More details on the some of the interactive new media properties being created by Katalyst Media (the production company created by Ashton Kutcher and Jason Goldberg).
Last week Kutcher and Goldberg gave me a preview of some of the new properties and the business model behind it. Next week the two will be meeting with a number of big media buyers at Internet Week in New York to show them five or so of the new properties.
One of the properties they’ll be showcasing: Blah Blah Blah (to be at the domain Blahgirls.com per the image above, but the site is not yet live). It will be a daily cartoon gossip show hosted by “Britney, Tiffany and Krystle” that aims to be “like if Beavis & Butthead were drama queens, had PMS, cat fights, fashion reports, shopping sprees, and of course, lots of juicy…GOSSIP!” The show will be set in Krystle’s bedroom – the preview version I saw had them watching a real video on a cartoon television and commenting on it. And yes, it was pretty funny.
Katalyst is also saying they’ll be packaging the episodes for television as well, and have a deal with a network in place. Comedy Central or MTV are the obvious guesses, but I actually don’t know who they’re partnering with.
We should have more next week.
I can’t wait to see if this launch matches the hype that has been built!
Jon
http://woodmarvels.com – Create Unique Memories
Yawn.
arrington is to kutcher as feldman is to arrington.
well, it can’t flop as much as ooma
This seems like its making a buzz just because it’s celebrities doing it. Other than that…looks boring…
This looks cool. If it’s anywhere nearly as good as Beavis and Butthead, it will be a big hit. These guys are creative.
Ha, I thought the “blah blah blah” part in the title is Michael poking fun at them.
Mike Judge just hung himself.
Mike,
Do you get clearance from the photographer behind that Ashton Kutcher photo in crunchbase?
http://www.tech...o-through-life/
Blah blah blah, that’s a nice overall statement regarding anything that Ashton Kutcher does.
Good for the PerezHilton crowd..lots of pageviews but not a lot to be proud of.
This is dumb. Please don’t cover this again.
The Butterfly Effect was a rip-off of Somewhere in Time.
GUYS, THIS IS WHY OUR CULTURE WILL NEVER THRIVE…
Mike you are better than this, pull your head out of hollywood ass and cover REAL companies. I am surprised that you got sucked in by a celebrity “drive by” of your office/house. Reading this reminds me of your “Twitter!” post albeit “Techrunch!”
hmmm I certainly hope they have some really funny female writers on the staff, because boys laughing at girls PMS isn’t bound to be considered funny to half the population
“business model behind it”, hmm . . . sounds like a hook-up for half-price Nikons
you guys don’t see the light, maybe because you’re not the ideal demographic
But it seems like it can work – if the show is anything like that image above, then girls, teens and women may like the gossip/toon mix.
it can be fresh
*collaborate
ha ha ha
Hmmmm, Ha HHa HHa !!
looks cool actually. when can we see an actual video?
antje – i would guess the target audience is women, and they have women writers.
The work done by the company is appreciable. They made people entertained and they have a lot famous TV shows which are liked by the people. This work should be carried at fast pace which will ultimately lead to a huge success.
Uggh, how many celeb shows can we really watch. Will this come on after TMZ or best week ever, because that’ll be great getting the same terrible stories over and over during the day. I wish they’d stop it already, can’t kutcher do some sort of punk’d type show again? It was great watching celebs squirm and lose their heads at parking attendants.
grow up {seesmic_video:{”url_thumbnail”:{”value”:”http://t.seesmic.com/thumbnail/1p1FcDh4uw_th1.jpg”}”title”:{”value”:”grow up ”}”videoUri”:{”value”:”http://www.seesmic.com/video/jqgZa9Cexh”}}}
blahblahblah.com, pukepukepuke.com duhduhduh.com hopefully this is all just a bad dream.
FIRST!
I don’t think anyone is happy with the overall quality of movie and tv shows coming out of Hollywood. Stories abound of great scripts that get ruined by the “process”.
Maybe artists creating the entertainment directly in a medium like the internet which with fast and inexpensive productions times cuts out a lot of the “process”
Either way I’ll wait to see the projects before making judgment. If it turns out good this will be emulated by other successful artists. I believe this story is post worthy-success or fail.
SiliconCalley. I think you missed the point of a lot of these comments. I’ve been reading tc since it was worth reading, back when the focus was web 2.0 startups. There was a period when I could come to tc daily and literally find at least one new website/service worth signing up for, if only out of curiosity. Now tc is a hype machine, focusing on little things at big companies (google favicon?) and petty feuds (twitter, etc.), and mass-media style sensationalization of boring “news.”
I honestly enjoy coming here more for the funny comments than the posts, and I now find about one new startup worth signing up for per month at best.
Don’t hate on tc commenters because they want to get legitimate news about sites that WE could use. And this is might be the million’th place on the planet where people are knocking ashton for something – he created a very public career out of some goofy roles, and unfortunately, making websites about teen gossip is not the way to shed that image. I like the guy, I think he’s a solid actor, but you seem to take these comments about him personally, which is weird (to the point that you try to decrease the blow by lauding tc commenters).
FYI, I’m trying to say that I don’t think that people find the project itself to be dumb – this blah blah thing could obviously do very well because it’s niche and aimed at a very web-present market group. The point is just that it’s not going to do a whole lot for your average tc reader, especially when it’s painfully obvious that Mike is posting this sort of stuff to show that he knows famous people (”Last week Kutcher and Goldberg gave me a preview…” HIM! not tc, HIM!).
Wow. Some of the comments above are the most short-sighted, out-of-touch with reality I’ve seen online in a long time.
Only a small fraction of the people who access the internet daily are on here to keep up with tech and startups. The bulk of people online are here to keep themselves amused somehow. Ashton and Jason know that, and their sites will soon become massively successful.
Why would people think Techcrunch is a hype machine? This story is about a startup. A startup that I’ll be keeping a close eye on in the future because there’s a lot to learn from these guys & gals.
I hope Andrew Denton is getting residuals.
Uh, does anyone else see the racial stereotyping of the african american character as a problem? A mini-fro and big red lips. hmmmm… are you kidding me?
How is this a technology startup?
>Uh, does anyone else see the racial stereotyping of the african american character as a problem? A mini-fro and big red lips. hmmmm… are you kidding me?
Huh? Should they portray blacks as green martians?
Looking at the visuals and the screenshot it looks like it could be a partnership with David and Goliath clothing. (http://www.davi...ndgoliathco.com)
It would be a great way to sell product and if they get it right could make a fortune.
So many dateless guys on this board. Stop being so suck up..people want to have fun online. And this looks fun to me. I’m excited to see it. If done well could be very sticky. I can also see a bunch of games created around these characters also.
i can imagine it like grown women modulating their voices in little girls voices “watch our show bitches” it seems to be fun. ashton is fun and full of ideas
Excellent improvement.
I’m taking comments against Ashton personally? I’m not exactly doing a Chris Crocker here, I noticed a trend and said something.
With the future of all media depending on the convergence of Silicon Valley and Hollywood, one would think how you would see the importance of a post like this. Your attitude goes to show what the problem has been. Last time we actually worked together on something was basically PIXAR. Hollywood is a business that regularly spends $50M, $80M, or $100M+ on a film, and is the best connected industry in the US, and globally. Well, I’m inspired to write a post about this, so for more on the subject, go to my blog later.
And to what – I’m not “hating on” commenters, I’m trying to get an intelligent conversation going, and it seemed to have worked. And maybe the problem isn’t TC not covering good sites for you to sign up for, maybe it has something to do with the fact that you were signing up for a site a day….I would get bored with that too.
Pure Garbage, Arrington.
There has to be something better than this to write about.
@SiliconCalley I’m subscribing to your blog.
I like my idea of seeing videos of ashton and demi doing it. now that is something peopple would pay for! or maybe ashton, demi, and bruce…haha. But no more of rumor willis.
TV advertising revenue = LOTS
web advertising revenue = TINY
Its a great way to build some community and then to get the lions share of revenue from TV adverts and format fees.
Some good thoughts here, but I\’m not sure if a lot of people will agree with you on this
if anyone cares to know more about the guy Katalyst is teaming up with for this project:
http://www.mike...m/todd_goldman/
Todd Goldman is a hack and should be blacklisted from doing anything in this industry. He is a proven plagiarist, why work with him?
wow this todd goldman is brilliant. i like his work. most of his ideas and captions are of common usage