All Things Digital

Last Friday, what BoomTown would call the Web’s first bona fide hit ended, as the lonelygirl15 online series finale took place with 12 video segments uploaded over 12 hours.

Now, apparently, it is time to meet EQAL, a “social entertainment company” that is still essentially the two guys–Greg Goodfried and Miles Beckett (pictured here. left to right)–who dreamed up LG15 and also the KateModern Web series.

Except, rather than operating out of their homes on a wing and a prayer, they are now armed with $5 million in funding.

That investment in the Sherman Oaks, Calif.-based start-up, which was announced in April, included some true Silicon Valley luminaries, such as entrepreneur Marc Andreessen, investor Ron Conway and former Googler Georges Harik, as well as Conrad Riggs and Spark Capital.

Sources also said Google’s (GOOG) Marissa Mayer is one of the new investors in EQAL.

With its small pile of cash, Beckett and Goodfried are planning new online shows–one of which will debut in September–as well as a number of other things, in yet another attempt to create a successful mesh between Hollywood and technology and thus yield a lucrative and lasting interactive hit.

If anyone can give it a try, it would be this pair, which unleashed LG15 upon the unsuspecting Web population in mid-2006.

Unsuspecting, largely because most people at first thought the user-generated-looking online video of the incessant jabbering of its attractive female lead right into a computer’s camera was real.

Instead, it was actually the “story of a group of young adults fighting against an evil secret society, the Order, that uses the blood of girls with a rare blood trait to extend the lives of a small group of Elders.”

And they also used Neutrogena products while doing it! (The skin care company was an early sponsor, and a scientist from Neutrogena was also written into the story.)

So with clean faces and over the course of its two-year run, LG15 ran to more than 550 episodes with 100 million views.

Beckett and Goodfried also launched KateModern on the Bebo social network in the U.K. a year ago, which also just concluded.

The “story of a group of British young adults investigating a creepy, New Age religion called ‘The Hymn of One’ that is actually a front for the Order” garnered 50 million views.

Well, it’s all disorder now, as EQAL tries to keep the hits coming without LG15, by working with writers, producers, media companies and advertisers to create new interactive shows that also have engaged online communities.

EQAL’s motto: “The Show Is Everywhere.”

Well, we’ll see, but here are Beckett and Goodfried–the former was a physician and the latter a lawyer in their previous lives–giving me a tour of their new office in Los Angeles’s “Valley,” and also sitting for a longish video interview about where content online is going.

That’s a question a lot of people in both Hollywood and Silicon Valley hope they can answer.

Here’s the video:

Recently, while I was at a conference in Los Angeles, I caught up with Veoh Founder Dmitry Shapiro.

BoomTown will be focusing a lot on online video this year and Veoh is one of the several online video-sharing sites–a group of smaller players that includes sites like Joost, Hulu, Dailymotion, Vimeo and others that I like to call not-YouTube.

But there are pluses to not being the Google-owned (GOOG) video behemoth, in that major entertainment companies who want to figure out how to put their content online aren’t wondering all day long whether to hug or sue you (or both if you are Sumner Redstone).

Today, for example, the Los Angeles-based Veoh announced that the ABC (DIS) television network would put full episodes of its hot prime-time shows–such as “Ugly Betty” (love it) and “Desperate Housewives” (not so much)–up on the site on a non-exclusive basis.

While Veoh has a lot of short, user-generated material, it has also made a push to get more professional material from big media companies like CBS (CBS)–which wins kudos for being the most promiscuous of networks–on its service.

Interestingly in this deal, media connections seem at play here: Disney-owned ABC is giving over content to Veoh, which has former Disney poobah Michael Eisner as one of its principal investors.

The traffic-type deal is typical–Veoh gets paid to send audience to ABC’s site or gets it to use ABC’s really nice player, and ABC tries to monetize it. Veoh currently says it has 28 million unique monthly visitors.

Of course, Veoh is also trying to figure out that nettlesome monetization issue that all online video sites face, which centers on building audience with the attractive big media content and then getting them to watch other ad-supported fare on its site.

But, as with all video sites, it is still in the early stages and, thus, Veoh got another tidy pile of new funding just two weeks ago to help it muddle through.

That would be $30 million more to add to the kitty of about $40 million previously raised.

Along with existing investors–Shelter Capital Partners, Spark Capital, Goldman Sachs (GS), Eisner’s Tornante Company, Tom Freston’s Firefly3, Time Warner (TWX) Investments and Jonathan Dolgen–Veoh’s latest round included Intel Capital, Adobe Systems (ADBE) and also media and tech investor Gordon Crawford.

I talked to Shapiro, who now serves as Veoh’s chief innovation officer, about the money and more here:

You would have to have been under a rock not to have heard about the controversial piece in Vanity Fair magazine this month about the escapades of former President Bill Clinton since he left office.

Called “The Comeback Id” (oh, how pun-ny!), the article has gotten a lot of attention for pointing out the rampant speculation that Clinton’s well-known penchant for marital infidelity had returned.

And the reason for that disturbing development, besides Clinton himself? The piece actually placed a good bit of the blame on Clinton’s close friend, grocery magnate and billionaire Ron Burkle (pictured here), who also has been one of the key directors at Yahoo (YHOO) in its takeover fight with Microsoft (MSFT).

It’s a wonder Burkle can focus on the turmoil at Yahoo, given how busy he appears to be in the article corrupting Clinton both personally and–worse–professionally, via some questionable investments the pair had made through Burkle’s Yucaipa Companies.

Writer Todd Purdum paints a decidedly unattractive picture of Burkle, noting even the tasteless nickname of Burkle’s plane these days, in a portrayal so rough that Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang’s tough treatment by the press recently looks like a walk in the park.

Well, almost.

In what amounts to a rant by Carl Icahn (pictured here), The Wall Street Journal gives the billionaire investor lots of room to kvetch about what he thinks of Yang, including asserting that he will oust the Yahoo founder if he wins his proxy fight against the company.

“I am amazed at the lengths that Jerry Yang and the board went to entrench themselves in this situation,” said Icahn.

Apparently, Icahn was the only one who didn’t get the memo that Yahoo has been consistently obstreperous about Microsoft’s many overtures, since–well, let’s do the exact calculations–forever. And a day.

Still, Icahn perseveres and hangs this old entrenched management chestnut on a lawsuit that was recently filed by shareholders that points to the massive and costly severance plan Yahoo sneakily put into place as a ploy to fend off Microsoft.

“It’s no longer a mystery to me why Microsoft’s offer isn’t around,” Icahn said. “How can Yahoo keep saying they’re willing to negotiate and sell the company on the one hand, while at the same time they’re completely sabotaging the process without telling anyone.”

How? By Yang opening his mouth, that’s how, and then doing nothing much.

As a student of this lugubrious style of Olympic dithering, I would point Icahn to Yang’s 100-day Sacred Cow VisionQuest, well before this soap opera got started.

You need to catch up pronto, Carl!

And speaking of people irked by Yang of late, investor Gordon Crawford (pictured here) also made some news yesterday with his investment in Veoh Networks, part of a $30 million round that included Intel Capital and Adobe Systems (ADBE).

Existing investors in the not-YouTube video service–Shelter Capital, Spark Capital, Goldman Sachs (GS), Michael Eisner’s Tornante Company, Time Warner Investments (TWX) and Jonathan Dolgen–also ponied up more money.

Crawford, the SVP of Capital Research Global Investors, manages a massive portfolio, and it is one of Yahoo’s biggest shareholders.

And, unlike Veoh, Yahoo is an investment Crawford has not been happy with recently.

“I am extremely angry at Jerry Yang and at the so-called independent board,” he said in an interview a month ago. “I’m hoping that there is such an outpouring of outrage that the board is embarrassed into revisiting this thing, but I’m not optimistic about that.”

And by independent board, by the way, he meant directors like–you guessed it–Ron Burkle!

At least Burkle’s not to blame for the so-so, lots-and-lots-missing–Google? What Google? (GOOG)–piece in the same Vanity Fair issue, an oral history of the Internet.

Called “How the Web Was Won,” it makes the founding of the world’s most important medium seem awfully dull.

I’d recommend instead–as any sentient being would–the cover story on Angelina Jolie, with this sharp quote from her: “In my father’s generation, the product was 80% of what you were putting into the world, and your personal life was 20%. It now seems that 80% of the product I put out is silly, made-up stories and what I’m wearing.”

Or not wearing, in the case of the pictures of Jolie in this article.

In another micro-move in the fight between activist shareholders and CNET, the Delaware Supreme Court has given the thumbs-up to a lower court ruling that the Jana Partners group can nominate a slate of directors to the board of the San Francisco-based tech news and reviews site.

CNET (CNET) has been fighting these efforts by Jana–along with Sandell Asset Management, Alex Interactive Media, Spark Capital and Velocity Interactive Group–to nominate two directors and expand the board and add more of their own nominees–claiming it was contrary to its bylaws.

Apparently not!

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