Uh-Oh. Suits Invading Net Video Space.

DIGITAL DREAMERS

Under the deal, Vuguru, in partnership with Cyber Group Animation and online entertainment company Big Fantastic, will script out 50 two-minute Webisodes that will feature the same characters as “Foreign Body” and serve as a prequel to the book’s plot.

Set to debut on May 27, a new Webisode will air every Monday through Friday for 10 weeks, with the finale premiering on August 4 and the book hitting store shelves the next day. Advertising will be sold against the Webisodes.

And get it wrong from the start:

Michael Eisner

Last year, Vuguru, Eisner’s new media studio, helped launch an 80-episode series called “Prom Queen.” The 90-second episodes were a mash-up of murder mystery and soap opera, and they generated more than 15 million views on MySpace and Veoh. Vuguru also sold the Japanese and French rights to “Prom Queen” and a spinoff series, “Prom Queen: Summer Heat,” to distributors in those domains.

Uh, what?

I was very deeply into Veoh in the slack time between my last and this new blog. I discovered some very good things on Veoh. The one thing I never discovered was Eisner’s Prom Queen series!

Oh, you say, but there’s so much out there, you just might have missed it.

In addition to backing Vuguru, Eisner has put money into Veoh Networks, a San Diego-based video-sharing site that purveys a blend of user-generated videos and professional-grade content, including some full-length CBS shows.

No, it would have been promoted.

What I noticed instead were micro-series from people with just about zero budgets but limitless imagination and true creativity.

That first item is about an adaptation prequel-spinoff from a Robin Cook book. I’ve never read Cook’s work, but to me he is someone from the 1970s. I’m not enticed to see this. Immediately, I am prejudiced against it. It smells like dead bell-bottoms.

There are many writers out there who could do with a Net video push of their work: Tito Perdue, Victor Gischler, M. Dylan Raskin, Christopher Fowler, Richard Perez, Ken Bruen. These are all 21st-century writers who do exciting and innovative work that would appeal to people on the Net. But Robin Cook? Sorry. The name makes me snore.

See, this is the Suit Mentality: Grab onto a brand name. Don’t innovate. Don’t create. Don’t try something new. Try something that’s already been tried. Grab onto someone who’s become a brand name, like a box of detergent.

Let’s do it just like TV.

And when they fail — and they are guaranteed to do so! — they will pass the blame onto the Internet instead of their fossilized strategies that people have become thoroughly disgusted with.

My advice to Michael Eisner: Retire. You don’t belong here on the Net. Your time has passed. Go away now. Kthxbai.

(Oh, you can bet he’ll need someone to explain that last term!)

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