When web series are a dime a dozen, how does a new show stand out in a sea of Hollywood-backed web ventures and celebrity-fronted series?
HBO Labs, the cable network’s digital media studio, may have figured out the formula for success.
The network is recruiting a handful of YouTube’s biggest pageview earners to star in its new web series, Hooking Up (trailer embedded).
The web show, which starts Oct. 1, stars well-known YouTube personalities including What the Buck?creator Michael Buckley, sXePhil, Cory "Mr. Safety" Williams and LonelyGirl15 alum Jessica Rose. The show casts the web celebs as freshmen navigating their way around the fictional Bask University — a concept the vloggers’ collegiate fans can undoubtedly relate to.
Hooking Up will be shown on multiple platforms, including MySpace and YouTube, and will include a social networking component called BaskBook, which lets fans interact with the show’s stars.
If the show’s cewebrities earn it a sizable viewership, Hooking Up could be a genre-defining experiment for content on the web — not to mention paving the way for legions of other internet celebrities to score larger deals with digital studios.
[h/t toTubefilter for the trailer]
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