Can Video Save Teen Magazines? – YPulse
Just got a press release from CosmoGIRL! in my inbox about a new video soap they will be launching in spring of ’08. From the release:
CosmoGIRL! magazine and Raw Digital, a Raw Media Network company, today announced a partnership to launch an online soap opera series set in a suburban high school. The announcement was made by CosmoGIRL! Editor-in-Chief Susan Schulz and Raw Digital CEO Johnny Boston.
The three to four minute webisodes will air three times per week for five weeks. The soap opera series will live on cosmogirl.com and will follow best friends Jaime and Anna as they navigate through the trials and tribulations of their junior year of high school. Set in a small town in Michigan , the antithesis of The OC, the two heroines will be faced with hard times that will leave viewers questioning whether or not their perfect world will crumble before they graduate.
If yesterday’s link to the AdAge.com (reg. required) story about how sponsors are flocking to Kate Modern is any indication, a successful online video series could be a boon for teen mag websites or at least be a digital product that they can monetize. It will be interesting to see if they sell sponsorships separately or as a value add to advertising in print magazine. I kind of think these magazines have to begin seeing their digital products as the core product…I also think part of the reason Kate Modern is successful, just as Prom Queen and LG15 have been successful, is because they live on large social networking sites (Bebo, MySpace). The press release only says “the series will live on Cosmogirl.com.”