‘Quarterlife’ coming to MySpace
Users of MySpace next month will see the online debut of “Quarterlife,” a Web TV series that follows the fictional adventures of 20-something creatives searching for love, gainful employment and the meaning of life.
If that sounds familiar, it should. The creators of the new series are Hollywood veterans Marshall Herskovitz and Edward Zwick, known for their TV series, including “Thirtysomething” and “My So-Called Life,” and feature films like “The Last Samurai” and “Blood Diamond.”
The effort to launch “Quarterlife” online has caught the attention of other media producers. Zwick has said the online series has the largest budget yet for an Internet production.
Previous efforts to create an ongoing Web series include the Lonelygirl15 vids on YouTube, and “Prom Queen,” the production launched by former Disney CEO Michael Eisner.
“Quarterlife” episodes will run about eight minutes. The series will have its own site, with character blogs and the other doo-dads that go with it, according to news stories.
Video Q&A from TechPresident
Political site TechPresident.com has launched 10Questions.com, a user-generated presidential video debate, in association with the editorial board of the New York Times and MSNBC.
10Questions.com invites people to submit online video questions addressed to the candidates. The questions can be created and posted on popular video sites such as YouTube, MySpace, Yahoo and Blip.tv.
The 10Questions site will then display those videos and ask voters to choose the 10 best submissions. At the end of four weeks, the top 10 questions will be submitted to all the major candidates. The candidates will have four weeks to submit un-timed video responses to the questions.
Users can vote on as many videos as they like, but may only submit one video; user submissions are due by Nov. 14. The entire project will be completed Dec. 31.
Do-not-track list urged
The Do Not Call list has proved a huge hit with consumers. Now, a collection of privacy advocates wants the Federal Trade Commission to launch a similar Do Not Track List that will prevent behavioral advertisers from tracking online activities over time.
The proposal comes from the Center for Democracy & Technology, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, and other privacy watchdogs.
At the heart of the new system is a list, maintained by the FTC, of all domain names that are mapped to behavioral advertising servers. All U.S. advertisers would be required to submit domains to this list, and the list would then be downloaded by a Web browser (or a browser plug-in). The list could be used to block tracking cookies from such sites, but would not function as a general filter on advertising.
The FTC has not discussed the proposal, but advocates hope to bring it before the commission within the next several months.