OPEN

As I may have mentioned before I am a massive fan of The Wire, a US cops and robbers tale brought *bang* up to date. I don’t think it’s ever aired here in the UK on TV It’s finally been aired on FX in the UK but it’s mainly been a word of mouth and DVD thing for British viewers.

As part of the marketing for the fourth series of the programme’s box set in the US Amazon has three exclusive prequels. As Grant McCracken

Have we seen Amazon used as the delivery mechanism in this way before?  Another channel opens!  Have we seen prequels used in this way?  The transmedia project expands!

It’s a great idea. The short films are incidental, morsels, actually fairly meaningless to anyone who hasn’t seen the previous three serious. But to the devotee – as so many of the show’s viewers become – it’s as sweet as spider bags ("twofer one") are to Bubs.

But, as is so often the case, the execution is all about "viral" rather than networks thinking. To get maximum benefit from the attention the videos will earn Amazon should be offering more options in "share" than just emailing.

People (me included) will want distribute this content on their blogs and social network profiles. But to do that I have to go to YouTube to find the videos in a format where I can do that. As expected, someone has ripped the videos and posted them there.

The vids still travel, to be sure, but YouTube’s picking up more of the benefit in terms of network attention / reputation on the topic / Googlejuice / AdSense revenue / traffic directed to other places to buy the boxset.

Amazon’s network presence is so huge that this probably doesn’t matter hugely to them, one might think. But my guess is that they’ll turn on to the "distribution by any means" model that means they’ll keep.

Anyhow, here’s the three prequels – useful, useful content, oh yes. So much better than a traditional trailer. Brilliant idea guys, just tweak the distribution to pick up all the rewards you’re due…