After getting suggestions from everyone in the office over the last couple of weeks, here’s a list of Next New Network’s must-see moments of 2007. Everyone had a lot of favorite episodes, so this particular top 10 is as arbitrary as any — but it at least gives an idea of the kind of fun we had this year.

2007 was a great year for us. We passed 100 million views, learned a lot, and made a lot of new friends — by any count, millions of people have seen the little white robot on the end of a video they loved this year. Thanks to everyone who’s been watching and reading this blog, and we can’t wait to entertain you more in 2008.

Without futher ado, here’s the list…

#10: Pulp Secret and Indy Mogul’s Squirrel Man Crossover

Our networks have benefited greatly by not only cross-promoting, but by actually doing show/network crossovers (anyone remember Urkel showing up on Full House?). Erik Beck, host of Backyard FX on Indy Mogul suggested a crossover with the guys from The Stack. After some quick collaboration, The Stack ended up challenging Erik Beck “on air” to make a superhero costume using Erik’s low budget filmmaking expertise. On the next Backyard FX episode, Erik created an amazing and ridiculous handmade “Squirrel Man” costume. Then, on the following episode of The Stack, Erik did a surprise appearance to magically transform The Stack’s Justin Tyler into SQUIRREL MAN. Justin ended up wearing the costume throughout the show and he has yet to live it down. Fans have asked repeatedly over the last few months for the return of Squirrel Man.

#9: The Bleacher Bloggers skate with Oksana Baiul

When Bleacher Bloggers launched with a mandate of covering the world of sports blogging, I don’t think any of us imagined that within ten episodes they’d be figure skating at Chelsea Piers with Olympic gold medalist Oksana Baiul. But that’s exactly what happened, after we first met Oksana when she guest hosted an episode of Fast Lane Daily, and was interested in doing something else with Next New Networks. The resulting piece was one of the very best moments of Bleacher Bloggers (I also loved their NFL British correspondent / Soulja Boy episode, personally) and a great online video moment in general that I think not enough people saw this year.

#8: Fast Lane Daily’s 100th Episode Twist

In a surprise twist ending for Fast Lane Daily’s 100th episode, the typical green screen setup that everyone imagines the show uses was revealed to be something much more. This was a turning point in the production of the show, which for the next 100 episodes started incorporating a faster, looser style, breaking one of its rules in nearly every episode, which resulted in great running gags about Derek D not getting any respect, and a feud with 50 Cent.

#7: The Channel Frederator Awards

MTV launched their Video Music Awards three years after their launch, which everyone said at the time was too soon, but of course, it turned out to be brilliant. So it’s only natural that Channel Frederator had the first ever awards show for an online network after a year, and it was brilliant, too. Promoted only through the podcast, which reached a couple hundred thousand animators, animation fans, and pioneers of videoblogging, the first Channel Frederator Awards, held at Cinespace in Los Angeles on January 24th, was a smash, with lines stretching down Hollywood Boulevard and around the block to get in, and hundreds of talented animators plus luminaries of the web and TV like Amanda Congdon and Richard Belzer in attendance. It was the earliest proof for us that video networks were reaching a real and dedicated audience, and we captured some of the excitement with a special series of awards show episodes with our future Indy Mogul stars Justin Johnson and Erik Beck, among others.

#6: Indy Mogul’s “War” Integration

When Indy Mogul ran a special episode of Backyard FX sponsored by the Jet Li movie War, it was a milestone for us as a way to integrate sponsored content in a transparent and fun way for our audience, recreating one of the key FX shots from the movie. In some lucky timing, our host Erik Beck was visiting us in New York that week, as well as Zadi from JETSET, allowing us to really make the episode an event, shot in New York City with Zadi as a special guest. Audience feedback on the episode was incredible, with over 200 comments, many of them congratulating Erik and the show on getting a sponsor. The WAR campaign led directly to much of what we’re doing now, including a campaign this December for Sweeney Todd which included sponsored episodes of ThreadBanger and Indy Mogul, once again very well received by the audience.

#5: ThreadBanger’s Viewer Appreciation Week

ThreadBanger has a special place in our hearts here, as it was the first new network we launched, back in February, and still a model for us of how to create a network for a community that’s underserved by video online. When Rob and Corinne cooked up the idea for ThreadBanger with us a year ago, we had a theory, and a hope, that if we highlighted viewer contributions on the shows, it would encourage more. By four episodes in, contributions were really rolling in, and by the twentieth episode, embedded here, ThreadBanger had built up so much love with the community that we could do entire episodes from the viewer responses (or in some cases, let the audience take over completely). It was incredible to see people from all over the world sending in their videos and comments to the show, and one of the first moments it was clear we were creating something with them that we couldn’t in any other medium.

#4: JETSET Becomes EPIC-FU

As the first independent show to join Next New Networks, JETSET became one of the first videoblogs to gain professional status, and in nine months with us has seen an incredible amount of growth and change, from their first Next New Networks episode in New Orleans to their new incarnation as EPIC-FU. Recently, JETSET renamed itself with a new mandate to cover the new pop culture, an outgrowth of Steve and Zadi’s ongoing discussions with us about their creative and editorial direction. Since the renaming, EPIC-FU has continued to grow, with a recent episode of theirs hitting over 3 million views on YouTube, and an average viewership of well over 250,000 viewers an episode.

#3: Barely Political Joins Next New Networks with “I Like a Boy”

In October, we announced that Ben Relles and Barely Political had joined Next New Networks, giving the creators of the YouTube smash hits “Crush on Obama” and its follow-ups such as “Debate ‘08″ a home and a place to start creating regular, episodic political comedy. Our first collaboration, “I Like a Boy,” was another hit with over a million views in its first week across our super-distribution network, and features on CNN, FOX News, and MSNBC, among other places. Barely Political has had a great year, recently named to several Best of 2007 lists for online video by Google, the Associated Press, AOL, People Magazine, and MSN, which named Obama Girl to its list of most influential women, in the company of Hillary Clinton and Tina Fey.

#2: Veracifier Takes Down Alberto Gonzalez

When Josh Marshall reached out to me in early 2007 asking for advice on how to launch a video series, I couldn’t believe our luck. Josh is one of my heroes in the blogging and journalism world — he’s taken a medium that still has questions of legitimacy from the mainstream media and every day incontrovertibly proves how important a blog can be. We were following Josh’s early coverage of the Justice Department scandals, and his Talking Points Media ended up owning the story from start to finish. As our early conversations led to him creating a show with us, TPMtv, to launch our reporting network, Veracifier, it was clear that Josh would soon be a powerhouse in online video, too. He took to the format brilliantly, and many of the episodes he produced for Veracifier ended up breaking big details of the Alberto Gonzales and US Attorney scandal, riding the case for months until he went down. Veracifier and TPMtv got some other big scoops this year, like the only backstage video ever taken at the Colbert Report, and a clip of John McCain that made the front page of AOL and dominated political news coverage for an entire week. We’ve been proud to be a part of something that’s moving the needle and making a difference — its what a news division should do, and we’re really looking forward to seeing what happens in 2008.

#1: Channel Frederator’s Meth Minute 39: the biggest online series launch of 2007

If any online series was bigger than the Meth Minute 39 this year, I don’t know about it. From its incredible launch with Internet People, which racked up four million views in its first week and was featured simultaneously on the front pages of MySpace, YouTube, and a number of other online video sites, to a string of hit episodes like Nite Fite, Mike Tyson’s Brunch Out, and Watermelon Nights, to name a few, Meth Minute 39 was a landmark for us for any number of reasons. Our first original animated series; a great show from an original pop culture voice we found via Channel Frederator; and a true example of our company’s ability to build an audience using both super-distribution relationships and community development. Some episodes were embraced by blogs — like Brunch Out, which was embedded by sites like Deadspin, Kotaku, Destructoid, and many others — others were featured by editors of YouTube, Yahoo, or MySpace who loved the advance peeks at the episodes — and others like Watermelon Nights, just took off on their own. The series has been mentioned in such publications as The New York Times and New York Magazine, but for me, the real accolade came when Dan Meth was hanging out a couple weeks ago in the Lower East Side with some musicians, and when they realized who he was, started quoting episodes to him. That’s when we knew we were really making pop culture.

Last week’s episode, Beef and Stu, ended with a montage of what’s coming in 2008, and MM39, and Next New Networks, both have a lot of hits to come. Thanks, everyone, and happy 2008!

Please promulgate us on the interweb.

Posted by Tim at 3:40 pm on Monday, December 31st, 2007 in Best of 2007, Next New Networks, Programming. You can follow responses through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.