not your average production company

In a blog post by Comm 101 classmate Michelle Liao, she detailed the rise to fame and success of a YouTube “vlogger” Shaycarl and his family, which reminded me of another business that I’ve taken an interest in over the past few years.

Rooster Teeth is a company that produces online comedy web-series and holds the current record for longest running online web show as it moves into it’s 11th season. But what started as a group of four guys in a spare bedroom has quickly blossomed into the multi-million fan-based internet mogul that it is today. However, for the longest time, skeptics were critical of the business, and wondered how well, if at all, an internet fan base could translate into a viable business.

However, earlier this year, Rooster Teeth was able to silence the critics when the Indiegogo crowd-funding campaign for their first feature-length film earned an astounding $2.5 million, making it the highest funded film project in the history of the site, from 37,000 funders.

It would turn out, that internet fame can scale, which provides a very interesting future for alternative media. With sites and services like Hulu and Netflix on the rise, as well as the emergence of real tangible financial success and security for internet companies and personalities like Rooster Teeth and Shaycarl, could this foreshadow the death of conventional media? It would certainly seem like a possibility as it stands.

source: article

link to photograph: http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/11/10/us-media-roosterteeth-idUSKCN0IU1OI20141110