Web series

A web series, also known as short form series and web show, is a series of short scripted or non-scripted online videos, generally in episodic form, released on the Internet (i.e. World Wide Web), which first emerged in the late 1990s and became more prominent in the early 2000s. A single installment of a web series program can be called a webisode or an episode. The scale of a web series is small and a typical episode can be anywhere from three to fifteen minutes in length.

Web series are distributed online on video sharing websites and apps, such as YouTube, Vimeo and TikTok, and can be watched on devices such as smartphones, tablets, desktops, laptops, and Smart TVs (or television sets connected to the Internet with a media streaming device). They can also be released on social media platforms. Because of the nature of the Internet, a web series may be interactive and immersive. Web series are classified as new media.

Web series are different from streaming television series, as the latter are purposed to be watched on streaming platforms such as Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, and Hotstar, with the streaming services offering original productions made for and by them, as well as acquiring the rights to distribute licensed content. Although the designing of a web series can be similar to that of a television series their development and production does not entail the same financial investment required for a television series. The popularity of some web series, however, have led to them being optioned for television.

A number of organizations and awards have been established to celebrate excellence in web series, like Webfest Berlin, the Streamys, Webbys, IAWTV Awards, and Indie Series Awards, although the Streamys and IAWTV also cover programs on streaming platforms. Most major award ceremonies have also created web series and digital media award categories, including the Emmy Awards and the Canadian Screen Awards. There are also several web series festivals, most notably in Los Angeles and Vancouver.

In April 1995, "Global Village Idiots", an episode of the reality-based program Rox on public access cable television in Bloomington, Indiana, was uploaded to the Internet, making Rox the first series distributed via the web. The same year, Scott Zakarin created The Spot, an episodic online story which integrated photos, videos, and blogs into the storyline. Likened to Melrose Place-on-the-Web, The Spot featured a rotating cast of characters playing trendy twenty-somethings who rented rooms in a fabled Santa Monica, California beach house called "The Spot". The Spot earned the title of Infoseek's "Cool Site of the Year," an award which later became the Webby.

In January 1999, Showtime licensed the animated sci-fi web series WhirlGirl, making it the first independently produced web series licensed by a national television network. In February 1999, the series premiered simultaneously on Showtime and online. The character occasionally appeared on Showtime, for example hosting a "Lethal Ladies" programming block, but spent most of her time online, appearing in 100 webisodes.

As broadband bandwidth began to increase in speed and availability, delivering high-quality video over the Internet became a reality. In the early 2000s, the Japanese anime industry began broadcasting original net animation (ONA), a type of original video animation (OVA) series, on the Internet. Early examples of ONA series include Infinite Ryvius: Illusion (2000), Ajimu (2001), and Mahou Yuugi (2001).

In 2003, Microsoft launched MSN Video, offering NBC-related content. Its web series Weird TV 2000, a spin-off of the syndicated television series Weird TV, featured dozens of shorts, comedy sketches, and mini-documentaries produced exclusively for MSN Video. The video-sharing site YouTube was launched in early 2005, allowing users to share television programs. YouTube co-founder Jawed Karim said the inspiration for YouTube first came from Janet Jackson's role in the 2004 Super Bowl incident, when her breast was exposed during her performance, and later from the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami. Karim could not easily find video clips of either event online, which led to the idea of a video sharing site.