Hot off the press! Mingle Media TV Network Announces Expansion into Indie Web Series Productions, Branded Entertainment

MMTVN’s expansion will bring more web series creators together to learn about the business of web series, help produce new series and bring brands in to sponsor shows and build engaging campaigns to new audiences, no matter what screen they watch.

Announcing the Expanded Mingle Media TV Network

 

Online media and interactive web TV network, Mingle Media TV, announced today that they have added three new divisions to their Indie entertainment community. The new divisions are focused on production of web series, branded entertainment and red carpet coverage, building awareness of Indie web series with a new weekly screening LIVE broadcast and support for creators, and the business of web series division to support the business side of producing web series. Mingle Media TV is currently the only community that offers live and produced web TV shows along with celebrity reporting with their Red Carpet Report.

Mingle Media TV Network (MMTVN) celebrated its first year in operation on February 8, 2011, and currently broadcasts 70 shows on their site, has produced over 800 video interviews from the red carpet including the Oscars and over 1,500 hour long web TV talk shows. MMTVN distributes their content using social media networks from Facebook to Twitter and syndicates video distribution to the most popular destination sites from YouTube to Daily Motion. They also publish their video content to streaming media set-top boxes such as Boxee and Roku.

The planned expansion will bring the content that is hosted on MMTVN to more platforms such as Google TV, and expanding their current offering for produced content to Apps via Apple, Blackberry and Android formats. MMTVN’s LIVE stream partner, Stickam, has Apps for watching and chatting in real-time which have become quite popular for viewing live web shows along with Facebook and Twitter integration to reach the audience where they are most comfortable watching. Other planned tools will be an integrated program guide with show reminders, check-in and loyalty programs beyond the current Clicker.com integration, and a web series directory and monthly calendar for events, show schedules, premieres and meet-ups around the globe.

MMTVN’s production services expansion will bring the resources together for both creating and marketing Indie projects including bringing together a group of creators, writers, producers and actors who will work together on projects. Red Carpet coverage for hire outside of the traditional events that MMTVN covers will be monetized and the launch of a new daily savings coupon program with a video component called, Daily Savings TV will start across the country.

The Business of Web Series division is both a boot camp and a consulting arm where web series creators can learn how to create business plans and market their projects, how to promote and get publicity along with monetizing their series through sponsorships and product placement deals. MMTVN will offer these services to series that are hosted on their site as part of a partner program being released later this week. Series creators who are not hosted on MMTVN can subscribe to these services through a program fee or hourly consulting fee.

“Mingle Media TV Network is focused on bringing Indie entertainment to the audience, not the screen,” said Stephanie Piche, CEO and Executive Producer of Mingle Media TV. “We support Indie creators by helping them continue to disrupt traditional entertainment and take advantage of the growth of video being watched on all screens. Our goal is to bring in brand sponsors who are looking for niche audiences and want to connect on a more personal level as part of a social TV experience.”

Mingle Media TV has successfully used traditional and social media marketing techniques to build and grow awareness for their community online. Many of the MMTVN shows have national sponsors that benefit from both the live web show audience on Mingle Media TV to the creators own community where daily mentions, blog posts and recommendations are authentic and powerful. Mingle Media TV founder, Stephanie Piche, believes it’s important to bring back sponsorships and use the conversation that social networks offer to build awareness and commerce. Piche has over twenty years experience in bringing startups and products to market and has created and managed branded campaigns with great success and has seen first hand how the power of investing in content not ads builds a brand name authentically and exponentially.

Find out more about these new divisions by going to the Mingle Media TV Network’s new corporate umbrella site at http://www.minglemediatvnetwork.com. If you’re interested in contacting MMTVN for more information, please visit the website and submit a request via email or by phone.

About Mingle Media TV Network

MMTVN is an online media and interactive web TV network that executive produces, curates, and broadcasts 65 weekly web series shows along with entertainment industry event coverage. Our video coverage, web series and live broadcasts are promoted via Twitter, blog posts, Facebook and other popular social networks; in addition to airing live on the iPhone, Blackberry, and Android platforms and syndicated through Blip.TV and over 15 syndication sites including AOL Video, YouTube, Samsung, Vizio, MeeFeedia, Blinkx, Daily Motion, Boxee, Roku and as an iTunes podcast. Our audience reach online is over 250,000 weekly views of our video coverage, web series and live broadcasts and is currently in the top 20,000 websites in the US. MMTVN’s live web TV shows feature lifestyle subject matter experts and social media content providers from celebrities, authors to bloggers including executive producing two shows with Emmy award winners. MMTVN has expanded its curation of web series with a growing number of independently produced shows from science fiction to drama, action to teen soaps now playing on the network. In addition to curating produced webseries, MMTVN is promoting and securing sponsors for INDIE creators. MMTVN also covers Hollywood celebrity and charity events from the red carpet and behind the scenes. MMTVN has covered the Oscars, Emmy’s and Golden Globes events; WIN Awards, HollyShorts, LA Shorts Fest, AOF Fest, Saturn Awards, Streamy Awards, People’s Choice, NAACP, SAG, plus numerous Web Series Premieres and A-list Celebrity Fundraisers. Mingle Media TV is also sponsoring the Audience Choice Category in the New Media Film Festival for Web Series Creators. For more information on MMTVN Entertainment, please visit http://www.minglemediatv.com. For the Business of Web Series, visit www.businessofwebseries.com, for MMTVN productions, visit www.mmtvnproductions.com, and for MMTVN Screenings, visit www.mmtvnscreenings.com.

Cupid and Eros, An Updated Treatment to our Favorite Mythological Gods of Love

Remember that phrase “Must See TV?” well, times have changed and you can watch video content on your TV – via the Interwebs. Well, at Mingle Media TV Network, we’re excited to say, we have “Must See WEB TV” shows from mysteries to love stories to celebrity interviews to live talk shows.

The show we’re highlighting today is Cupid and Eros, as in “The Further Adventures of,” yes, we’re talking about those mythological gods of love. The creator of this original web series, Avi Glijansky, did an awesome job in giving us more insight into the lead characters Cupid and Eros. On the web show page you get to see Cupid’s video blog updates and the Webcasts done by Eros which are just delish! There’s even a parody clip of American Idol – but with Pan, Isis and Loki as the judges, which is also integrated into the series which is now up to episode 5 (released today).

Cupid and Eros in Action

I don’t want to give anything else away – the Cupid and Eros episodes are about 4 minutes long so you could easily catch up on the series in no time! And get hooked on original programming like this on Mingle Media TV. You’ll be telling all your friends and starting a new trend… and supporting independent creators!!

More Disappointment – Why are you considering GoogleTV today?

In case you haven’t seen the latest articles about why Google TV is not ready for prime time… or if you missed the two articles that we published after the Streaming Media West about Google TV (in case you missed the post – see it here: Sony’s Google TV at the Streaming Media West Conference).

Not withstanding hitting the wall when trying to navigate to the sites where you can watch your favorite video content… getting blocked in this day and age really sucks… ABC, NBC, CBS, and Fox aren’t letting you watch their content through Google TV… so why are you buying it?

Don’t take my word for it… check out what these journalists are saying:

• Walt Mossberg / New York Times: “Google TV: No Need to Tune In Just Yet” >>”Google TV has missed the mark.“
• David Pogue / New York Times: “Google TV, Usability Not Included” >> “Google TV takes an enormous step in the wrong direction: toward complexity“
• Matt Warman, The Telegraph: “Google TV First Reviews Unenthusiastic” >> “the reviews will be a blow to Googles ambitions“

What is surprising is that Google TV’s chief is not concerned about what people are saying about usability. The real motivation behind Google’s push for this technology is REVENUE. The Benjamins.

Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google said at the O’Reilly Media’s Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco: “The way to get more revenue is to create more revenue sources, and the way to do that is through things like Google TV.”

What do you think? What are you looking for?

Question for our readers:

Do you want to hook your TV up to the Internet? Tell us your thoughts…

Yes – I Rant More: Google TV? IPTV? What Do The Consumers Want?

Well… of course, this is one for the books… I’m right? LOL.

A recent study showed that HALF of Americans HAVE or Want Internet- connected TVs!! This week on our #WebSeriesChat (Wednesdays, 11 AM PST on Twitter hosted by Patrick Bardwell of Slebisodes and Stephanie Piche of Mingle Media TV) the discussion came up on length of an episode and earlier conversations were about what the impact of GoogleTV for Web Series creators. Of course, we all have our opinions and many creators are still creating short-form (3 minute average) length video content while our position at Mingle Media TV is that for our audience long-form (30-60 minute average) length video content is perfectly acceptable (in the past two years, I have executive produced over 3,040 hours of long-form video content.)

Other interesting factoids to contribute to the conversation about Connected TVs, Audience and Age:

• The average age of social networking site users: 37 Years Old
• The average age of a Facebook users is 38 Years Old
• The average age of a Twitter user is 39 years old – and 65% of Twitter users are 35 or older
• Average time spent on YouTube per month in the US: 1:12:20
• An average of 24 hours of video are uploaded to YouTube every minute (which is equal to about 150K full length films over the course of a week)
• YouTube streamed 5,799,702,000 videos in June 2010 in the US
• Hulu streamed 598,812,000 videos in June 2010 in the US (about 1/10th of YouTube)
• 36% of YouTube viewers are between the ages of 18-34 and are 50% male

What does this all mean? Well, first there is Venus and Mars to contend with. Men like the remote control option (you know, channel changing) hence the multiple short form viewing of “college humor” type videos…

But then there are women, if we’re going to watch video online, we become invested in that story, the characters and don’t want it to end after 3 minutes… we will watch long form and we are watching it.

I digress… a recent study showed that we are becoming more comfortable with alternative ways of viewing long-form video, including watching those missed TV episodes from last night on Hulu. What does this mean? We need to adjust for our audience – we need to create for our audience… we need Internet connected-TV’s not apps (yes more of my rant).

Organizations like iSuppli Corporation say by 2014 there will be 148 million web-enabled TV’s sold, up from an estimated 28 million in July this year which is double that of 2009.

However, DisplaySearch, thinks the numbers will be higher in their projections with 45 million being sold in 2010 (we still have 2 more months)  but only about 119 million sold by 2014. Considering most of us had to buy a NEW TV in the past 24 months due to broadcast changes – a slow down in purchasing web-enabled or 3D TVs are not a surprise to me… but then again, I do connect my Vizio flatscreens to the Interwebs already and surf… remember AppleTV? It’s really not hard if you have a Playstation 3 or MacMini to do it today… our other methods for the other TVs.

So with 50% of us already doing it… what are people in such a huff about GoogleTV? Because they want to sell you apps and try to monetize on apps and make life a living hell with – say it with me… APPS!!

So if there are 221 million US internet users today and about 50% of us are already connecting to the Interwebs…. why are people clambering for the GoogleTV option? why is there a question about how long an episode created for the web should be? Or for that matter, what the future of TV is going to be? By the time GoogleTV is adopted at any high rate to make sense – TV viewers will already have had their existing HDTVs connected to the Interwebs and watching their favorite TV shows on the nice, big FLAT Screen TVs…

Oh yeah… and if you are creating for the WEB – keep in mind that you need to create for your audience and if you don’t have an audience or a plan to build an audience, then I would recommend stepping back and thinking about that as part of your creative process. Nothing worse than losing your audience because you kept them wanting.

 

Sony’s Google TV at the Streaming Media West Conference

There’s nothing more exciting than going to a tech conference and touching the new products… before they hit the retail shelves. Of course all of us at Mingle Media TV admit to be total geeks so it’s no surprise that we are watching what happens as more and more video is being consumed off the traditional track of Television to the digital world of the Internet.

This week in Los Angeles, The Streaming Media West Conference is going on at the Hyatt in Century City and we thought we’d check out some panels and of course, the exhibits… okay, and yes, we went to check out the Google TV demo at the Streaming Media booth.

As much as we would have liked to video tape a real review, the set up at the event was not conducive to a test run, but we took some photos of the Sony Internet TV powered by Google TV and found this article by CrunchGear that you might want to read for comparison between the Sony TV and Logitech Revue.

After reading this post, I have to admit that I prefer the option of watching more content on the Internet without having to deal with “apps” on the console. Why? Well, for one reason, I have Verizon Fios, now remember I said I’m a geek, I have an iPhone, iPad, wireless connected home – and yes, I was one of those who bought into the Apple TV when it came out… I’ve been watching the Internet on my TV for several years now. However, when you’re looking at the consumer in general… you have to think about what they will and won’t use.

They won’t use apps… I don’t use the apps on my Verizon Fios… it’s too much clutter. How many people use Picture-in-Picture on their TVs? Seriously, I have that too… but damned if I want to use it on a regular basis.

So what’s all the fuss about… well, it’s a disruptor to TV Networks… and if we look at our recent history, industry offerings that are adopted by consumers like VOD (video-on-demand) have put retailers like Hollywood Video and Blockbuster out of business. Prior to that newspapers started feeling the pains of citizen journalism and news feeds that were available in readers and their newspaper in print started shrinking as more consumers moved online for their news and in most cases don’t even read the local daily paper??

What does this all mean? We’re early in the game still and TV and electronics manufacturers are going to try to make nice boxes on the screen thinking that the general public are going to like it (we don’t, I don’t and I’m your target audience… yes, I am a collective of people here at Mingle Media TV and speaking for all of us…) Let’s just connect the TV to the Interwebs and let us surf freely – don’t put us in a nice, neat package, it doesn’t work that way…

Seriously – we don’t want to wait around for you to create containers we have to install and have to have people build more apps for… it maybe the way the iPad works.. or Android… but with less than 30% of cell phone users having a smart phone… get the clue… the Yahoo! connected TV has been out for a year now… not making too many waves are they? There’s a reason for that… you need to look at the numbers of who are using the apps on smart phones and how long they use them for… I spent 20 years in technology marketing – 8 years in Silicon Valley and this makes me crazy!! It’s simple: make techology that is simple for the masses to adopt…. THEN make it cooler….

Of course, if Google TV, Sony Google TV or Logitech Revue Google TV (that goes for Samsung, Toshiba, LG, Vizio and HiSense and anyone else out there developing technology for the masses) folks want to have the experts who broadcast 40 plus hours a week of LIVE Interactive and produced web series to test out the technology in our studios… we would love to. HINT.

Until that time, I say – put your money in a TV that connects DIRECTLY to the internet… if you aren’t sure how to do that… just let us know! We’d love to get you connected on your 50″ flat screen watching Mingle Media TV shows!