Posted on September 23, 2008 at 4:32 PM
Filed under: Behind the Money | Tech Confidential
Tagged: Eqal , Greg Goodfried , Lonelygirl15 , Miles Beckett

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"We call the shows that we produce 'social shows,' and they're very different from a TV show or a film," says Miles Beckett, a creator of YouTube hit "Lonelygirl15" and the CEO of Eqal Inc., a production company he co-founded earlier this year with fellow "Lonelygirl15" creator Greg Goodfried.

"The way that you actually construct the narrative, the way that the plot points flow over the course of the week, the way the site interplays with the video, the way the community works together and talks to the videos and talks to the characters, is all different," Beckett tells Tech Confidential in our Behind the Money video interview with Beckett and Goodfried, who is president of Eqal.

Over the weekend, Beckett and Goodfried debuted their new online video show, a serial drama called "LG15: The Resistance." Including some of the original characters -- but not the leading role of Bree -- the new show is a bit like "Hamlet" meets "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" while working on the "Blair Witch Project" in the land of "The Matrix." The initial episodes are prompting considerable discussion, with 5,000-plus comments posted about them on YouTube already.

Since the first episode of "Lonelygirl15" went online in June 2006, the show has garnered more than 100 million visits, making it the most popular online video show to date. Its early popularity was fueled by mystery about its origins, with some fans insisting that it was the home-grown product of a lonely teenager and others believing professionals were behind it. Beckett, a former doctor, and Goodfried, a former lawyer, put the speculation but not the controversy to rest when they identified themselves and their cohorts as the creators of the video segments.

Beyond attracting a cult following with "Lonelygirl15" and its U.K. counterpart "KateModern," Beckett and Goodfried have attracted serious investors. In April, Boston's Spark Capital led Eqal's $5 million Series A, with angels Ron Conway and Marc Andreessen participating.

"I think they could become as big as any media company out there, because what they're doing is absolutely the future of media," Conway told Tech Confidential in a previous interview. "They're designing original content for the Internet, and they're hugely creative in that regard. They're successfully commercializing that content so it's not just user-generated content for the Web like you see a lot on YouTube. It has a whole commercial strategy around it -- advertising, sponsorships, contests -- where they can build a big, viable company." - Mary Kathleen Flynn

See April 17 Q&A with Miles Beckett and Greg Goodfried from Tech Confidential
See June 16 Q&A with Ron Conway from Tech Confidential

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