MySpaceTV to debut original show, 'Quarterlife,' in November

A promotional photo of 'Dylan,' the cute protagonist of 'Quarterlife'

(Credit: MySpaceTV)

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 lives of six people in their 20s and "chart the sometimes excruciating, sometimes comic, often emotional experiences that comprise coming of age as a part of the digital generation." The protagonist, an easy-on-the-eyes female named Dylan, is unsurprisingly a video blogger, and the quarterlife.com Web site will have plenty of additional content and social networking features.

MySpace started dabbling in its new role as a digital-age broadcaster when it hosted Prom Queen, a Web series created by Vuguru, the online video studio helmed by former Disney chief Michael Eisner. But Prom Queen was syndicated across a number of online video platforms, rather than committed to a single one. This summer, MySpaceTV snagged exclusive rights to the debut of Lonelygirl15's season finale, but after its "premiere" the episode was openly distributed among the likes of YouTube and Revver.

MySpaceTV, however, is the "exclusive international distribution partner" for Quarterlife. The 36 episodes that the social network has ordered will presumably be restricted to the platform, but company representatives did not indicate whether the company will take any kind of action to keep it off other video-sharing sites.

Jeff Berman, general manager of MySpaceTV, emphasized in an interview with CNET News.com that the original programming doesn't mean that MySpaceTV should be considered an exclusively professional video platform. "Our users are streaming content from the most super-premium studio- and network-produced product all the way down the 'long tail' to the stupidest pet trick imaginable," he said.