Are you hoping your video talents could soon make you famous? Sony and the brains behind the new Crackle video sharing site hope the answer will be a resounding "Yes!" in response to Crackle's promise of "launching tomorrow's stars today." Crackle attempts to lure the best new filmmakers, animators and other talented individuals by offering ongoing access and exposure to entertainment industry leaders.
Lights, camera, upload! Sony Pictures Entertainment (SPE) announced today that its Grouper video-sharing site has been converted into a full-blown, multichannel "streaming entertainment network" for independent video creators, and is now called Crackle.
The site is intended to be an "open studio," with some editorial selection and nurturing, rather than just another undifferentiated YouTube. While a wide variety of work will be accepted, some will be commissioned and some will be awarded prizes and other incentives, as judged by the editorial team and viewers.
'Irreverent Editorial Team'
Josh Felser, founder and co-president of Crackle, said in a statement that the best new video creators will receive funding, promotion, syndication, and tie-ins with other parts of the Sony entertainment empire. He added that the site's "irreverent editorial team, with a little help from [its] viewers," will program "provocative and entertaining channels" for an audience estimated at 25 million monthly unique users.
Sony said that Crackle's new entertainment model will provide the best video-makers with ongoing access and exposure to leaders at Sony Pictures Animation, Sony Picture Imageworks, Columbia Pictures, Sony Pictures Television, the IMPROV Comedy Lab, and others.
The entertainment and technology giant is also offering access to a multi-platform distribution network, with the possibility of syndication to such devices as its PSP (PlayStation Portable), and viral Web distribution through a variety of sites including MySpace, Facebook, hi5, AOL, Piczo, and WordPress.
As one example of the selection and nurturing process, Crackle's "edgy" animation channel, called Wet Paint, will pay a cash prize to winners of a quarterly contest, who will also be flown to Los Angeles to pitch Sony Pictures Animation executives on why their animated short work should be released theatrically. Other channels, such as Crackle's comedy channel High Wire, will select monthly contest winners to pitch to the IMPROV Comedy Lab and perform a 15-minute set in L.A., N.Y., or Chicago.
There will also be "Crackle Studios" development deals and pitch meetings awarded on the site's Short Film channel, and on the sketch variety channel, Moving Targets.
'Unique Environments' for Advertisers
The studio/network/branded channel format is key to the site's business model and its ambitions for attracting paid advertisers. Crackle said it will partner sponsors with "distinctive skins" to create "unique branded environments."
One example of a distinctive advertising is Crackle's Firehouse channel, which is about real firefighters and sponsored by the cable series Rescue Me. Other Crackle channels include Judgment, where strangers make and test assumptions about people; Scrambler, a video music magazine; and, soon, Moving Targets.
Crackle could be a "giant step forward for the digital age," said Yankee Group analyst Laura DiDio. A big difference between Crackle and other attempts at online, open-submission studio efforts, she noted, is that Crackle "has Sony behind it, with all their resources and properties."
She said Crackle could "absolutely" become the farm team of young new talent for Sony outlets, but also could feed content immediately to the Sony pipeline, just as "citizen video-journalists" have begun to do for cable news channels.
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