Welcome Bizzlers!

Welcome Bizzlers –

Here’s a shameless confession.  The real reason I started blogging back in October ‘08 was not to give my readers a sense of what it was like to run Beverly Hills, 90210 when we were  the most popular show in the world, or even to share my thoughts about the current (woeful) state of prime time, but to do whatever I could to draw attention to showbizzle.  Not that every week, but, trust me, everyone ended with a plug for the bizzle.

Anyway, to celebrate the launch of our first newsletter, and to say thanks for giving us a chance to become whatever you’d like us to be — a diversion/an obsession/a launching pad — I’d like to re-published some of my favorite posts   – with an update, of course.

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“Putting The Show Back in The Bizzle” was my mission statement, my Jerry Maquire moment.  An affirmation of why we made all these videos in the first place…

Putting the Show back in the Bizzle

December 18, 2008

What I like about producing original content for the digital world is that if it doesn’t work out you get to throw up your hands and insist that your website/start-up/show was in Beta mode the whole time — and then, with one click of a mouse, poof, all is forgiven, and you get to start over again. Not cancelled, demeaned, and quickly forgotten which mostly happens when the network/studio/money guys pull the plug on a prime time endeavor. No. Showbizzle gets to have a second chance - a Beta-induced relaunch in the spring of ‘09. Early March. Our videos have been remixed, revoiced, repurposed, and broken down into 23 weekly 10-15 minutes segments. That’s a lot of ff****ing segments. That’s a full season. That a show. No wonder we have been asked to be featured as part of the Beta launch for Zillion TV this February. There’s that Beta word again. What a concept!

For months I have been describing showbizzle to anyone who would listen as “scripted entertainment that could pass as a reality show, in the form of a fictitious daily video blog - for the purposes of creating a social network.” We swapped out social network for community back in October once we figured out that providing services and opportunities for members were of more value than introducing them to their next bff.

To this end showbizzle ‘09 will have cool contests where members get paid to perform as well as an outreach to university theater and drama programs where cash prizes will be given to students performing our monologues in addition to performing their own material. But at the end of the day showbizzle is a show - not scripted entertainment — and I think we lost sight of that as we grappled with malfunctioning technology, unprofessional behavior from our techies from texas, and our own feeble marketing and publicity efforts.

Hopefully, in ‘09 showbizzle can hook up with a brand, and that we generate more traffic and that members start reading Janey’s blog and respond all her new voice-overs — but no matter what happens it’ll still be about the show.

showbizzle…not quite showbusiness…and a lot more fun…

Have a happy, merry, happy - and we will be back in January.