In June 2006, former medical student Miles Beckett and disgruntled lawyer Greg Goodfried teamed up with filmmaker Ramesh Flinders to launch Lonelygirl15, a fictional video journal series on YouTube that captured audiences and led them to believe that the female protagonist was actually broadcasting her real life.

After the truth came out about the authenticity of the recordings, Lonelgirl15’s creators went on to produce a British sister show called KateModern, which launched on Bebo in July 2007.

Now Beckett and Goodfried have formed EQAL (pronounced “equal”), an interactive media company that will continue producing the Lonelygirl15 and KateModern series among others to come. The new company has raised $5 million in Series A from Spark Capital and individuals such as Conrad Riggs, Ron Conway, Marc Andreesen, and Georges Harik.

Both series will be hosted at LG15.com. Since the company’s name refers to the equality of this new type of media, and the way in which community members interact with the stories it produces, LG15.com features social media like comments, chat, a forum, and a wiki.

EQAL plans to produce different versions of its shows for different countries, all of which will be distributed through LG15.com. These shows will contain occasional nods and references to each other, and their plots may even cross over at times.

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