

Felicia Day: Mogul In The Making - ugh
http://blogs.forbes.com/davidewalt/2011/08/03/felicia-day-dragon-age-redemption/

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starwed
So, an article about how Felicia Day is well positioned as a figure in online
entertainment, and they don't even _mention_ Dr. Horrible?

My understanding is that Whedon embarked upon that after seeing the success of
The Guild, and talking to Day about online distribution. (Obviously the
writer's strike had a lot to do with it too...)

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larrik
I was surprised myself.

Also, the article makes it out like she gave up on television and to some
degree acting, but she's in a guest arc on Eureka _right now._

Otherwise, the article IS pretty interesting.

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runevault
Except it specifically said this had replaced acting as primary income, not
replaced it entirely. It probably didn't do enough to highlight the fact she
still does some gigs, though. Nor the fact most of the tv work she DOES do
seems to be driven by people who like her work on the Guild and so they reach
out to her, instead of the usual going out for a casting call, which should
have fit the narrative of the ways it has further empowered her to move
forward.

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hugh3
_most of the tv work she DOES do seems to be driven by people who like her
work on the Guild and so they reach out to her_

Or else they know she has a huge online following, and throwing her into a few
episodes will give 'em an extra half a million viewers from the "lonely geek"
demographic?

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runevault
To be fair that's still liking her work, just her work of luring in those
extra half million viewers as hardcore fans.

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ddw
What's interesting to me about stories like this is that with content creators
can deliver their art/entertainment without the middlemen and actually make
good money doing it to the point that they don't need traditional broadcast
formats. It's the democratization of media that is a cliche but sometimes
actually true.

This is starting to happen in the podcasting world as well. Comic Jimmy Pardo
charges $20/season for his "Never Not Funny" audio podcast in lieu of
advertising. While I don't believe he's divulged his numbers, I'm pretty sure
it's in the tens of thousands, which is a good hunk of change considering his
costs to produce the show.

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chc
I do hope this kind of thing doesn't become the new standard. Episodes of "The
Guild" and most other online series clock in at 10 minutes and under. At that
length, it seems (from present examples) like the stories pretty much have to
be fluff.

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noodle
i'd point out that he mentions two examples, the average the guild episode
clocking in at 10 minutes, the average never not funny episode clocking in at
1h 30m.

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reidmain
I feel the word "Mogul" is misleading.

Not to take anything away from Felicia, her success is inspiring, but the
message seems to be about how content creators on the Internet can produce
great content with only a fanbase of a couple tens of thousands of people and
still succeed financially.

It goes directly against the TV idea where shows have to go head to head and
spend millions of dollars to amass at least a few million viewers and only a
few can succeed.

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timjahn
I was never really familiar with who Felicia Day was until I saw her on Kevin
Pollak's Chat Show (link:
<http://www.kevinpollakschatshow.com/archive/?cat=197>)

After that 2 hour interview, I realized she was an extremely smart, forward
thinking woman who is going to do amazing things. And clearly, she is.

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JMiao
just had to stop and say that forbes.com's layout is hilariously awful. the
content starts after 500px.

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hugh3
Only 500px?

My 13-inch MacBook (1280*800) doesn't even show the bottommost pixels of the
headline.

