VoIP...the MOVIE???

Hollywood's made a few attempts to bring the world of IT into the movie theatres with the barest hint of reality associated with them (Antitrust and the Net come to mind), so I wasn't surprised to see what I thought was a trailer over the weekend for a new movie with some technology tie-in. It was called VoIP: The Movie.

From the looks of it, a some corporate type was thrown out a window -- and the detective was trying to figure out why. Maybe the person found out the wrong information and had to be silenced? Who knows. I just knew that none of the actors looked familar, but it seemed mildly interesting. But VoIP the movie? I mean, talk about focusing on one particular technology. At the end of the trailer, the url, http://www.voipthemovie.com blazed the screen, and so I decided to find out more about the film.

Well, congratulations to VoIP service provider Covad for pulling the wool over my movie-loving eyes. This was no movie -- well not one that was coming out in the theatres. It was all a very cleverly crafted marketing scheme. The site encourages you to believe this is all film hype -- the spooky music, opening intro and so forth are all help to cement that idea. However, the "movie"(read: commercial) it turns out is available online -- you can watch it on the site and find out which of the three suspects are guilty of the crime. I'm not going to give it away, but you'll definitely be...ummm...surprised by the victim and the perps?

Again, Good Job Covad. This fanboy is going to have to pay a little better attention to his movie trailers. (Note to self -- Rolaids: The Movie is probably not a real film)