Interactive TV, look out! While the media and communications conglomerates are holding meetings, delegating fact-finding committees, lobbying Congress, and pouring billions into prototypes and test runs, the Net once again is simply off and running. Enter The Spot, the first interactive soap.
Taking its lead from Melrose Place and The Real World, The Spot - a self-described "episodic website" - chronicles the lives and loves of five oh-so-beautiful Southern California twentysomethings. The story line unfolds around daily text, graphics, and journal entries presented by each of the roommates.
In addition to their diaries, the Spotmates also communicate with their audience via e-mail, a Spot billboard, and regularly scheduled IRC chats.
The site is the brainchild of Los Angeles ad agency Fattal & Collins. Last year, agency co-founder Russ Collins joined forces with Sheri Herman, former head of marketing at E! Entertainment, to form an interactive division, Prophecy Entertainment.
Scott Zakarin, hired as a producer for Prophecy, came to Collins with the idea for The Spot. Zakarin and his co-producer, Troy Bolotnick, were given company resources to try out the project in their off hours and on weekends. The results were so promising that Collins gave the project a green light and a US$250,000 cash infusion.
On a shoestring budget, Prophecy "seeded" the Net with teasers for The Spot's début. Using a grass-roots-style campaign, head of promotions Kay Dangaard contacted colleges, computer labs, and cybercafés and distributed fliers at theaters showing Johnny Mnemonic.
The site officially launched on June 7. It now averages 62,000 hits and 300 e-mails a day - from more than 30 countries around the world. Key to the show's popularity is its interactivity. Although "story arcs" exist in the long term, the show's quick turnaround time and low production costs allow it to readily react to its viewers. A recent disbeliever dared The Spot to demonstrate that the show is produced on a daily basis. By e-mail he challenged: "Show me Michelle in front of the refrigerator wearing a bikini and eating a strawberry." The next day, there she was!
Russ Collins foresees a Net-based entertainment network arising from The Spot and has formed a production company - the American Cybercast Network - for that purpose.
Says Zakarin, "Simply put, we want to bring the Internet into the mainstream." The Spot: www.thespot.com. Prophesy Entertainment: +1 (310) 821 2110.
SCANS
Http 90210
