Canada is betting web series will catch on.

On Screen Manitoba reports on a new web series development opportunity and lists web series festivals in Canada and abroad.

Cogeco is piloting a new development program for “Digital Drama Series.” Apply for $10,000 with your mentor to become pitch-ready. They are betting big:

“The Development and Packaging Mentorship Program is designed to fill the funding gap in the digital production industry in Canada by encouraging producers of web drama series to be “pitch ready” in order to attract distribution, platforms, talent and production financing. This pilot project will replace the Cogeco Fund’s existing television Development, Pre-development and Corporate Feature Film Development funding programs in 2015/16.”

The Independent Production Fund also lists the best of Canadian web series.

Netflix’s House of Cards and Orange is the New Black appear on Wikipedia’s list of web series, however, I think this is inaccurate due to their length and similarity to premium cable TV fare.

Got a web series or other web content? Buffer has a guide to promotion/distribution you might find helpful.

My take: my favourite web series is Jerry Seinfeld‘s Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee on Sony’s Crackle app, which I Chromecast to my TV. Currently, I don’t watch anything on mobile or the web. I did like The Guild which I had heard about but didn’t watch until showing up on Netflix. I do remember the first episode of Red vs. Blue, but not as a web series — rather as one of the first examples of machinima.