuses more on their experiences at the NYTVF (where Smith won the best actress award) than on questions like how they were able to secure name cast members like Tony Hale and Tom Arnold, not to mention their $2,500-per-episode financing, though they do make an interesting point about the value of hiring a publicist.

But while the news component may be lacking, Burtt is still a capable host whose years of entertainment reporting make her very comfortable on camera — previously, she’d done hosting work with MSNBC and NBC, among other entities. Read more of this story

We’re big fans of the way the Microsoft Xbox LIVE game show 1 vs. 100 blurs the lines between TV and gaming. As the second season of 1 vs. 100 starts today (at 5 p.m. PT! Rush home and get in the mob!), it will have an added twist that makes this endeavor even more unique — measurement.

The folks in Redmond are teaming up with Nielsen to track how many people are playing (and checking out the ads). From a post on the Microsoft Advertising Community blog post:

The Xbox LIVE advertising group has teamed up with the Nielsen Company to launch a pilot test, beginning with Season 2 of 1 vs. 100, to obtain content, channel and ad specific metrics and identify who was playing the game and saw a particular advertisement. This is the first time content delivered through a video game console network will be capable of being measured by Nielsen’s television, online and video game metering technologies, such as the Nielsen people meter. Our goal is to ultimately provide advertisers with concrete Gross Rating Points (GRPs) and Targeted Rating Points (TRPs) to maximize their media spend.

Given that Microsoft said that it got up to 200,000 players each of the two nights the show aired per week during season one, it’ll be interesting how that number a.) does in season two and b.) compares with what a third-party research firm like Nielsen says. Of course, if Nielsen reports big numbers, Microsoft can charge more for in-game ads.

For more on why we think 1 vs. 100 is a good indicator of where hybrid media is heading, check out Liz’s Long View article on the topic over at our subscription research service, GigaOM Pro.

Read, watch, review and rate Tumblr Marriage Proposal »

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• Length: 6 years so far

Cast

• Fiance: Justin Johnson
• Finacee: Marissa

About a month prior, Johnson had begun working with the team at Tumblr to create a wedding proposal that suited them as a couple — a big, splashy takeover of every Tumblr user’s dashboard, in which he’d pop the question in a post only Nystrom could respond to. That night, Johnson had just used a “secret link” to activate the proposal post, meaning that soon the entire Tumblr universe would be able to see it…except that his first attempt to activate it didn’t work.

Meanwhile, the ring box was on his desk, the accompanying proposal video was now live on Vimeo, and he was growing increasingly worried that the surprise was about to be blown. Finally, some urgent IMs to the Tumblr team got the proposal post working — just as Nystrom left the room to go check on the spaghetti. “There was no not-obvious way to be like, ‘HEY, WHY DONT YOU COME OVER AND CHECK TUMBLR!’” Johnson said via IM. “I was thinking of saying, ‘Oh man, so-and-so just put up this hilarious post,’ but that seemed sort of lame.”

Finally she returned to their office and refreshed her Tumblr page — giving Johnson just enough time to get down on one knee and get the ring ready. Read more of this story

Read, watch, review and rate Hurtling Through Space At An Alarming Rate »

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• Premiere: November 2, 2009
• Length: 10-13 minutes
• Budget: Medium

Cast

• Mike: Michael Davies
• Stuart: Stuart Papp

Crew

• Director: Michael Davies

The series, marking a definite shift in tone from the team who created Streamy-nominated drama After Judgment, charts the adventures of Mike (Michael Davies) and Stuart (Stuart Paap), two beer-swilling dudes flying about through space in a ship that looks like a modern two-bedroom apartment. How does the apartment manage interstellar travel? What are these guys supposed to be doing aside from ridding space of “annoying creatures” (which makes them sound like the astronaut equivalent of exterminators)? No freaking clue. The main point of the show is to fling about sci-fi references, goof around with toy weapons, and talk about boobs, while facing foes like a monstrous pile of dirty laundry, a planet filled with oddly timed bombs, and Comicbook Orange’s Casey McKinnon in an upcoming guest appearance.

Unfortunately, while Hurtling means well, the series is uneven, specifically because the show is at its best when the guys are just being guys, and there’s no serious effort being made to spoof sci-fi franchises. Read more of this story

It’s pretty clear at this point that the secret to success on the Internet is Twilight. Check out the numbers from yesterday’s live web cast from the red carpet of the premiere of The Twilight Saga: New Moon, exclusively hosted by MySpace and powered by Ustream.

The Twilight Saga New Moon Red Carpet Premiere

New Moon Premiere | MySpace Video

The two companies report that they had nearly 3 million total views, to a very nice ratio of 2 million uniques, the latter of which is a new all-time record for a Ustream event. And the Twilight kids easily topped out Ustream’s last big red carpet for the premiere of Michael Jackson’s This Is It, which had 1.8 million total views.

Read, watch, review and rate The Temp Life »

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• Premiere: November 2006
• Length: 6 minutes
• Schedule: Weekly

Cast

• Nick "Trouble" Chiapetta: Wilson Cleveland
• Nancy (Video Resume): Taryn Southern
• Stevie P. (Video Resume): Sandeep Parikh

Crew

• Co-Writer: Wilson Cleveland
• Co-Writer: Yuri Baranovsky
• Co-Director: Andrew Y. Park
• Co-Director: Jato Smith

For if you’re a true TV nerd, you might be aware of something known as the Tommy Westphall Universe Hypothesis, a theory which posits that the vast majority of network television from the past several decades takes place within the same universe, thanks to the multitude of crossovers and spinoffs that have occurred over the years. According to the Westphall hypothesis, Monica and Rachel from Friends live in the same fictional New York as the detectives on Law and Order and the Bunkers from All in the Family — plus, in their future lies the worlds of both Star Trek and Firefly. It’s a theory filled with contradictions and faults, but presents a fresh way of considering the various seemingly disconnected shows we all watch.

Despite the metatextual nature of new media, where stories are often being told in multiple formats across different platforms, no Westphall analog had really emerged in the web series world yet — until now. Two major crossovers come up in the fourth season of The Temp Life: First, struggling temp agency Commodity has been pushed out of its office space by a company owned by the hedge fund owned by the central company of Hedge Fund. (Fund creator/star Chris Murray makes a cameo in the first episode.) In addition, the central characters from the series Groupthink will guest-star in an upcoming episode. The result is an expanded universe that not only creates the sense that these shows, all created and produced independently, do not exist in a vacuum, but provides them an opportunity for greater exposure. Read more of this story

Old people do the darndest things — especially when they own a football team. Bud Adams, the 86-year-old owner of the Tennessee Titans, decided to express his excitement over his team beating the Buffalo Bills over the weekend by giving his opponents and their fans the finger… in a couple creative ways. And as with anything slightly embarrassing done by anyone with any sort of notoriety, there’s video of it now on YouTube. Sheesh, what does Adams do when his team loses?

If we knew football was packed with this much petty geriatric action, we’d have watched more games this season (did anyone get any points in their fantasy football league for this?). Adams has since apologized and said he would accept any discipline handed down by the NFL.

By now it’s old hat that we live in a crowd-sourced surveillance society, and it will only accelerate as more live video-casting services proliferate and our actions are broadcast immediately. As if to drive the point home, last night’s episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm, which is featuring a Seinfeld reunion this season, used the Michael Richards n-word tantrum as comedic fodder. In an askew recreation of that career-killing moment for Richards, he looks over to see that a crowd of people are capturing it all on a host of video-enabled cell phones [via Huffington Post].

Read, watch, review and rate Scott Gairdner’s Comedy »

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• Premiere: January 2006
• Budget: Medium

Crew

• Creator: Scott Gairdner

Gairdner, named the “King of Dot Comedy” by G4’s Attack of the Show, is a solo act who’s been creating web comedy since 2006. After his first spoof shorts went viral, Collegehumor began commissioning pieces; his stuff has also been featured by YouTube and FunnyOrDie. It’s deserved attention, as his work represents some of the best in pop-culture parody (with a heavy emphasis on video games), enabled not just by Gairdner’s solid acting and directing chops, but technical skill as an editor and effects artist, which helps him to nimbly parody MTV’s My Super Sweet 16 and imagine CNN’s hologram technology getting disturbing real-world applications.

But it’s Gairdner’s unique POV that helps his shorts stand out in an admittedly oversaturated marketplace for sketch comedy. Today, for example, he released one of the most perfectly bizarre shorts to grace the web recently, a third installment of Tiny Fuppets. Read more of this story

Read, watch, review and rate Horrible Turn »

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• Premiere: November 10, 2009
• Length: 50 minutes
• Budget: Medium

Cast

• Tyce Green: Billy Buddy / Dr. Horrible
• Jacob Buras: Lenny Hammerstein / Captain Hammer

Crew

• Director: Chance McClain

Links

• EW on "Horrible Turn"

Horrible Turn, a fan-made prequel to Dr. Horrible’s Sing-A-Long Blog, is a full hour of music, comedy and supervillain angst. Set in the early 1990s — allowing for plenty of Compuserve and giant cellular telephone jokes — Turn teases the early origins of the Evil League of Evil, including the first reported attack of Bad Horse, while also introducing the characters of Dr. Horrible and Captain Hammer as pre-super adolescents whose fates are not yet determined. I mean, they don’t like each other very much, but young Dr. Horrible/Billy Buddy is more focused on making it happen with his Australian dream girl (a deliberate reference to the Dr. Horrible lyric “But her tears will dry/As I hand her the keys/To her shiny new Australia”) and releasing a potion that will make all the people of the world love each other.

What’s interesting is that in both versions Dr. Horrible is coming from the same Nietzschean-ubermensch place, believing that “the world is broken and he just needs to fix it.” How he lost his faith in love and turned instead to power as a solution is the film’s arc, which ends on a note that could potentially allow for sequels (though what do we call a prequel-sequel? Prequel Part 2?).

When evaluated as an independent production, not a fan film, Turn is competently directed and written, with traditional musical numbers smoothly integrated into the narrative and a cinematic look, enabled by a 35mm lens adapter according to director Chance McClain. Read more of this story

Forgive us for having a wee bit of trouble focusing on the day after NewTeeVee Live, will you?

Meanwhile, it’s well worth distracting yourself with this video: CollegeHumor’s Prank Wars skydiving edition: “Amir launches the first aerial attack in the war’s four-year history.”