Blip.tv, The Collective and Jane Espenson - #webseries news!

Blip.tv and The Collective graphic (taken from blip.tv sizzle reel)

A big day!
This morning Blip.tv and The Collective announced their new partnership live on Livestream:

Watch live streaming video from bliptv at livestream.com

This is huge news and will change the landscape in the webseries world. From the Blip.tv blog:

 "This partnership breaks new ground for blip.tv and validates the position we’ve taken for years about the relevance of original web series, and our dedication to the success of their creators.  The Collective, like us, takes a long-term view that places the creator and star firmly in control of their own destiny.Our partnership was the result of a ton of exploration about how we can work together to add value to the web series creators who will be a part of it.

Starting today, the creators working with Collective Digital Studio will build upon their amazing success by adding new audiences on the blip.tv destination site and our network of distribution partners.  We’ll also work with them to take advantage of opportunities with advertisers so that they can make more and better content for their fans, which will be available on the new blip.tv destination site, on YouTube, and on their own sites."

Tubefiler had live coverage and Newteevee have also covered this news.

We choose Blip.tv for our upcoming webseries "Mind My Brains, Darling!" because their distribution and management backend gave us what we needed. When they unveiled their completely revamped site a couple of weeks ago we were thrilled to be part of their new focus on the viewer's experience. Thanks to Jeremy Hodges' help our Blip.tv pages looks amazing:

I'm looking forward to seeing what this new partnership will bring.

More things that make you go "Squee!"
One of my very favourite TV writers - in fact, one of my favourite writers, period - is Jane Espenson. I first encountered her on Buffy and I have tracked her since, enjoying her work whenever and wherever  I find it. We won't dwell on the heartbreak that is the cancellation of Caprica, but rather rejoice in the fact that Jane has several projects on the go. There is a wonderful interview with her in the Huffington Post today.

It is full of insights but it is the very last lines that really got me going:

"Is there a story you're dying to tell? If you were given complete freedom, ratings weren't an issue and there were no studio restraints, what story would you write? 

 I do have such a story -- a comedy idea a friend and I came up with and co-wrote a little script for. It's something that I think would inevitably change with studio input, and I want to keep it clear in my head at least until we've captured our clean vision of it, so I think we will shoot it as a web series. Ask me about it again in about a month or so!"

A new* Jane Espenson webseries?!? This is outstanding news! More details as they are released...

P.S. If you are reading this, Jane, I really do have a set you can use - @worldofhiglet on twitter and I'll hook you up. You like Vancouver, right?

EDIT: During #webserieschat today I realised that some people might not know that Jane is a Streamy Award winning webseries writer! She won in 2009 for the Battlestar Galactica webseries, "Face of the Enemy". I blogged about it here and here - and have some pictures on Flickr. She has also been linked to a new Torchwood webseries!