Sunday, July 19, 2009

The Guild on YouTube (get Digging!) and Dr Horrible's birthday

They're back!
Yes - The Guild Season 2 is now starting on YouTube with Episode One "Link the Loot" already up there:


It's great to see the gang back on YouTube - and to read all the comments from fans! And yes - lots of new fans are seeing The Guild for the first time. Crazy as it seems, there are some people on the Interwebz who have not seen The Guild yet. There is an influx of new people on http://community.watchtheguild.com/ and it's really great to hear from people who had no idea about the series and are now gleefully rattling through the episodes. This is great news and you can Digg it up to show your appreciation!

YouTube versus MSN
Now this is a false battle. The bottom line is that MSN are the sponsor of The Guild and without them Season 2, and for certain, Season 3 just would not be happening on the same scale, if at all. Felicia Day (creator/writer/actor) battled long and hard for a deal that let her keep control of her show and this was the best deal on a full table of offers. That said, there are differences between the two, and for me there are three main ones:

Streaming quality:
MSN is the clear winner here. Season 2 was filmed in HD and the MSN video player does do this more justice (although watching on Xbox Live on a HD TV is better still!):


Ease of commenting
YouTube wins here hands down. On the MSN site it's hard to even find where you are supposed to comment, you have to log in and it seems very clunky. By comparison commenting and reading the comments in YouTube are a breeze. You still have to log on but YouTube keeps you logged in as a rule (unless your settings don't allow this) and so once you've commented on one video you can keep going. Of course that also means that many of the comments on YouTube in general (but not really on The Guild videos) can be spammy, offensive or just plain nasty, but they can be moderated.

Sharing the videos
You can Digg both with one click. MSN allows you to 'blog to spaces', while YouTube gives you the option to share on Facebook and MySpace. Both also allow you to copy the links (with or without embedding).

Why The Guild being on YouTube is important
The Guild started on YouTube and has a massive following over there. But there are still so many people who haven't heard of The Guild that making available in as many places as possible makes sound sense. As they put on WatchTheGuild.com:

The one thing we’ve missed from out awesome Xbox/Microsoft distribution is comments, so we’d love to hear what you think of the season! Also, if you could Rate and Favorite the video it will help new people discover the show. We appreciate those extra clicks!

Thank you so much for supporting our independent web series :) We’re excited to be launching a new season just around the corner, more information will be released next week. Also we will be posting our full Comicon Schedule later today or tomorrow, so be sure to check back so you can fit us in your busy schedule!

The Guild Management

So even if you've seen it on MSN, bought the DVD (use this link to support The Guild if you've not already purchased it) and have told all your friends (repeatedly!) you can still help by heading over to YouTube.

Our favourite Doctor had a birthday!
It's hard to believe but it's a year since Dr Horrible stormed the Intertubes on the 15th July 2008, taking out servers and breaking websites willy nilly. There was a surprising lack of posts about it, but WoWBlog did summarise the excitement and heady anticipation of those days. Really, I should now do Future Entertainment: Part 3 and bring together everything we've learned about how ground-breaking Dr Horrible was and is. And will do that. Just not yet :)

Two Birthdays?
In fact, Dr Horrible had two birthdays this week because it was Jed Whedon's yesterday, as immortalised in this tweet from Mo Tanchoroen (his wife and co-writer-in-crime):



Happy birthday, Dr Horrible!

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