For a third summer in a row, a group of SoCal teenagers will put their entire lives on display. The Chernin Group, Astronauts Wanted, Fullscreen, and brand sponsor AT&T are readying a new season of @SummerBreak, which will once again chronicle its young stars across multiple social media platforms.

For the third season of @SummerBreak, series co-creator (and recent Fullscreen hire) Billy Parks and his team have handpicked 11 teenagers who will interact with each other and record their thoughts, feelings, and actions across social media networks like YouTube, Twitter, and Instagram. Some of the season three stars are returning from last year, but most are new additions to the cast. A trailer, recently posted to the show’s official YouTube channel, provides a brief introduction:

In addition to its new cast members, @SummerBreak is also adding new social networks to its thorough presentation. Periscope, a Twitter-owned live-streaming video app, will house its own @SummerBreak channel, where the participating teens will broadcast live feeds to their followers.

The launch of new social networks for the series is a crucial part of the experimental approach Parks and his team have applied to @SummerBreak since its 2013 inception. “We learn more about what works,” Parks told Variety. “We are able to drive the narrative [across new social media platforms]…and the platforms we are using drive the way we tell the story.”

The third season of @SummerBreak will begin on June 21st. For more information about the series, check it out across the Internet. With accounts on Twitter, YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, Vine, Snapchat, Tumblr, Periscope, and WeHeartIt, it’s hard to miss.

Filed under: Articles, Featured, News, Web Series by Sam Gutelle
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Netflix is reuniting Ashton Kutcher and Danny Masterson for a new show. The two That ‘70s Show co-stars are set to appear in 20 episodes of the original comedy series The Ranch.

Created by Two and a Half Men’s Don Reo and Jim Patterson, The Ranch will star Kutcher as an ex-football player who returns to his family’s Colorado ranch to help run it with his brother, played by Masterson. Kutcher and Masterson will also produce The Ranch, with Reo and Jim Patterson executive producing.

For The Ranch, Netflix will use a different distribution approach than the one it has used for most of its previous original series. According to Deadline, who originally broke the story, the streaming platform will release ten episodes of The Ranch at a time in two batches over the course of a year. Netflix typically releases all episodes of its shows’ seasons at the same time. However, the subscription service has previously toyed with different release strategies; Netflix dropped five episodes of All Hail King Julien in December 2014 before releasing the rest of the episodes the following month.

Kutcher and Masterson are just two of the most recent big-name Hollywood stars to partner with Netflix on a project. The streaming platform has a documentary distribution deal with Leonardo DiCaprio’s production studio. Additionally, Netflix just purchased the film War Machine starring Brad Pitt for a reported $60 million.

No official release date has been announced for The Ranch as of yet, but Netflix believes the series will be ready for subscribers sometime in 2016.

Filed under: Articles, Netflix, News by Bree Brouwer
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Vimeo does not run pre-roll ads on its videos, but the artistically-oriented site has found other ways to support branded content. It has teamed up with Samsung for Connected, a series of ten short films that will each explore the ways in which human beings interact with technology.

Each episode of Connected is created by a top filmmaker (or filmmaking channel) from the Vimeo community. In a blog post introducing the project, the site notes that the creations of its Connected artists have been chosen as a Vimeo Staff Picks more than 60 times.

Four of these episodes are already available, and they vary wildly. Larry Cohen’s “Left to Your Own Devices” is a chatty comedy, Kogonada’s “Elemental” is marked by its exquisite cinematography, Greg Brunkalla’s “Hearing Colors” is a black-and-white interactive art piece, and Drew Christie’s “Department of Communication” (embedded below) features an old-school presentation and stop-motion animation.

“Vimeo’s deep relationship with the filmmaking community gives us unprecedented access to up and coming filmmakers that approach content in new and unique ways,” said Greg Clayman, General Manager of Audience Networks at Vimeo, in a press release. “Collaborating with Samsung allowed us to tap into this creator pool and bring their passions to life in the Connected series.”

The first four episodes of Connected can be watched on a Tumblr page run by Samsung. The six additional short films will premiere there over the next few months.

Filed under: Articles, Branded Entertainment, Featured, News, Vimeo by Sam Gutelle
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Back in February 2015, GRB Entertainment announced the upcoming film Bad Night, starring YouTube celebrities Lauren Elizabeth (known as LoveLaurenElizabeth) and Jenn McAllister (aka JennXPenn). Now, the production house, known for reality TV series such as Intervention, has set an official release date for its first feature film. Bad Night will premiere on July 21, 2015.

Bad Night stars Elizabeth and McAllister (who boast over 3 million subscribers between their two YouTube channels) as two high school students who are mistaken for art thieves after they get into the wrong car during a class field trip. Variety, who originally broke the story, reports the GRB-produced film will be digitally released through Vimeo on Demand on July 21.

Directed by Chris and Nick Riedell (of Camp Takota fame), Bad Night is produced by Elizabeth, McAllister, AJ Tesler, and Big Frame’s Byron Austen Ashley and Rana Zand. Daniel Kinno wrote the film’s script, which co-stars Matt Walsh (Veep), Adam Pally (The Mindy Project), Casey Wilson (SNL), and Molly Ringwald (The Breakfast Club).

You can learn more information about Bad Night by visiting the film’s official website at badnightmovie.com.

Filed under: Articles, Channels, News by Bree Brouwer
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World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) and YouTube’s thriving community of gamers sound like strange bedfellows, but on a new channel, they are entwined. WWE has launched UpUpDownDown, where pro wrestler Xavier Woods hosts a variety of gaming content.

A press release describes Woods (whose real name is Austin Watson) as an “avid gamer.” On UpUpDownDown, he will lead at least five different weekly series, with guests from the wrestling and YouTube communities joining him along the way. The series are all based off tried-and-true formats that have become popular on YouTube. Mondays, for example, will be devoted to “Let’s Play” videos, while a Friday series called Jump Scares focuses on horror games like Five Nights at Freddy’s.

UpUpDownDown is an expansion of WWE’s thriving YouTube empire. The organization’s primary channel, which it launched in 2007, has since brought in more than 6.4 million subscribers while achieving close to four million views.

“By leveraging WWE’s massive influence on YouTube and tapping into a content vertical that scores highly among our fans, we’re poised to make an immediate impact with this new channel,” said Lisa Fox, WWE’s EVP of Content, in the release. “We’re confident that UpUpDownDown will entertain not only WWE fans, but gamers everywhere.”

New videos on UpUpDownDown will arrive each Monday, Wednesday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday.

Filed under: Articles, Channels, Featured, News by Sam Gutelle
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Twitter users no longer have to tap videos or animated media for them to play. On June 16, 2015, the social messaging site announced all native videos, Vines, and GIFs would auto-play when they appear in a user’s Twitter feed.

Twitter announced its native video initiative in late 2014, with an official video capture feature added to the Twitter app in early 2015. Users could use the app to film their own 30-second clips and upload them to Twitter. However, these clips (along with brand video ads, GIFs, and Vines) only played when a user tapped them.

Now, native Twitter videos, along with Vines and GIFs, will auto-play without sound on users’ feeds. Tapping the video once results in the sound turning on and the video expanding into a larger format. Videos viewed in landscape format on mobile devices will also automatically turn on the sound and expand to fit the entire screen. All Twitter users can choose to opt out of auto-play within their account settings, according to a Twitter blog post.

Auto-play isn’t typically well-liked among the internet crowd. However, online users don’t seem to mind it as much as they used to; the auto-play feature has helped Facebook drive video views up to 4 billion per day. And in a Twitter blog post for advertisers, the social site noted users were 2.5 times more likely to choose auto-play media over click-to-play and preview formats.

Twitter is also ensuring brands they will only have to pay for video ads which receive both 100% viewability in a users’ screen and also at least 3 complete seconds of watch time. “We’re putting this standard of 100% viewability in place because we think it’s simply the right thing to do,” wrote Twitter’s Senior Product Manager David Regan. “If a video is not 100% in-view, we don’t think an advertiser should be charged.”

Twitter had already considered auto-play video ads back in January 2015. Now that the social site has rolled out the feature, brands should be pleased with the results. Twitter found auto-play video ads improved consumers’ brand recall by 14%, and increased the viewing completion of promoted tweets seven-fold. Regan also noted Twitter is working with third-party companies like Nielsen to provide viewability measurements to advertising partners, a hotly-debated topic among marketers right now.

Twitter said the auto-play feature is now available for all web-based and iOS Twitter users; Android users can expect to see auto-playing videos in the near future.

Filed under: Articles, News, Twitter by Bree Brouwer
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Since opening to the public in March, Vessel has provided its viewers with a wide assortment of videos, many of which premiere there before arriving anywhere else. Now, with its latest update, Vessel has provided a new platform on which those videos can be watched. It has released a Vessel app for Android devices.

The Android edition of Vessel is still in beta, but anyone who is running Android Version 4.1 or better can download it from the Google Play store. It offers the same range of videos as the desktop and iOS versions of the platform–everything from Ellen Degeneres clips to Anna Akana short films.

“We’ve received a lot of thoughtful feedback and feature requests since we introduced Vessel earlier this year,” reads a post from the Vessel blog. “The number one request, hands down, has been for a Vessel app for Android. We appreciate your patience — today, we are excited to bring Vessel to Android users.”

Vessel was designed to be phone and tablet-friendly from the get-go, so the launch of an Android app is a logical next step. In order to fully cater to the increasing number of viewers who watch video on mobile devices, it’s a necessary addition.

Filed under: Articles, Featured, News, Vessel by Sam Gutelle
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Netflix has made some improvements to its website and library of titles. The streaming platform updated its website to work with more mobile-friendly devices, and improved its audio description selection and search functions.

One of the newest features of the revamped website is easier title browsing and selection. Netflix subscribers will no longer have to deal with the rotating, carousel-displayed titles anymore. Instead, TV shows and movies show up in one row, which is entirely swapped out with new selections once a user clicks the next arrow.

Additionally, Netflix has made viewing a specific title less complicated. The web platform used to automatically start playing a title once users clicked on it; if viewers only wanted to see that title’s information, they’d have to hover over the title without clicking. In the updated site, hovering over a title displays a summary and screenshots, and clicking a title opens up a new inline pane (without playing the title) where users can read further information and view more episodes (if applicable).

According to a Netflix blog post, the platform’s site hasn’t been upgraded in over four years. Netflix noted how not only web browsers have changed, but so have the viewing preferences of Netflix customers, who tend to use mobile and tablet devices to watch their favorite TV shows and movies. So the platform developed its new site so viewers can use either a touchpad, mouse, or touchscreen to navigate.

“With the new Netflix website, we’ve created a richer, more visual experience, and a website that works more like an app and less like a series of linked web pages,” wrote Netflix’s Director of Product Innovation Cameron Johnson. “Information appears in-line and in context rather than on a separate page, which makes exploring the catalog faster than ever before.”

Netflix also announced more titles now boast audio descriptions. This feature, introduced back in April to help make watching movies and TV easier for the visually-impaired, is a narrative track which explains what’s happening on screen. Netflix users can now watch both original and non-original titles (such as Orange Is the New Black, House of Cards, and The Hunger Games: Catching Fire) with an enabled audio description in English.

More titles will boast audio descriptions in the near future, with Bloodline’s audio description arriving later this month. Netflix’s upcoming Narcos will be the first title on the platform to have a Spanish-narrated audio description. Netflix users will be able to find all audio description-enabled titles in a new search gallery.

Netflix said its new site will roll out to all members over the next two weeks. Users with older browsers will need to update to the latest version before they can use the new Netflix site.

Filed under: Articles, Netflix, News by Bree Brouwer
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New Form Digital has produced a new round of shorts as part of its Incubator series initiative. The digital studio created by Ron Howard, Brian Grazer, and Discovery Communications has released the second selection of original shorts created by both established and burgeoning digital talent.

Creators such as Wong Fu Productions and Jack & Dean head up the second round of Incubator shorts, which also boasts stories from lesser-known talent ready to prove their worth. Nine shorts (all of which were revealed as part of New Form’s original second round Incubator announcement) are now available for viewing on New Form’s YouTube channel: 10:31, The Dreams of Emma Bloom, Ghost Fighting Corporation, Occupy Alice, The Imp of the Perverse, Cold, Dr. Havoc’s Diary, Grrl Scouts, and Single by 30.

In addition to these nine shorts, two of the productions originally ordered by New Form have already been picked up for complete series orders. Maker Studios announced at its Digital Content Newfronts presentation earlier this year it would pick up Party Girl, from creator Lisa Schwartz and Lacey Friedman, for a ten-episode series. Likewise, Refinery29’s Newfronts presentation revealed the network would turn Shitty Boyfriends, from Jessica Cabot, into an eight-episode series produced by Lisa Kudrow and Dan Bucatinsky.

“Our goal is to discover and cultivate the most creative talent working in digital today and we have been inspired by their creativity, hard work, and dedication to telling their stories for digital platforms,” said New Form Digital Chief Creative Officer Kathleen Grace. “Since New Form Digital launched one year ago, we have produced twenty-five pilots and have seventeen series in production. That means there is a hunger and desire for the type of scripted stories we are telling, and that is exciting for us and the creators.”

Whereas this new round of Incubator shorts doesn’t seem to have a central theme, the first round focused on the idea of what it means to be curious. New Form produced shorts from YouTubers such as Sawyer Hartman and Anna Akana, and, as with the most recent productions, all the shorts featured an appearance by Mitchell Davis.

You can watch all digital shorts from New Front’s second Incubator series round on the studio’s YouTube channel.

Filed under: Articles, New Form, News by Bree Brouwer
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As the NFL slackens its once-tight grip on its video content, it is looking to produce some new programming to accompany game highlights and footage. To that end, it has hired Jordan Levin, a former TV exec who recently served as the EVP of Xbox Studios, as its first ever Chief Content Officer.

Levin will oversee the production of original content that will be distributed across multiple channels, including the NFL’s website, its NFL Now platform, and its mobile and Xbox apps. These efforts are the latest part of the pro football league’s plan to invest more resources in online video. As part of those plans, it has cut deals with a number of digital media companies, including YouTube, Facebook, and Yahoo, the last of which will stream a live NFL game during the upcoming season.

“I’m both honored and humbled to be joining the NFL Media team to help them realize their bold strategic vision of delivering NFL fans unique and distinctive content experiences in a personalized manner across all screens, channels and media platforms worldwide,” said Levin in a statement reported by StreamDaily.

Levin first rose to prominence at The WB, where he served as CEO between 2003 and 2004. Later on, he spent two years at digital media company Alloy Digital (now Defy Media) before joining Xbox Studios, where he helped assemble an appealing lineup of original programs. Ultimately, disorganization and shifting corporate priorities doomed Xbox Studios, which closed in July 2014. Levin and fellow executive Nancy Tellem were laid off three months later.

With the NFL, Levin will get another chance to help build up a rising digital media company. What kind of content will his team produce? As NFL EVP of Media Brian Rolapp told the Wall Street Journal, “it’s all on the table.”

Filed under: Articles, Channels, Featured, News by Sam Gutelle
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Hulu will no longer call its paid subscription Hulu Plus. The streaming video platform has officially dropped the “Plus” from the name of its premium option and now simply refers to both its free, ad-supported model and its paid subscription service as Hulu.

Hulu hasn’t yet entirely removed the Plus branding from across its web properties; its site still says “try Hulu Plus for free” and its app descriptions still mention Plus. But the video platform (which recently acquired streaming rights to Seinfeld for a total of $130 million) sent an email to its paying subscribers on June 16, 2015, announcing the name change: “We’ve had a blast with our old friend Plus but it’s time to move on. We just wanted to let you know that we are retiring the Hulu Plus name. From now on, we will just be known as Hulu. No ‘Plus.’”

According to Variety, Hulu wanted to simplify its overall brand and make it easier for Hulu to take on Netflix and similar subscription services. And at this year’s Digital Content Newfronts, Hulu CEO Mike Hopkins also noted the name change would help keep marketing efforts for both Hulu’s free, ad-supported and paid tiers more unified across the entire company.

The Hulu name change comes only a month after the streaming platform announced a deal with AT&T, who will start offering Hulu’s paid subscription option to mobile and web customers. Variety reports Hulu currently has around 9 million paying customers.

Filed under: Articles, Hulu, News by Bree Brouwer
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Catastrophe, a British comedy series written by and starring Rob Delaney and Sharon Horgan, is coming to America. It will arrive for Amazon Prime subscribers on Friday, June 19th, but before it gets there, it is taking a quick detour to Facebook. The premiere episode of Catastrophe will be available on Facebook for 48 hours before it heads to Amazon.

Adweek calls Catastrophe’s Facebook debut a “virtual screening party,” with an official event serving as a jumping-off point for potential viewers. As part of the event, the show’s stars are interacting with fans in order to drum up support. Delaney, for example, launched a poll question asking respondents how excited they are about Catastrophe. Choices include “Moister than an oyster” and “oh frig off rob.”

Social media interaction is certainly one of Delaney’s strong suits. The American comedian is best known for his Twitter feed, where he has more than a million followers.

The premiere episode of Catastrophe is available through a separate Facebook page hosted by Amazon.

In Catastrophe, Delaney and Horgan portray lovers who are forced to stay together after an unexpected pregnancy complicates what was supposed to be a weekend fling. The show has been well received in the UK, where it has been picked up for a second season.

Critically-acclaimed British shows are hot commodities for streaming video platforms; Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon have all acquired the distribution rights for foreign programs and presented them for American audiences. With Catastrophe, Facebook has gotten in on the fun–albeit briefly.

Filed under: Articles, Channels, Facebook, Featured, News by Sam Gutelle
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