NBC is using Movable Type to to create the blogs for its new hit show Heroes. It is also using prototype and scriptaculous to perform Ajaxian functions on the Web site as well as plenty of RSS. It is also doing an online graphic novel that goes into more detail on the story drawing viewers to the Web site. The interesting part about the graphic novel is that it is used in the show; one of the main characters uses the comic book “9th Wonders” as a guide in the show. This component was also an interesting experiment in advertising. In the show one of the characters is speaking with a rental car agent who has one car left a blue Nissan Versa. The picture of the car is in the comic book and promoted on the Web site. A great marketing concept taking the idea of product placement and extending it across mediums.

Here is a good example of a major media outlet taking advantage of Web technologies to extend a traditional broadcast. It has one of the characters blogging as well as the creator Tim Kring, however the blogs are very light. On Hiro’s blog he writes “P.S. I don’t know what happened with the other blog entries. Must be a server glitch.” So perhaps technical difficulties are causing the lack of posts on the blogs.
“According to preliminary nationals from Nielsen, “Heroes” (6.9 rating/16 share in adults 18-49, 16.0 million viewers overall) delivered the strongest demo rating of the season for an NBC entertainment series, and the best number for any rookie skein on any net in the past two seasons.” Heroes in the Media. It will be interesting to see how these numbers are effected by the components of the internet that NBC and the fan of the show are putting together. Heroes has a fairly large and growing active fan base with multiple forums a wiki and teasers uploaded to YouTube. I would encourage NBC to take advantage of this user generated content.

http://heroeswiki.com/Main_Page

http://www.heroestv.com/

http://www.discussheroes.com/

http://herolounge.com/

http://www.heroes-forum.com/

http://www.heroesmedia.com/

The evolution and merger of the the Internet and television is a tricky experiment where we will have successes and many failures it is nice to see a major network experimenting with a bit of mixed media but I for one hope this is a huge success.

Tags: nbc, movable type, rss, ajax, nielsen, internet