Internet TV projects

Direct-to-Internet television projects have been around for years. Few of them have made much of a splash but at least one science fiction show, Sanctuary -- starring Stargate's Amanda Tapping -- successfully made the transition to cable television when the SciFi Channel picked up the show.

But there are many other shows out there that have not experienced similar success. Whether it be Sheldon Whittaker's proposed Barrier or Aaron Douglas' Emissary, some projects have languished for lack of funding and others are starting up in the hope of building an audience.

The Barrier project may join many other online productions in building a brave new direct-to-Internet television production industry. There is little difference between direct-to-Internet television and direct-to-Internet film-making, except that TV shows are episodic and require more than one episode.

A lot of Internet-only productions are just boring. The amount of work required to produce even simple fan films may be too much for amateur producers to build sustainable momentum. Instead, we may have to look for professional actors, writers, and directors to explore new opportunities on the basis of venture capital funding or their own speculative investments.

These types of projects may find a profitable revenue model -- perhaps through embedded advertising, or perhaps through the sale of downloadable media streams, or perhaps through the sale of DvD and Blu-Ray discs. We don't really know where it's all going.

But there should be no doubt about the fact that we're witnessing the dawn of a new age of creative exploration that has been enabled by the Internet. We may surprise ourselves with an abundance of creativity unlike anything our society has seen before.

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