Showing posts with label The Guild. Show all posts
Showing posts with label The Guild. Show all posts

Saturday, September 5, 2009

'The Guild' Season 3 Gets Embedded



The Guild  Season 3 - Episode 1: Expansion Time premiered this week on MSN’s Parallel Universe after last week’s exclusive roll out on XBox. On her blog Felicia Day talked about the premiere of Season 3, the challenges involved in the production and the big difference in their syndication strategy. 

Felicia said:
"Last season it wasn’t embeddable so it’s cool to be able to spread it around this season, thank you MSN and Sprint! Also, it’s now available on Zune and Xbox for all, so download away. Starting next week the eps will be rolling out weekly on all platforms, FYI."
On Tubefilter News, Marc Hustvedt talked about the open embedding:
"MSN is now allowing embedding of The Guild episodes after being notoriously closed off last season and forcing viewers to head to the cluttered video.msn.com site. This is a savvy move for MSN, and a necessary response to the significant amount of attention that Season 2 received once it was released on embed-friendly YouTube earlier this year. Fans of the web series are known to share and post videos on blogs and social networking sites all over the world. And let’s face it, web series need to free to live where people are out discussing and congregating around them."
Marc said that it will be interesting to see the difference in total views on MSN following the success of their  "Do You Wanna Date My Avatar" viral music video which was the #1 video on YouTube with over 3.5 million views to date and was #1 in iTunes music videos and Amazon MP3s. The Guild also recently secured a DVD distribution deal with the same company that released Joss Whedon’s Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog DVD earlier this year. 

The Guild was also recently featured in the Wall Street Journal which noted that while the web series has a very loyal fan base which continues to grow it's still a modest venture. The article pointed out that overall profitability for web series is low and there's been a shift to more celebrity-backed projects.

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Sunday, August 23, 2009

Web Video Pick of the Week, "Do You Wanna Date My Avatar"

You got to love it when a web series makes their own music video to not only promote their upcoming season but also to have some fun. The cast from the wildly popular independent web sitcom The Guild, created by web video heroine Felicia Day about about a group of online gamer, don their armor and bring sexy back with this web video gem that asks, Do You Wanna Date My Avatar? With a pulsing dance beat and seductive moves that are straight out of Britney or Beyonce video, Felicia and crew hit a home run with the geekiverse. Who wouldn't  wanted to hang with her in her MMO (Massively multiplayer online game)? 

With over 2.1 million views on YouTube with over 12,000 comments in less than a week it's prime example of viral marketing done right to promote Season 3 of The Guild that premieres exclusively on MSN Video, Xbox Live, and Zune on August 25th. The video was directed by Jed Whedon who also composed the music with lyrics by Felicia Day who was producer along with Christian Agypt. 



On her blog Felicia says,
"I don’t have time to do a proper blog post about it, but our video “Do You Wanna Date My Avatar” is going CRAZY around the internet! #1 Music Video on iTunes, #1 mp3 on Amazon?! Really? It’s you guys supporting us that’s doing it! When I get a chance I will write some thoughts about this whole crazy experience, but for now, enjoy!!"

The Guild was inspired by Felicia's love of World of Warcraft which she had been addicted to for two years. She dreamed up the idea and wrote the sitcom pilot that follows the lives of the Guild players both online and offline and pitched it to a web video audience rather than TV studio wonks. The rest is history which was actually made in the short span of two years through her collaboration with Jane Selle Morgan, Kim Evey, Sandeep Parikh, Jeff Lewis and many others she knew in the business. It launched in the late summer of 2007, and for the first season was financed solely by Paypal donations from loyal fans. 

The Guild went on to become a web video sensation and locked up exclusive distribution of Season 2 on Microsoft's triple platform and a sponsorship deal with Sprint. Earlier this year it received numerous honors at the 1st Annual Streamy Awards garnering  Best Comedy Web Series, Best Ensemble Cast in a Web Series, Best Female Actor in a Comedy Web Series (Felicia Day). 

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