LG15 Update

"Hey everyone,

It’s been a bit since we gave you any updates about LG15 and the website, and we apologize for that. It’s been a challenging but exciting year for us at EQAL. We’ve worked hard to build a technology product, sign deals, and launch shows, all in the worst economy since the Great Depression. The advertising industry has been particularly hard hit, and as you know we finance our shows by selling sponsorships to brands. Thanks to companies like Neutrogena, 20th Century Fox, P&G, Microsoft, Orange, Paramount, Disney, Toyota, Cadburys, and others we’ve been able to produce free entertainment for all of you to enjoy. Unfortunately when the ad market “vanished” last fall it became very, very, very difficult to get advertisers to finance new original series online. We need to build a profitable company so that we can continue to produce high-quality free entertainment for all of you, and so we made a strategic shift. Over the past six months we’ve focused on extending existing entertainment brands online, and thanks to that decision the company is doing well and we’re launching really cool shows with Paula Deen, Anthony E. Zuiker’s Level 26, and Alicia Silverstone. There are even more exciting projects like this in the works that we think you’ll love.

We know that you feel like we have “forgotten” about the LG15 community. Well, we haven’t. We’ve been really busy and sometimes things slip through the cracks. We loved producing “LG15: The Resistance,” but we went out of pocket to get it off the ground and because we launched it during the economic meltdown we weren’t able to get sponsors for a Season 2. Fortunately, LG15 is doing great via LG15: TSIY and through our international licensing efforts. We’re psyched to see how well the LG15 community has responded to LG15: The Last, and we’re just excited as you are about the finale. Amanda is working with them right now to finalize the schedule. N1ck0la, LG15’s Polish spin-off, is doing great and we’re excited with how strongly the community out there has responded to it. As you may have seen, we licensed LG15 to a Japanese company, so lonelygirl15 and KateModern will find a whole new life with a Japanese audience, and they might produce a local version of LG15 for Japan. We’re working on even more international licensing of the brand.

In terms of the website: Yes, we know the software is old and cranky. Unfortunately we made a variety of deep structural database changes when we created the new version of the software and launched Harper’s Globe, so it is not simply a matter of “pushing a button” to upgrade LG15 to the new software. Tyler and Patrick are looking into this today and by the end of next week we’ll know how much work it will take to upgrade the site. If we can’t do a seamless upgrade, we have some other options as well. Either way we will be re-launching LG15.com on the new software to coincide with a new season of TSIY sometime in August/September. Once LG15 is on the new software it will receive regular upgrades just like Harper’s, Paula, and all of our other sites.

Finally, regarding my comments in the NewTeeVee and MediaWeek articles. Although we aren’t producing original online series right now, we would very much like to return to that when the advertising markets recover. As it pertains to LG15, we want to see more of the ongoing adventures of Daniel, Jonas, Sarah, Lucy, and the gang as much as you do. We don’t want to do it half-ass, so we need to wait until the time is right so that we can bring back LG15 with a bang. In the meantime we’ll be launching more international versions of the show to bring a bigger and bigger audience to the brand, and we’ll continue to add features to the LG15 website so that it’s easier and easier for you guys to contribute to the LG15 mythology.

Thanks.

Greg"

Source: http://lg15today.blogspot.com/2009/06/lg15-update.html