Another multi episode show has today been announced as a
MySpace exclusive.
Following in the wake of Quarterlife, which we spoke about
here on WebTVWire last month, Roommates is the newest show to be shown
on MySpaceTV, News Corp’s answer to YouTube.
It will share the series out to the social network’s
multi-million-strong
viewership over the course of some 45 days (weekdays only) in brief
three-minute snippets.
Each new episode will be shown on MySpaceTV
starting at 4pm EST, Monday through Friday.
A Web Only Exclusive
The Web-only show follows in the path established by the
producers of Prom
Queen, a drama which ran over the course of several weeks
last spring on the social network.
Prom Queen was the brainchild of Vuguru,
a new-media company constructed by the former Walt Disney CEO Michael
Eisner.
“Roommates,” a serial involving four
recent college graduates,
all female, was produced by Iron
Sink Media.
The new drama, will be an interactive one, in that while
several
episodes have been created for distribution on MySpace’s
video
platform, it will require the input of viewers to
“engage” the show’s
characters and to “influence the plot,” as the
45-day experiment
progresses.
Plot Driven By User Interaction
A polling tool will be supplied to Myspacers, as will chat
and comments features on the profile pages of all characters.
According
to information put forth by the general manager of MySpaceTV, Jeff
Berman, about the series in advance of its debut, “the
information will
be scrutinized and the plot changed” as requested by the
viewership.
To some degree, at least. While viewer input can indeed be
integrated into an ongoing television series, whether it be of the
traditional broadcast variety or this new IPTV-based on-demand
arrangement (more so, of course, with the latter), any and all
suggestions certainly cannot be entered into the equation.
User
comments can indeed provide added value to the plot and so forth, but
there are parameters to which the show’s logical limits must
be
reasonably set, to “keep the flow,” as it were. If
it were to be a
free-for-all, well, you can likely imagine what would come of it.
Or not imagine, whichever way you prefer
to spin it.
If you’re interested in seeing Roommates
for yourself, head on over to its webpage at 4pm EST to catch the first
episode. Let us know what you think!
Paul Glazowski is a contributing author discussing the social networking world, his work can be found on Profy.com
