You can imagine the marketing caucus that gave birth to Spike Webb, a serialized detective story-cum-advertorial aimed at Netheads: "I've got just the groundbreaking Killer App we're looking for--how about a high-tech crime story where advertising is actually integrated into the plot?" "Brilliant! Let's roll!" "Um, excuse me, but isn't that what they call 'product placement' in Hollywood?" "Maybe--sniff--but we're talking about the cutting edge of New Media--so that's Killer App to you!" OK, here's the premise of the story, which advances each week when a new chapter is posted: Due to a freak accident in a particle accelerator lab, some kind of technobabble miracle occurs, and the artificial intelligence life form, Spike Webb, is born. He (yes, "he": the Marvel Comics-like super-origin must have rendered Spike with virtual XY chromosomes) teams up with Nancy McGill, a voluptuous systems administrator from Silicon Valley (an oxymoron?), and sets out to thwart a plot by an evil high-tech firm to take over the Internet. And you can bet that that fictitious company won't bear any resemblance to Microsoft or Silicon Graphics, two of the advertisers--um, we mean, plot points, embedded in the yarn. And not all that subtlely: Nancy, we're informed, "decided to let Spike use the Silicon Graphics POWER Onyx computer that she had been beta testing for SGI. It already had 512 MB of memory and she added 8 GB of disk storage." And if those specs give you a cyberwoody, you can click on the accompanying hotlink to SGI's Web page for even more sexy plot points, er, product details. In nonadvertorial moments, the prose doesn't exactly crackle like Raymond Chandler, either. At one point, Spike searches for a document that "would look like one of thousands at NCSC but it should stand out in the middle of a bunch of X.12 EDI layout files at the FBI's office." Such attention to technical detail seems to be geared toward hardcore Net-pickers, but a little verisimiltude can go a long way. The marketers behind this site must have high hopes in the blue-sky range: They've included a merchandizing order form; if you don't mind announcing to the world that you have no humiliation trigger, you might want to join the Spike Webb fan club and purchase the Spike Webb baseball cap and Spike Webb mock turtleneck shirt. To be fair, this exercise in high concept marketing isn't entirely lame: the graphics--hipster-urban-looking in the manner of the label on a bottle of Capio--are interesting, and the server is as speedy as a Silicon Graphics POWER Onyx computer with 512 MB of memory and 8 GB of disk storage. (JW)
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