OMG!! I <3 Danica!

Perhaps taking a hint from 15 year old lonely girls, Michael Eisner's new project (sans Disney) is a web-based show. The "show" is already promising 80 (that's right, eight zero) episodes that are 90 seconds each. Why would we possibly want to watch 80, 90 second episodes? Well, because the show is about chicks killing each other to become prom queen... Awesome! From a Wired article.

"The premise: A near-murder mystery set against the final two months of the school year tracks a pack of randy high schoolers as they ramp up for prom night."

Oh, and we also want to watch it because a darling actress friend of mine is a main character; Danica (That's her character's name, I'm not sure if I should use her real name but as a hint, it rhymes with Panama. Heh) That link above goes to the character's MySpace page. From there, you can visit her friends' pages and see their happy pre-prom lives.

So let me see here. Prom girls killing each other trying to become prom queen. Gotcha. Web-based show that you can catch on the main site as well as Youtube and probably other video outlets. Gotcha. MySpace presence and other web content made to look like stuff active teenagers would actually have. Ok. So that's the content but...

... how is everyone getting paid?

"Eisner: Well, there will be actual advertising before the episode and a lot of post roll. We'll keep it short, and there will be banners. With 10- to 20-minute (episodes strung together), there may be (ad) interruptions. Oh, and there are embedded spots -- product placements. With Star Style users can click through (the footage) and buy something."

Ahh, I knew there'd be ads. The Star Style thing is interesting though. So I'm guessing each second of the footage is tagged and if I see a particularly awesome blue tux, I can click to buy. You know, if they ditched the pre/post roll ads, went only with the cool Star Style stuff... they might have had something interesting. As it is, feels a lot like TV squeezed into YouTube.

Anything else Eisner?

"Well, there will be interactive community aspects to it for sure. And we're planning that and actually shooting extra material for that."

Does interactive community aspects mean Danica can add friends on MySpace? Interact with the public like she's oblivious to our voyeuristic endeavors? How do you incorporate community aspects without someone posting, "I totally saw you at Starbucks the other day, you're not in high school!"? "Panama" won't say if Danica gets bumped off early (you suck, where's the insider love?) but if she does, won't it be weird if her MySpace says that her last login was like, you know, AFTER her death?

From my geeky interactive strategist perspective, should be interesting to see how this all plays out. From a personal perspective, I hope Danica kicks ass, takes names and gets crowned. Go Danica!!