From the first season of Showtime’s “The L Word,” a chart mapping the relationships of the character Alice has been a central motif, growing to take over an entire wall. Starting Jan. 7 with the start of the fourth season of the lesbian-themed drama, the Chart is going live, both on the series and in the real world.

Looking for compelling Internet component (like all media executives), “The L Word” creator Ilene Chaiken realized that she could spin off the Chart as an advertiser-supported social networking Web site aimed at lesbians and their friends and families.

Users of OurChart.com will be able to create personal profile pages and then, like Alice, link them into charts of their relationships, whether sexual or otherwise. Three of the show’s cast members — Jennifer Beals, Katherine Moennig and Leisha Hailey, who plays Alice — are among the site’s founding partners and will contribute original content to the site, as will other invited filmmakers and Ms. Chaiken, who is OurChart.com’s chief executive.

The site, a joint venture with Showtime Networks, which is owned by CBS, is a way of acknowledging that “audiences own TV shows these days and they want interaction,” Ms. Chaiken said. (more…)

lesbian, internet, media, television

Related posts

• Web Site Hunts Pedophiles, and TV Goes Along (NYT) (0)
• Social Mapping or, Mapping Fucking (0)
• Sex Organs Sprout Everywhere: Arts and Politics of Netporn conference (Mark Dery) (0)
• Pornucopia (On the Media) (0)