September is the likely launch date for the fourth and final season of Easy to Assemble, the IKEA-backed show about an actress who leaves show biz to take a job at the furniture store.

If the trailer is any indication, the show’s creator and star Illeana Douglas will be joined by some familiar faces: Tom Arnold, Ed Begley Jr., Fred Willard, Roger Bart, and Kate Micucci.

“When the opportunity arose to do season four, I said, ‘Well, there’s only one logical place to go,’ which is to go back to the store,” Douglas told The Hollywood Reporter. ”All along, my character has been confronting herself, kind of like Curb Your Enthusiasm, but more my personal point of view.”

The fourth season brings Douglas back from Sweden, IKEA’s headquarters and the setting for season 3′s Finding North, distributed on My Damn Channel. Easy to Assemble’s second season reached 13 million organic views in just over three months, and racked-up multiple Webby Awards nods and a record seven Streamy Awards nominations, winning for Best Ensemble Cast and Best Brand Integration.

James Franco is many things. The 34-year-old that starred in Paul Feig and Judd Apatow’s cult now-kinda-classic NBC series Freaks and Geeks is an actor (obviously) and also an acting coach, web series creator, web series producer, Oscars host, author, student, professor, in-class snoozer, and (insert another job description here that – along with the ones listed above – is an impossibility for one human without superhuman abilities – or one of these – to possess).

But is James Franco pregnant? Maybe! And we’ll know for sure after the Fact Checkers Unit has completed its investigation.

You may be familiar with Fact Checkers Unit: FCU from when the original web series first debuted as an original independent short film and Official Selection of the 2008 Sundance Film Festival. The funny flick was created by and stars Peter Karinen and Brian Sacca (aka comedy duo Pete and Brian). It’s a fast-paced, irreverent story of two fact checkers at a fictional men’s magazine “who approach their job in industrial Brooklyn with the kind of thoroughness expressed by Made Lebowski‘s doctors.” (Read: They’re very thorough.) Kristen Schaal has a cameo. So does Bill Murray.

Thomas Bannister at SXM – the production company behind another short-film-turned-NBC-original-web-series, Ctrl – saw the original short at Sundance and thought Fact Checkers Unit would make one helluva web series. And it has.

Eight episodes of FCU: Fact Checkers Unit first appeared on NBC in 2010 sponsored by Samsung’s then-shiny-new Galaxy S with a laundry list of celebrity cameos – including Luke Perry, Alex Trebek, Dave Navarro, Karolina Kurkova, Donald Faison, Pauley Perrette, Zach Gilford, and Jon Heder. After Comcast shutterd NBC Universal’s Digital Studio, Bannister, Karinen, and Sacca then released a five-episode second season distributed overseas by MTV (but you can now also watch it on Hulu) with a focus on music and Samsung’s then-shiny-new Galaxy Note. Now, the crew behind the program is releasing what will hopefully be the beginning of a third season of FCU with a sci-fi twist, sponsored by Samsungs currently shiny-new Galaxy Tab 10.1

And that brings us back to Franco. In the premiere of Fact Checkers Unit‘s junior season, Karinen and Sacca are on the case to find out if the Renaissance man may have some capabilities only previously known to Renaissance women.  They discover not only is Francok kinda-sorta-maybe-a-little-bit preggers, but there’s a totally plausible explanation for why he can handle an amount of job descriptions that mere mortals would find overwhelming. Check it out:

No word yet on when there will be future installment of Fact Checkers Unit, but we’ll let you know when we do. Stay tuned.

Sonia Gil, host of weekly online travel show Sonia’s Travels and winner of the People’s Voice Webby Award for Best Web Personality, is leading five of YouTube’s biggest names on The Tuber Tour, a 99-hour trip through Barcelona, Spain.

Joe Penna (MysteryGuitarMan), Nikki Phillippi (NikkiPhillippi), Sorted Food (SortedFood), Meghan Camarena (Strawburry17), and Wheezy Waiter (WheezyWaiter), will be releasing video recaps of their travel experiences and discoveries in Barcelona over the course of the three and a half day tour.

“We were so overjoyed at the audience response to the show that ultimately snagged us the Webby Award,” said Gil. “As we continue to grow and expand the property, we are thrilled join Big Frame as we continue to fully realize the immense potential of Sonia’s Travels.”

The Tuber Tour will also invite one lucky viewer to join in on the fun.

Sonia’s Travels talent signed on with management firm and media company Big Frame, who will oversee audience development and creating strategic brand alignments for the show.

“Our mantra at Big Frame is go beyond surface level to develop deeply rooted, sustainable careers for our content creators and those who are shaping the future of the web video,” said Big Frame Head of Talent and Co-Founder Sarah Penna. “We’re excited to work with the highest quality, polished travel production online and we have a great vision of Sonia’s Travels’ upcoming journey.”

Life in the Barbie’s Malibu Dream House is a pink-hued, sparkly adventure into a candy-colored wonderland of female fashion, friendship, and fiction populated by animated anthropomorphic dolls with unrealistic human proportions (and surprisingly clever dialogue) who are at once both benign and kinda terrifying (in a they-could-maybe-turn-this-into-Chucky-slasher-flick-at-any-moment kind of way).

At least that’s what life is like in Barbie’s Malibu Dream House in Mattel’s shiny new Life in the Dreamhouse web series. The 14-episode animated program from the toy manufacturer that generated over $5.856 billion in revenue in 2010 and is also the maker of one of the most popular dolls in the world features Barbie, her sisters Stacie, Skipper, and Chelsea, her pets, and her long-time boyfriend Ken. (Editor’s Aside: The couple has been together since they met in 1961.)

Barbe and company prep for dates, pick out clothes, sit pets, plans for parties, prepare foodstuffs, and more in a reality-style setting where Bachelor-esque one-on-one camera confessionals are great opportunities for the writers of the cartoon to interject with quips even those who aren’t in Barbie’s target demo can enjoy. Check it out:

Pretty good, right? The first season of Life in the Dreamhouse is available in 21 languages. Season two is set to launch in October.

And this isn’t Mattel’s first entree into the original web serie world. Back in October 2010, the company launched Genuine Ken, a real-life reality show on Hulu in which the makers of Barbie searched for a young man in possession of the following qualities: “Date-ability, personal style, personality, general hotness, and overall KEN-ability.”

[Editor's Note: The First Drafts Series is a Tubefilter column that highlights and critiques the first online videos from the world's greatest online video stars. Check out the last edition of FDS featuring Fred.]

This landed in our inbox the other day: I F—ing hate my roommate part 2, a no-budget video blog created by YouTube-newbie Jenna Mourey (a.k.a. Jenna Marbles) before she went mega.

So how does a vlogger who only joined YouTube in 2010 blow up to nearly 3 million subscribers and get featured in the New York Times and ABC News?  Here’s how.

Be passionate.

Jenna Marbles didn’t get to the top of YouTube’s most subscribed-to list because she was boring (we already have C-SPAN for that). She’s passionate, obnoxious, and more opinionated than a hyper-caffeinated 99% protester. The vlogosphere is very crowded, so it’s essential to make your vlog stand out.

Clever, comedic, or attention-grabbing titles are important, but presenting a passionate POV is even more important. When vlogging, do be spontaneous and conversational, but don’t just prattle on about what you had for lunch. You don’t have to write out an entire script, but try to have some bullet points of what you’re going to talk about.

Notice how vlog-stars like Marbles camouflage their long awkward pauses (which are like cyber-suicide) with jump cuts. Look directly at the camera, not off to the side like in cheesy documentaries. You can expect to feel camera shy in the beginning. But remember, practice makes perfect. And yet 99% of us will try it once, get frustrated, and go back to eating Cheetos in our underwear. In this case… be the other 1%!

Slightly sexy sells.

For some perverse reason, the most viral vids (check out How to trick people into thinking you’re good looking) all have a slightly naughty or twisted feel. Even the supposedly G-rated stuff that blows up is a little off the chain. “Why’s that?” you ask.  Because today’s online video audience is comprised mainly of 18-to-34 years olds (peeps in a temporary state of hormonal derangement).

So, sexy sells. But how sexy is too sexy? And, can you pull a Shane Dawson and still get in bed with the majors? Listen up, tube-stars! If your ultimate goal is to get paid and get in bed with reputable brands, sponsors, TV networks, studios and mainstream distribution channels, you might want to tone down the T & A.

Believe us, there’s lots of cool, twisted, edgy stuff you can get away with without making brands and studios have to get a restraining order against you. What’s the takeaway? You can film a cock—but only if it’s a male rooster. Whipped cream, maybe. Whips, not so much. Lewd comments, sure. Lewd pics… not. Naked truth, DO. Naked people, DON’T! And the only way you can show “Dick Pics” is if you’re shooting a dude named Dick. Got that, Congressman Anthony Weiner?

Program your content like a new media ninja:

Just like in TV programming, posting online video content on a regular schedule helps build viewership. It’s simple supply and demand, folks. If viewers know when and where to find you, they’re more likely to tune in. So pick a set day of the week that’s right for your audience—like if you have a series about barhopping, Friday beats Monday (unless it’s sponsored by Alcoholics Anonymous).

Oh, and aim for one video upload per week (one is considered the magic number in video-ville). Jenna Marbles shoots, edits, and posts her clips all on the same day, every Wednesday. Half a billion-hitter Freddie Wong says, “Consistent audience requires consistent content.” We say publishing vids consistently improves your ranking in YouTube’s algorithm, which leads to increased viewership.

The First Draft Series is a Tubefilter column that highlights and critiques the first online video work of the world’s greatest online video stars. It is written by the savvy online video experts Frank and Lynn Chindamo.

Frank teaches webisode production at USC and Chapman University. His students have included Streamy Award-winner Bernie Su and half-a-billion-hitter Freddie Wong. Lynn is an award winning webisode creator who has written and directed series for Babelgum, Planet Green, and Petco. She is the world’s first Internet Stardom Curator, with 500,000+ followers on Myspace, and has written a book on the subject - Internet Stardom: Insider Secrets to Web Fame and Fortune. 

Frank’s USC summer session course on web video production, distribution and monetization  is open to the public and is now accepting registrations.

RELATED VIDEO:

Panelists at Monday’s Digital LA NewFronts event shared some shocking insight about the state of online video: nearly all the Funded YouTube Channels will fail.

Offering an in depth look into shows presented at the Digital Content NewFronts in New York this month, Digital LA gathered seven panelists to shed light not only on their programming, but how they plan on gaining and retaining viewers. Moderated by Digital LA Founder Kevin Winston, the panelists included David Beebe (Fishbowl Worldwide Media), George Ruiz (ICM), Sarah Penna (Big Frame), Sarah Malkin (Maker Studios), Adam Wescott (EQAL), Jennifer McDonnell (DECA) and Rachel Wexler (Glaser Weil Fink Jacobs Howard Avchen & Shapiro LLP).

Panelists agreed that 90% of the new premium quality YouTube channels will not be renewed (see 9:23 in the live stream below)—though they still believe this is only the beginning of a long and profitable venture by YouTube. In responding to a question from the audience about what these channels will do when the money runs out, Ruiz responded, “It’s not going to run out, it’s going to get bigger. This is just a start—a hundred million dollars is an accelerator to this industry.”

After offering the audience a recap of the NewFronts and discussing Petsami, CuteWinFail, Geek & Sundry, Bammo, MomsView, u look haute, and Momversation, the panelists began discussing the importance of community in becoming successful online. Since attaining success on and off YouTube requires a loyal and engaged audience (which is the selling point to brands), here are the tips and tricks shared by the panelists:

1. Asking and seeking viewer comments, then using them. Not only is it important to incorporate comments into the show, but they often offer valuable feedback that can lead to improvements.

2. Consistency and frequency. A set schedule combined with a standard level of production quality not only lets viewers know when new content is being released, it keeps them coming back for more.

3. Engage the audience on all platforms. While the programming is on YouTube or a specific destination, it needs to be promoted on all platforms. Twitter and Facebook are crucial is helping new viewers discover the channels.

4. Collaborations and cross-promotions. Since discovery is the biggest challenge for the channels, collaborations and cross-promotions are vital. Ruiz, discussing the Geek & Sundry show Sword & Lazer, mentioned how the show did a cross-promotion with Goodreads in order to help build its audience.

5. Engage with the audience, not with the haters. Responding to comments and even following fans of the show on Twitter can help build a loyal audience. The more they feel a personal connection to your content, the more likely they are to spread the word to potential new viewers. As for the haters, people are going to hate no matter what happens.

It’ll be interesting to see which shows on the panel survive to reach a second year, but with 212,725 subscribers it would be shocking if Ruiz and long time client Felicia Day don’t get renewed.

Andrew McLaughlin was Google’s longtime policy guy before becoming the Deputy Chief Technology Officer of the United States at the Executive Office of the President under the Obama Administration, which was a position he held for a short stretch before he became the Executive Vice President of Tumblr. That truncated bio is meant to convey to you McLaughlin has an amazing internet and technological pedigree and, therefore, in things internet and technological, most likely knows what he’s talking about.

And here’s what he has to say about internet trolls.

“The conventional wisdom has always been that the farther you get away from identity, the closer you get to hate speech, racism, flaming, child porn – just the worst and dark sides of human nature.”

Basically, everyone thinks there’s an inversely proportional relationship between the quality of comments on a blogging and/or micro-blogging platform and the amount of anonymity possessed by one of the blogging and/or micro-blogging platform’s potential commenters. The less anonymity (eg Facebook), the better (Read: More thoughtful and not as caustic) the comment. The more anonymity (eg YouTube), the worse the comment.

Makes sense, right?! But the strange thing is that equation doesn’t seem to apply to the user physics of Tumblr, which doesn’t suffer from the same type of commenter problem as you would think for a platform that hosts upwards of 50 million blogs with more than 18 billion posts and allows users to operate anonymously.

McLaughlin credits Tumblr’s relatively troll-free environment to Brooklyn hipsters (or, more specifically, the attitude McLaughlin thinks Brooklyn hipsters have towards the creative process). Watch his interview with Slate Group Editor-in-Chief Jacob Weisberg if you think I’m yanking the carriage on your vintage typewriter.

The interview is part of Slate’s ongoing, HP-sponsored Conversations With Slate series, which features Weisberg interviewing notable individuals in areas of technology, news, entertainment, food, and pop culture. Previous guests have included, but are not limited to, Elizabeth Banks, Rachel Maddow, and Wes Anderson.

Stay tuned to Slate to see further installments of the original series with McLaughlin on camera. And stay tuned to Tubefilter to see when we resuscitate our Tumblr from its anemic state of inactivity sometime the very near future. We now know that when we do, the comments on it will be great.

Scary Troll photo by Anna Bialkowska.

Tubefilter is proud to team up again with io/LA (a shiny new digital startup incubator and co-working space) to present the live stream of this Tuesday’s Tech and Art. It’s a series that’s meant to explore creative and artistic experimentation in art and technology and also market io/LA’s digs and vibe.

The accelerator appears to be kinda sorta like an LA version of General Assembly with a Y Cominator spin founded by producer and actor Donovan Leitch, MySpace co-founder Aber Whitcomb, and actor Chris Gartin. The company has promised to invest $500,000 in up to 25 startups in the gaming, technology and digital content sectors, all of which will be offered office space at io/LA’s headquarters in Hollywood.

According to Daniel Miller at The Hollywood Reporter, the selected startups will also have an impressive team of mentors, including individuals like actor Terrence Howard, Electus CEO Ben Silverman, and artist Shepard Fairey.

And that’s why the Andre the Giant fan is hosting an event tonight at io/LA. Fairey will lead Tech and Arts‘s panel of experts in a discussion about how they use a wide range of old and new school tools to create disruptive art and reach audiences in new ways.

Panelists include:

Shepard Fairey, Obey
Jayne Vidheecharoen, Portals and Friends
Sean McDonald, Data Art
Dick Whitnery, Consolidated Pixel
Sebastian Copeland, Photographer
We Are Matik, Multidisciplinary Design Revolution
Carlos Moncada, Artist and Architecht
Adam Sadowsky, Syyn Labs
Albertico Acosta, Graphic Designer
Matt Munson, Instacannv.as
Mileece, Interactive Space Design

Tech and Art
7:00 pm to 10:00 pm
io/LA
7083 Hollywood Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90028

The panel discussion will take place from 7-10 in Hollywood, hosted by io/LA’s Aber Whitcomb, Donovan Leitch, and Chris Gartin.

Complimentary beverages provided by the Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf and Veev.

YouTube’s global reach is one of the most compelling aspects of the burgeoning entertainment platform (that’s growing at a breakneck pace). A content creator can upload a piece of entertainment to the video sharing site and that piece of entertainment is then almost instantaneously available to more than 800 million users worldwide. (Rights owners can manage in which geographic areas that piece of entertainment is allowed to be seen, but geoblocking is a setting, not the default.)

Other distribution platforms simply don’t have that capability. Not television nor Netflix nor Hulu nor anyone else can beam and/or stream a show at the same time to everyone in the world with an internet connected device all at once.

That global characteristic of YouTube is how Vin di Bona’s FishBowl Worldwide Media found the host of their latest original web series and also why the company believes their latest original web series will be a success.

LindoVictoriaFracaso is the Spanish-language iteration of the CuteWinFail, a clip show in which a charismatic host that looks good in jump cuts takes viewers through a series of viral-y videos (many of which are pulled from Vin Di Bona’s video vaults, which are populated with a couple decade’s worth of funny videos submitted by individuals hoping to be seen on America’s Funniest Home Videos) and ascribes to them a label of “cute,” “win,” or “fail” (or in the Spanish version “lindo,” “victoria,” or “fracaso.”)

Playing the role of a Spanish-speaking Toby Turner and host is Jose Romero, a top YouTuber in Peru whose show What Da Faq? series already gets massive viewership. [Editor’s Aside: That’s a genius name for a show and/or anything.]

“We were looking for a YouTuber who spoke Spanish and had a sizeable and engaged audience to host the show,” said David Beebe, Vice President and General Manager of FishBowl’s Digital Studio. “We came across Jose by using the YouTube Charts and switched the country to Peru, where Jose came up as the number one YouTuber. From there, we reached out to him and worked on making a deal to partner with us on this show.”

Romero is on board to host, write, and produce the first 22 installments of LindoVictoriaFracaso, which Beebe and company hope will appeal to not only Peruvians and other Central and South Americans with an internet connection, but also tap into to the trillion dollar hispanic market in the US.

“The Spanish speaking market is really underserved online,” explained Beebe. “A joint Google and Ipsos OTX MediaCT study found that Hispanic internet users are more involved with video and social networks than the overall population. The study shows that 64% of Hispanic internet users visited a video site in the past month, compared with 50% of the general population. LindoVictoriaFracaso is one way to engage them with fun and funny content.”

CuteWinFail is just the first of a handful of properties FishBowl is expecting to expand to other languages. The series will join a growing roster of online original, Spanish-language and/or bilingual programming from established US content creators considerable YouTube experience, including CleverTeVe, Maker Studios‘ TuTele, and Electus’ NuevOn.

Today critically-acclaimed indie drama The New Year drops on iTunes, breaking ground for high-quality low-budget indie films to find avenues of distribution beyond the festival circuit.

The New Year, directed and co-written by Brett Haley, tells the story of Sunny (Trieste Kelly Dunn), a young woman  who gives up a promising future and returns to her hometown to take care of her ailing father and—with her life on hold—finds herself living a life she never imagined.

An official selection of the Los Angeles Film Festival (a qualifying festival for The Oscars), The New Year was a darling of the indie film festival circuit, winning an audience award from the Sarasota Film Festival and praise from the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, and Variety, earning a 100% on Rotten Tomatoes.

Haley made The New Year on a shoestring budget between jobs as an assistant to director John Hillcoat. ”What was most important for me, when making a $5,000 feature film, was that the film simply existed as a product in the world,” Haley told Tubefilter. ”I wanted as many people as possible to see it and to have the ability to see it. Having a film that small exist—in any way—is a big accomplishment and I’m very proud that we’ve gotten that opportunity.”

Now new digital markets have opened up opportunities to reach audiences previously unavailable for indie filmmakers, whose only hope was to snag a distribution deal after touring the film festival circuit.

“I really see the future of independent film in the digital world,” Haley added. “Without platforms like iTunes, Hulu, Netflix, and Amazon, I really don’t think my film would’ve gotten that shot to exist otherwise. For smaller films, which would otherwise not get the shot at big screen wide releases, we’re lucky that we have these venues to exist in. I think that’s a great thing. It opens up venues for smaller filmmakers and smaller films to have a life.”

You can watch The New Year on iTunes starting today.

Note: The New Year is distributed through the Tubefilter Indie Film Network, a partnership with GoDigital Media Group that aims to give independent content creators – and their works – greater exposure. To find out how to distribute your independent feature film across digital platforms, please contact us.