Michael Eisner's Internet Play: Vuguru

With the premiere of Michael Eisner's second web series The All-For-Nots, here's a quick review of the new media world according to Eisner. 

His company's first series was Prom Queen.  According the Eisner, it cost $3,000 per 90 second episode, was seen by 20 million people and made, "a couple thousand dollars."

Though it had more shots of girls in bikinis than the original, Prom Queen's sequel, PQ: Summer Heat, was seen by fewer people and "lost money."

Despite this (and his view that the writers strike was insane because "it [was] over a business and a marketplace that is not evolved enough to even know if there is a business or a marketplace there"), Eisner is determined to make Vuguru "the leader in high-quality, story driven content produced for new media platforms."

He premiered The All-For-Nots with sponsorships from Chrysler and Expedia, distribution on Bebo and Verizon's V-CAST (not sure who paid who for what) and a simple strategy: produce cheap content that makes people laugh and cry. 

With little deference to Eisner's experience producing content that is professional, tear-jerking, and cheap, TechCrunch's Michael Arrington paid Eisner what must be high praise in Silicon Valley when he wrote that Prom Queen was, "as good as much of the user generated content out there."

And though Arrington predicted the show could be "very profitable", he doubted the need for Eisner's lavish $100k production budget for the 80-episode series: "the audience can easily create their own content and distribute it to millions on YouTube. Some of that content will be better than anything Hollywood produces. And it won’t cost even $100k to create."

No word yet on the budget, revenue, the fees paid to talent or the likely profitability of The All-For-Nots.  But if the Lonely Girl people can make millions off their Bebo show, Kate Modern, one hopes the former King of the Mouse House can figure out how to do the same.

Social Networking Sites Buying Internet Original Content

WSJ today gives overview of social networking sites getting into business of producing online video.  Article features three shows:

- Kate Modern, a mystery on social networking site Bebo.
- Roommates, a soap opera on MySpace TV
- Special Delivery, a hidden camera reality show on MySpace TV.

It notes that while MySpace and Bebo push into original content, Facebook hasn't and other internet companies - AOL and Yahoo, specifically - are backing away from it.   

Article doesn't disclose budget for KATE MODERN but says Bebo sells sponsorships at $400,000 for six months. 

Claims production budgets for Roommates and Special Delivery are about $1000 per minute.

Article also notes that the shows themselves aren't very profitable to their writer / producers, who are portrayed as doing internet stuff to build assets and relationships "in a bigger entertainment medium." 

If you've watched these shows, use the comments to tell us what you think. 

If you've had experience trying to sell a show to Bebo or MySpace or any other company investing in  internet original content, tell us what can about the process: deal points, budgets, development process.

WSJ article also links to excellent post by Kara Swisher where she takes Hollywood to task - creative talent as well as the companies - for being risk-averse and lazy and for making "Web material that clearly is derivative of current media like television, rather than [trying] to imagine a whole new way of creating content that reflects and excels on the online platform."

Swisher's interview with LonelyGirl and Kate Modern creator Peter Gibbons is below the break ...