myspacetv

MySpaceTV, the video-sharing section of News Corp.'s MySpace, has announced the addition of direct video uploads. This means that you can now sit in front of your Webcam, navigate to MySpace, and hit a "record" button, blab on incessantly about how the Jonas Brothers are ruining American youth, and you've got yourself a piece of Web video.

Many other video-sharing sites, including Google's YouTube, have similar features already. The real advantage to the presence of direct uploads on MySpace, however, is the fact that they can then be quickly embedded in member profiles, "bulletins,&… Read more

We hadn't spotted it yet on MySpaceTV's "featured channels" list, but the Hollywood Reporter says that AOL's entertainment news site, TMZ, and the social network's video platform are scheduled on Wednesday to launch a branded channel that will feature two or three TMZ clips each week.

Each of the clips, culled from the TMZ arsenal of celebrity-oriented fare, will show for 24 hours on MySpaceTV after their TMZ airing. As many as 15 more TMZ clips will show on MySpaceTV each week on a nonexclusive basis.

MySpaceTV's inventory has been growing lately. On … Read more

MySpaceTV, the video platform run by the popular social network, announced Tuesday the launch of Special Delivery, a new hidden-camera reality show.

The premise of Special Delivery's short videos is to catch delivery employees (pizza, packages, and the like) in awkward situations, roping them into stunts like "Would you do a birthday dance for my dog?" and "Will you help me propose to the love of my life?" Naturally, there's a camera hidden somewhere so it's all caught on film.

Special Delivery is the second project that MySpace.com has co-developed for its … Read more

MySpace.com is testing out the director's chair with a new Web-based series, Roommates, which debuts Monday at 1 p.m. PDT. Through December 21, a new three-minute episode of the show will be available each weekday on the MySpaceTV portal and through the Roommates profile page.

The series, co-created by MySpace and new-media production studio Iron Sink Productions, marks the first time that the News Corp.-owned social-networking site has been behind the development of a scripted Web show. Roommates is a show within a show, as four recent college graduates move to Los Angeles and enlist in … Read more

NEW YORK--Marshall Herskovitz, co-creator of the upcoming Web series Quarterlife, calls his decision to distribute the show on MySpace.com a "deal with the devil."

At a Thursday screening of the first six eight-minute episodes of the show as part of the CMJ Music Marathon and film festival, Herskovitz--best known as one half of the team that created the critically acclaimed TV series Thirtysomething and My So-Called Life--emphasized his aim to bring creativity to the world of professional online video.

"What I'm seeing on the Internet right now is really boring, and I think these big companies are missing it in a big way," he explained in a question-and-answer session following the screening. "All these new things, Hulu and even Joost, they're creating these platforms as though that's the goal. But they're not creating interesting programming. They're reusing content from television."

He continued: "There aren't any very good ideas coming out of it, and I haven't seen anything that really interests me."

Then, according to Herskovitz, there's the YouTube problem.

"People are quite fascinated by user-generated content on the Internet right now, and I'm not against that. And we want that on our site. But I believe that user-generated on the Internet, just like reality shows on television, are not completely satisfactory," he asserted. "There are reasons why we've had classical storytelling for 2,500 years, and across so many cultures. And there are reasons why we've had a film grammar for the past 100 years about how we shoot a film, and there's a place for that."

Which is why he and Zwick saw a window of opportunity for Quarterlife, a series about a half-dozen 20-somethings working in "creative" industries like acting, writing and filmmaking. Divided into eight-minute episodes, the Web series will be the center of a planned social network for fans as well as young creative people in general.

… Read more

We reported back in July that MySpace in the midst of a deal with the creators of the movie Blood Diamond to create a new Web-based program called Quarterlife. At the time, it wasn't confirmed, representatives from the parties involved declined to comment, and quarterlife.com was password-protected.

Now, it's official: a release from MySpace has confirmed that Quarterlife will debut on its MySpaceTV platform on November 11. A project of Marshall Herskovitz and Edward Zwick, who created the TV shows My So-Called Life and Thirtysomething in addition to Blood Diamond, the new Web show will follow the … Read more

My, my, Lonelygirl15 sure has come a long way. Not so long ago, everyone thought the too-cute videoblogger was, well, a too-cute videoblogger. Then some online video fans with a shocking amount of time on their hands deduced that she was likely an actress in a staged series of video episodes. (They were right.) Now, leading lady "Bree" (played by Jessica Rose) has gone all professional on us--the new MySpaceTV video portal will be hosting Lonelygirl15's season finale.

Season finale?

On Friday, MySpaceTV--which launched in June and has been rolling out content deals ever since--will broadcast the … Read more