I’m sure my attention span is getting shorter. Any film that clocks in at over 90 minutes (or, heaven forbid, longer than 120 minutes) will start to try my patience, and I’m only willing to give new TV shows a couple of episodes to prove themselves before I’ll move on to something else. The whole “instant gratification generation” thing definitely applies to me. So Joss Whedon’s newest project - an online series entitled Dr Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog - couldn’t be more perfect. There are only three episodes, and the first one, which went live today, clocks in at under 14 minutes.

Starring Neil Patrick Harris and Nathan Fillion, Dr Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog is pretty much what the title suggests - the musical adventures of a would-be supervillain. Er, so why am I writing about this on an IT-related blog? Well, it’s interesting because of the method of distribution. Dr Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog owes its existence to the Writers Guild of America strike; Whedon decided to produce something completely independently of the studios, and distribute it over the Internet himself. But unlike, say, LonelyGirl15, Whedon has a plan for turning Dr Horrible into a legitimate commercial entity - the three episodes will be published over the course of this week, and will stay available until July 20th. Then they’ll be removed from the free site, but you’ll be able to pay to download the episodes from iTunes, and a DVD containing all the episodes plus extras will be available shortly too. The Dr Horrible website seems to be suggesting that there’s merchandise on the way, too, and there’s a Captain Hammer tie-in comic available through Dark Horse.

Obviously, the difference between Whedon’s project and other Internet dramas like LonelyGirl15 is that Whedon has already been around the block - he’s worked in TV and film, he knows how that works, and with Firefly, he knows what the power of a loyal fanbase can do. So it’s not surprising that this seems to be a much more professional enterprise. But it’s maybe the first indication that the Internet might become a really and truly viable distribution method for entertainment in the future, and that’s really exciting.

(Doesn’t hurt that Dr Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog is also really, really good, of course.)

It’s with no small amount of embarrassment that I admit I sort of fell for LG’s fake adverts for Scarlet. I caught the end of one - part of a scene in which Natassia Malthe (aka Bloodrayne) walks out of an explosion, and then her eyes glow red, and the credits roll - and I believed it was, as it appeared, an advert for a new TV series.

And yesterday it turned out it was - just not in the way you’d expect. Instead of being a new drama about a secret agent or superhero or whatever, Scarlet turned out to be - drumroll! - a new range of LCD TVs. “TV series”, get it?

It’s like one of those jokes out of a Christmas cracker, where instead of laughing, you just groan. Admittedly, LG’s little prank is nowhere near as crushingly embarrassing as Sony’s All I Want For Christmas Is A PSP blog, and at least, unlike LonelyGirl15, LG actually has a product to sell us, but it still feels a bit, well, rubbish. Especially since lots of bloggers and forumgoers had already busted it, having checked out the IMDB and TV listings and having clocked the fact that there wasn’t any time or network information included in the ads. Moreover, having not been at the Hollywood launch, I’m now in the position of having seen the ads, but not what they’re actually selling - and while this advertising technique is admittedly clever, doesn’t it sort of imply there’s nothing particularly marketable about the TVs themselves?

Meh, maybe I’m just bitter about having been caught out. After all, Sony’s Bravia ads don’t exactly explain the exact specs of the TVs they’re trying to sell, and everyone loves those. Having rewatched the Scarlet ads again, there definitely is something off about them, something that implies they’re a spoof or a trick of some kind, so maybe if I’d been paying a bit more attention, I could have joined in the online speculation and enjoyed the playfulness of the campaign a bit more. The lesson here, then, is that I should watch more TV, in order to keep on top of this sort of thing…

Next Friday sees the UK release of one of the most eagerly awaited movies of, er, well, the last few months, anyway. Cloverfield is already pretty much guaranteed a spot in my own personal top 10 of 2008. But the merits of the film itself are almost incidental to the amount of buzz that’s been generated surrounding it. That’s entirely due to the weird and wonderful way the film’s been marketed.

Obviously, having a name like JJ Abrams connected with the film doesn’t hurt, but who, other than the most obsessive Buffy the Vampire Slayer fans, has heard of Drew Goddard? Or Matt Reeves? There’s not a lot of star power attached to Cloverfield; the biggest name actor involved is Lizzy Caplan - and while you might recognise her face, you probably wouldn’t recognise her name.

Nope, the buzz around Cloverfield is entirely down to the online viral marketing. An alternate reality game has been built up around the movie, using various websites representing fictional companies, organisations, and characters - as well as MySpace profiles for fictional characters - to spread clues about what the movie might be about. The trailer was just intriguing enough to push people towards Google to find out what this mysterious 01-18-08 thing might be, and then the string of clues lead them around all the other connected sites - and crucially, none of the sites really gave much away. Only the merest hints were given, to the point where people wanted to see the movie in order to solve the clues.

A lot of the people who did follow all the Cloverfield clues were eventually disappointed by the movie. But considering they’d already paid for their tickets, how much did that matter? More importantly, the clues weren’t crucial enough to the plot of the movie that anyone not playing along would feel excluded, so even if you were only dimly aware of the marketing, you could still enjoy the movie.

Cloverfield’s record-breaking January box office figures confirmed that this was an incredibly successful campaign. But other attempts at viral marketing campaigns have failed miserably (see, once again, the deservedly much maligned All I Want For Christmas Is A PSP Sony website). So what makes the difference?

Well, firstly, the viral campaign has to be good - which is to say, it needs to be meticulously planned and thought through. It has to be interesting enough that people will want to talk about it; if the clues you’re dropping are too easy, people will see straight through them and move on. Ideally, you want people to have to work together to speculate on what the clues mean; the buzz will be self-perpetuating if you manage this. There needs to be an element of interactivity, or people will get bored; you can’t just hand your audience everything on a plate.

The next important thing is to keep updating - keep adding new things. If you don’t, your audience’s attention will wane, and by the time your product is available, they’ll have forgotten all about it. You want them to keep coming back for more.

Another thing to think about is that, if you do successfully attract a lot of people to your campaign, you need to keep a step or two ahead of them. Which can be difficult - never underestimate the intelligence of your audience. If there’s more stuff out there to be found, chances are they’ll find it, possibly before you’re ready.

And of course, ultimately, you’ll need to be able to monetise your campaign. To return to the Cloverfield example, obviously the marketing paid off because people went to see the movie, but there’s also a massive opportunity there to sell shedloads of merchandise related to the campaign - anything branded Slusho!, for example, would sell. Cloverfield’s campaign created characters and brands that were mostly irrelevant to the main product it was selling, which is a lot of work, but again… record-breaking January box office figures.

The popularity of Lost proves that JJ Abrams knows what he’s doing. The marketing for The Dark Knight could also be pointed to as an example of doing the viral thing well, but let’s face it, people were going to see that movie anyway; it’s a Batman movie. Using viral marketing to successfully sell a completely unknown quantity is much more impressive.

(And yes, I just wrote this blog because I wanted to talk about Cloverfield some more. I love that movie.)

Considering I’ve written two blog entries here about the right royal mess LonelyGirl15’s creators made of trying to make a living off a web-based drama series, it seems only fair to comment about how well they seem to be doing with Kate Modern.

The difference between the two series is striking, actually. LonelyGirl15 started off small, with little fanfare, making the news when someone worked out Bree wasn’t a real person, and then pootling along quite happily without making much money for a while - eventually, merchandise went on sale, advertising was added, and a few deals were struck concerning product placement and online partnerships. Just before season 1 came to an end, LG15 finally came up with something to offer their advertisers that no-one else could: a sponsored character. Spencer Gilman, a new friend for the LonelyGirl15 characters, was sponsored by Neutrogena; his character was a scientist who worked for the company. Nice.

Kate Modern, by contrast, started off with an exclusive Bebo deal, meaning the videos are hosted there before they show up anywhere else. Using a social networking site has also meant that the characters can interact even more fully with their fans - a pretty clever move. Whereas none of the actors in LonelyGirl15 were recognisable, Kate Modern co-stars Ralf Little, of The Royle Family fame. And as a result of that, it’s been featured on Richard and Judy, plus, yesterday, in thelondonpaper. Product placement deals have also already been sorted out, and the Kate Modern site, associated with the LG15 site, was launched complete with its own ready-made forums.

It also looks to be a much more grown-up and slicker production. Is this the future of television? Meh, probably not, but it’s quite fun anyway.

Meanwhile, out there in the big bad world of Web 2.0, various advertisers have gotten their knickers in a twist and pulled advertising from Facebook - because their adverts might have been shown alongside a profile for the BNP.

My own personal political beliefs aside, this is royally stupid. If you sign up to advertise on a site with user generated content, you need to sacrifice a certain measure of control. That’s just the way it works. And most users of such sites know the deal, too; they know the advertising is rolled out across the entire site and can’t be controlled by the advertisers,. There’s no reason to assume that advertisers support particular political parties, any more than there is reason to believe they want to associate themselves with any group or individual with a profile on that site.

Facebook is already facing multiple lawsuits from people who believe their patents have been infringed, so this just seems like a further slap in the face for the still-beloved social networking site. We can only hope some of their advertisers will see sense.