Lonelygirl15 and KateModern guys get $5 million

At the risk of turning into an all Lonelygirl, all the time news source, I'll pass along the news that LG15 creators Miles Beckett and Greg Goodfried formed a "social entertainment" company called EQAL, which has been given a hot capital infusion of more than $5 million by Boston's Web-TV-friendly Spark Capital. 

Beckett and Goodfried have been ahead of the curve on Web TV innovation since their original hoax-de-force. They were also early on the interactive elements of webisodes, including letting viewers communicate with the characters, planting clues at Northern California bowling alleys and other physical locations, and bringing product placement to absurd new levels by doing things like writing a "Neutrogena scientist" into the plot. 

Both KateModern, the pair's London-based Lonelygirl-esque thrillerama, and Lonelygirl15 itself have been nominated for 2007 Webby Awards, so it will certainly be interesting to see what EQAL does with enough money to make a few legitimately medium-budget series.

Comments

[Tudza]

$5 million in VC funding and a chance to do it all again. Seems like an odd reward for a big lie.

Maybe I should see this as the natural evolution of the whole "reality" programming thing, taking the form to a new medium. On TV we have loads of foolishness on foolscap, now on YouTube and sites unknown we will have crap on toiletpaper. And with $5 million, our boys are flush.