Long Tail Studios?

CollegeHumor has 4.7 million subscribers, has won 11 Webby awards and is a leader in online comedy. It has amassed a largely teenage and young adult audience. This is an age demographic that is beginning to desert the multiplexes, but is frequently online.

This week, CollegeHumor will launch an assault on the traditional Hollywood Theater and multiplex system with the release of the movie Coffee Town. It will not be released to theaters or on DVD. It will be available only online. And it will bypass the massively expensive billboards, TV ads and other traditional promotion that is a hallmark of mainstream movies. Instead, it will be promoted through social networks and the CollegeHumor site.

It won't gross a tenth as much as The Lone Ranger, but it will cost less than a twentieth as much to make and promote. And it has around 4.7 million people who might give it a try.

Questions...

•What is good about seeing a big summer blockbuster like The Lone Ranger in a theater?

•What is good about seeing a movie as a paid download or video on demand?

•How is this an example of the Long Tail theory of media?

•Other than CollegeHumor, what are other groups and organizations that could make their own low-budget movies and show them, for a fee, to an online audience?

•Could a religion do this? How about a political organization? Could gun owners or environmentalists do this? How about a group devoted to the belief that UFOs are real?