Days like these

KateModern, Bebo's interactive drama (don't you love the way that soap opera on the net is still spoken of as if it's a new idea, about a decade after The Spot?) has done a deal which will see Atlantic Records' second division hoofers The Days pop up in the story:

"Traditional means such as gigging and press interviews work alongside truly groundbreaking, inventive ideas such as this one." Joanna Shields, president, international, at Bebo, says the characters in the drama had already met actor Jamie Bell and "now, for the first time, they have befriended a real band - blurring fiction and reality in an interesting and interactive experience".

It's not actually blurring fiction and reality any more than those bits of The Archers where they drop in a rapidly-recorded scene featuring whichever actors were available discussing the latest agricultural disaster from the headlines does. Much as we love those moments - like the bit where Lilian Bellamy had to pretend to be interested in some cow-threatening plague because, presumably, they couldn't find an actor who played an actual farmer to get to the studios at short notice - they don't actual make us think "it's so realistic", but, because you start to ruminate on the process which made a bit on bluetongue or hoof-and-mouth appear at such short notice, they underline the unreality.

Now, if The Days didn't know they were appearing as a paid-for advertisement in a made-up story... now, that might blur the boundaries a bit.