"It's a gamble," Herskovitz said. "We want to prove there is another way to independently create and distribute content." The show's 36 episodes will air exclusively on MySpace, which has more than 110 million users worldwide. Additional content, including character profiles, will also appear on MySpace, which is owned by News Corp.

Each episode will be about 8 minutes long with two episodes debuting each week. The producers and MySpace will share revenue from ads that will run in the video. Additional revenue will come from product placement deals, Herskovitz said.

In a new wrinkle, the show also will have its own social networking site called quarterlife.com.

Sending viewers in a loop back and forth from episode to the site could help build an audience, Forrester Research analyst Josh Bernoff said.

"If you create a place where your fans can gather and talk, then you reinforce their coming back and make it possible for them to recruit other people," Bernoff said.

Bernoff said there is room for professionally-created content online. But the Internet is still decades away from commanding the audiences, and thus the profits, that TV can.

"Making the big time still means being on television," Bernoff said.