Overview
The Spot was likened to "Melrose Place-on-the-Web" and featured a rotating cast of attractive actors playing trendy and hip twenty somethings who rented rooms in a fabled southern California beach house called “The Spot”, in Santa Monica, California. Some of the actors depicted online were also writers and behind-the-scenes production staffers on the site, while some later appeared in independent films or in broadcast television series as on-screen performers.
The characters, called Spotmates, would keep near-daily online diaries (similar to what later came to be called blogs), respond to emails, and post images of their current activities. In addition the site boasted short videos, as well as photos relating to the diary entries. The fanbase on the site, which called themselves 'Spotfans', interacted on a daily basis with the Spotmates and each other, discussing the newsworthy events.
The Spot engaged the audience by allowing them to become part of the storyline and give advice to characters--sometimes succeeding in changing how characters responded to the in-story situations. Viewers were encouraged to post on the message boards (the 'Spotboard'), send e-mail to the various characters offering them insight, advice and even arguments to their posted life dilemmas and dramas based on loosely orchestrated story arcs and different character viewpoints of the same storyline. The audience opinion was used by the writers to affect storyline directions, allowing the writing staff a maneuverability not possible in traditional media outlets.
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