Web series

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

A web series (also known as webseries, short-form series, and web show) is a series of short

video sharing websites and apps, such as YouTube, Vimeo and TikTok,[4][3][6][7] and can be watched on devices such as smartphones, tablets, desktops, laptops, and Smart TVs (or television sets connected to the Internet with a media streaming device). They can also be released on social media platforms.[8][9] Because of the nature of the Internet, a web series may be interactive and immersive.[10][11][12] Web series are classified as new media
.

Web series are different from

optioned for television.[4][20][21]

A number of awards have been established to celebrate excellence in web series, like the

Emmy Awards[22][5][23] and the Canadian Screen Awards. There are also several web series festivals, most notably in Los Angeles and Vancouver.[24][25]

History

1990s

In April 1995, "Global Village Idiots", an episode of the reality-based program Rox on public access cable television in Bloomington, Indiana, was uploaded to the Internet, making Rox the first series distributed via the web.[26] The same year, Scott Zakarin created The Spot, an episodic online story which integrated photos, videos, and blogs into the storyline. Likened to Melrose Place-on-the-Web, The Spot featured a rotating cast of characters playing trendy twenty-somethings who rented rooms in a fabled Santa Monica, California beach house called "The Spot".[27][28] The Spot earned the title of Infoseek's "Cool Site of the Year," an award which later became the Webby.[29][30]

In January 1999, Showtime licensed the animated sci-fi web series WhirlGirl, making it the first independently produced web series licensed by a national television network. In February 1999, the series premiered simultaneously on Showtime and online. [31] The character occasionally appeared on Showtime, for example hosting a "Lethal Ladies" programming block, but spent most of her time online, appearing in 100 webisodes.[32]

2000s

As broadband bandwidth began to increase in speed and availability, delivering high-quality video over the Internet became a reality. In the early 2000s, the Japanese

Mahou Yuugi (2001).[33]

In 2003,

video-sharing site YouTube was launched in early 2005, allowing users to share television programs.[38] YouTube co-founder Jawed Karim said the inspiration for YouTube first came from Janet Jackson's role in the 2004 Super Bowl incident, when her breast was exposed during her performance, and later from the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami. Karim could not easily find video clips of either event online, which led to the idea of a video sharing site.[39]

From 2003 to 2006, many independent web series began to garner and achieve significant popularity, most notably the science fiction series known as

Daytime Emmy Award, and was temporarily removed from the Internet when it was also acquired by Eisner.[40] In 2004–2005, Spanish producer Pedro Alonso Pablos recorded a series of video interviews featuring actors and directors such as Guillermo del Toro, Santiago Segura, Álex de la Iglesia, and Keanu Reeves, which were distributed through his own website.[41][42][43] lonelygirl15, California Heaven, "The Burg", and SamHas7Friends also gained popularity during this time, acquiring audiences in the millions. (Science fiction thriller lonelygirl15 was so successful that it secured a sponsorship deal with Neutrogena in 2007.)[44]

In 2004, Stewart St. John, executive producer and head writer of 1990s webisodics

Sprint PCS Vision-enabled cell phones, creating the first American mobile phone series.[45][46]
St. John and partner Todd Fisher produced over 2,500 daily videos of the mobile soap, driving story lines across platforms to its web counterpart.

In 2007, the creators of lonelygirl15 followed up the series' success with

Daytime Emmy Award.[49] Award-winning producer/director Marshall Herskovitz created the drama Quarterlife, which debuted on MySpace and was later distributed on NBC.[50]

In 2008, major television studios began releasing web series, such as the

Foreign Body, a mystery web series that served as a prequel to Robin Cook's novel of the same name.[58] Beckett and Goodfried founded a new Internet studio, EQAL, and produced a spin-off from lonelygirl15 titled LG15: The Resistance.[59]

Mainstream press began to provide coverage.

Kirill for MSN.[62]

During

Rogers Media on October 26, securing plans to produce upwards of 30 new web shows a year. Rogers Media agreed to help fund and distribute Vuguru's upcoming productions, thereby solidifying a connection between old and new media.[64]

In 2009, the first web series festival was established, named the Los Angeles Web Series Festival.[65]

Production and distribution

The rise in popularity of mobile Internet video, along with technological improvements to storage, bandwidth, and bitrates, led to the erasure of accessibility and affordability barriers. This meant that high-speed broadband and streaming video capabilities for producing and distributing a web series became a feasible alternative to "traditional" series production, which was formerly mostly done for

broadcast
and cable television. In comparison with traditional TV series production, web series are typically less expensive to produce. This has allowed a wider range of creators to develop web series. As well, since web series are made available online, instead of being aired at a single preset time to specific regions, they enable producers to reach a potentially global audience who can access the shows 24 hours a day and seven days a week, at the time of their choosing. Moreover, in the 2010s, the rising affordability of tablets and smartphones and the rising ownership rates of these devices in industrialized nations means that web series are available to a wider range of potential viewers, including commuters, travelers, and other people who are on the go.

The emerging potential for success in web video has caught the eye of some of the top entertainment executives in America, including former

Rogers Media will help fund and distribute Vuguru's upcoming productions, solidifying a connection between traditional media and new media such as web series.[64] Web series can be distributed directly from the producers' websites, through streaming services or via online video sharing websites .[66]

Awards

The

reality TV entertainment created for the web. In 2009, the International Academy of Web Television (IAWTV) was founded with the mission to support and recognize artistic and technological achievements in the digital entertainment industry.[69] It administered the selection of winners for the Streamy Awards, (which awards web series content) in 2009 and 2010.[70][71] Due to the poor reception and execution of the 2010 Streamy Awards, IAWTV decided to halt its production of the award ceremony.[72] The IAWTV followed this decision by forming the IAWTV Awards (which recognize creators, cast, and crew of short form digital series from around the world) in 2012.[73]

See also

Notes

  1. ^ Because they are delivered over the Internet, "web series" is the preferred term used in India for streaming television programs, regardless of episodes length.[15][16][17]
  2. ^ Quibi, a mobile app for short-form streaming that partitioned original content and full-length TV series into segments of 10 minutes or less each, attracted talent from prestige television and film studios. The platform shut down six months after it was launched.[18][19]

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Further reading

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