Just to add more info to this... If we do a whois on welcometothescene.com, we find that it was registered by the Jun Group. Doing a simple google search turns up
http://www.dcia.info/News/newsletter_2004-12-06.h [dcia.info]t m. A DCIA Member made industry history last week by premiering the first-of-its-kind original peer-to-peer (P2P) video program series entitled "The Scene." While other major entertainment industry representatives continued various actions around the world intended to curtail online file sharing, Jun Group took an enormous step forward in the commercial development of this exciting distribution channel. Like theatrical motion pictures, broadcast television shows, and most recently cable programming, mass media outlets for video content have been able to mark the beginnings of their coming of age with the debuts of their first original made-for-the-medium content. According to Jun Group president and show co-creator Mitchell Reichgut, "Most content that's available online was originally created for another medium. We created 'The Scene' specifically for file sharers. It's meant to be viewed on the computer." On November 30th, Jun Group launched this first-ever TV-style series specifically for the global file-sharing community. "The Scene's" protagonist, Brian Sandro, is a fictional young NYU student who also happens to be one of the world's most avid file-swappers. Sandro's desktop is at the heart of his social life, and viewers get to experience the online "Scene" just as he does - via Web cams, secret chat rooms, private websites, instant messages, and e-mails. "The Scene" is financed entirely by sponsorships, which themselves exemplify the cutting-edge of creativity. Sandro visits the official website for the extreme sports equipment company that is one of its charter advertisers. He also listens to music on his computer and checks out the bands' websites - as college students typically do. What makes the show most unique is the fact that it is being distributed solely through the P2P community. "File sharers have made it very clear that this is their preferred method of consuming content," Mitchell said. "We are the first ones who have found a way to truly meet that demand." He added that the file-sharing audience is a highly desirable demographic of affluent and largely male young adults. Businesses pay for placement based on the number of people who are inspired by the show to visit a sponsor, which is both quantifiable and verifiable. "Our sponsors will only be paying for the people who download the show or the people we drive to their websites," he noted. "They won't have to rely on outdated ratings systems." There's no reason to copy-protect the shows, Mitchell said, because the whole idea is for people to copy and share them so that advertisers reach the highest possible number of consumers. Executives at show sponsor Freebord phoned Jun Group two hours after the premiere to report that their website was "being swamped with traffic." Similarly, the website (
http://welcometothescene.com/ [welcometothescene.com]) that Jun Group created to promote the show temporarily went down due to the overwhelming amount of traffic it was receiving. It's clear that hundreds of thousands of people downloaded the show in first few hours after its release. "The Scene" is now out on P2P, and on IRC, Usenet, and public FTPs - with no strings attached. "The Scene" represents Jun Group's latest foray into file sharing. In 2003, the company released five files from Kevin Martin and the Hiwatts, a band featuring the former lead singer of Candlebox, on behalf of YooHoo Chocolate Drink. The music was downloaded more than two million times over a four-week period, and helped YooHoo achieve the largest spike in website traffic since the inception of its site. Its more recent partnership with rock legend Steve Winwood and the television show Access Hollywood drove over 3 million downloads and well over 200,000 visitors to the Access Hollywood website. Sales of Winwood's album, "About Time," rose an astounding 1,300% in several major markets, and Jun Group was named as a 2004 DECA finalist in the category of Best Use of Technology for a Music Marketing Campaign. According to Mitchell, Jun Group's new show "The Scene" is more evidence of the growing influence of P2P: "The file sharing community is a legitimate mass medium - one that is maturing very quickly."
