That is almost certainly a record for a Web-only event. But it’s a nonevent by mainstream entertainment standards.

A poorly performing show on network TV, by comparison, draws millions of viewers: Recall that GE’s (GE) NBC canceled “Quarterlife,” the soap opera that started out on MySpace, after it drew an audience of 3.1 million in its debut. A bona fide hit draws many millions more: Last Thursday’s episode of “CSI,” for instance, garnered more than 18 million eyeballs.

Not fair to compare a weeknight audience to one on Saturday nights? OK. Try this: Last year, before anyone had ever heard of Sarah Palin, “Saturday Night Live” was averaging more than five million viewers.

You can’t blame the modest audience on a lack of effort on YouTube’s part. The video site generated plenty of publicity in advance of the event. And heavy promotion on the site itself all but compelled visitors who ventured onto YouTube last night to check it out.

Part of the issue, I think, is that while the show had a smattering of sort-of-popular singers (Katy Perry, Akon) there was no one really huge. Most of the show was dedicated to viral video stars/oddities like Tay Zonday. And the point of viral videos is that you see them on your own time, serendipitously: You take a couple minutes out of work on a Tuesday afternoon to watch Tay Zonday sing “Chocolate Rain” because your friend sends you the link. Not because he’s appearing live on Saturday night.

Could YouTube rustle up a bigger audience for a live event in the future? Absolutely. It’s one of the biggest Web sites in the world, so if it had a truly compelling show, instead of a niche event, it wouldn’t be hard to get the word out. And if parent company Google (GOOG) wanted to lend a promotional hand, game over.

So maybe that’s coming down the pike. In the meantime, if you didn’t tune in last night, here’s a sample of what you missed: Katy Perry singing “Hot ‘N Cold.”

Well, it’s not. One show, which just did not work, is in no way representative of a trend, any more than the box-office failure of the movie “Snakes on a Plane” meant online marketing and hype was finished.

The Wall Street Journal’s excellent Jessica Vascellaro wrote a great piece today on the subject of online content creation, focusing on social-networking efforts, such as Bebo’s “KateModern,” an original online show from the creators of “lonelygirl15,” as well as stuff being made by MySpace and others.

The goal is to keep users more engaged. More importantly, it is to fight the continued audience attraction to user-generated videos on YouTube, which is owned by Google (GOOG). It dominates the online video market, as you can see from this chart below (click on it to make it larger).

BoomTown has written about the Bebo hit several times (including a video visit to Bebo’s HQ in London last summer and an interview with a “KateModern” producer in November, both seen below), as it represented the right way to start to develop original online content.

And that would not include pulling some failed television pilot out of a drawer, making it on the cheap, cutting it up into shorter segments and slapping it online.

Instead, true success–besides the material actually being good, which should be a given–requires the content to be interactive, pioneer new filming techniques and be made specifically for the medium, using its tools, rather than being shoehorned into it.

“KateModern,” for example, has been changeable by the second by its audience and the creators have moved the action along with startling speed.

But it still has someone professionally producing it. Set in East London, it follows a “troubled young art student named Kate and her three closest friends: an Australian wild-child named Charlie, a young entrepreneur named Tariq and a mischievous computer whiz-kid named Gavin.”

As The Journal’s Vascellaro correctly writes: “Past efforts by Web companies to turn themselves into online versions of television networks have been hampered by the difficulty in changing ingrained consumer habits–while people are happy to watch short video clips from time to time, few until recently saw the Web as a forum to follow regular episodes of series. For online-only shows, weak advertiser interest, subpar production quality and lack of promotional muscle were added hurdles.”

Indeed. But that will change quickly.

Here is our too-long video of the visit to Bebo and the interview with “KateModern” producer Pete Gibbons:

It’s certainly been a hit-or-miss proposition, since the Internet was popularized–mostly misses, actually. Beyond viral phenoms from the Dancing Baby to Mentos and Coke, there really is little there that has taken off in a big and lasting way online.

Many, big and small, have tried, but none have truly succeeded. Most recently, Yahoo pulled the plug on Hollywood player Lloyd Braun, for example, who was brought in to make Web hits.

But that has not stopped him–Braun’s got a new deal with Pepsi to create original online content. Over at AOL, which has a lot of history in this arena, there is much stuff in the works.

And sites like Funny Or Die–which uses more celebrities, like a recent one with Bill Murray–pop up daily.

One interesting effort is social network Bebo with its recent series called “KateModern,” an honest version of “LonelyGirl15″, both of which are series focused on attractive self-consciously self-conscious twentysomething women and their attractive friends.

And today, in a project with great similarity to these efforts, MySpace unveiled an exclusive partnership with well-known television producers Marshall Herskovitz and Edward Zwick, creators of such iconic shows as “My So-Called Life” and “thirtysomething,” for an original Web series called “quarterlife.”

The 36-episode series–there will also be a social-network component, natch–is about a group of attractive twentysomethings, with what appears to be, yep, another self-consciously self-conscious central female character who video blogs about them.

Sort of like hit BoomTown’s reality series–well, a hit with my Mom!–that is also posted below. We could use some self-consciousness, for sure, plus we’re much lumpier.

Here are some videos for you to peruse:

FCU With Bill Murray

KateModern

Lonelygirl15

Quarterlife

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