W. Bruce Cameron

Aug 25, 20110

Vwitter Me This!

Silicon Valley, Calif. — Move over, Twitter, a new service promises to drastically improve on the 140-character text messaging software by adding video.

Vwitter, a “video Twitter,” will be launching soon, says CEO W. Bruce Cameron.

“Basically, users will be able to send 1.4-second ‘Vweets’ to one another,” he recently explained in an interview exclusive to this column.

In the first Vweet to be Vweeted by Vwitter, intelligent apes battle with desperate cowboys and housekeepers in 1960s Mississippi.

“It’s as action-packed as any summer blockbuster movie,” Cameron boasts. “We’ve even got Ben Affleck doing this thing that you could call acting. It’s a pleasure to Vwatch. Plus, it only takes 1.4 seconds, which is pretty much all the Ben Affleck anyone could ever want.”

Cameron hopes to secure a round of venture capital funding soon because, in his words, he “could really use a new car.”

“I am proud to say that Vwitter will be a service that will be popular with many people and will have no ultimate revenue model of any kind,” Cameron told this columnist. “Then, we’ll either go public or be swallowed up by some giant cash-rich corporation.”

Asked how he felt about the idea of a company that doesn’t generate any profit being sold to investors for lots of money, Cameron said, “good.”

“This is what made this country great,” he stated. “Investing in worthless assets. Like the subprime mortgage mess — it wasn’t the investing that was the problem, it was when people stopped investing.”

Cameron also defends the decision to keep the videos limited to 1.4 seconds. “Look, I saw ‘Avatar’ and really liked it, but the thing is nearly three hours long. In our version, ‘VwAvatar,’ you still see the movie — we just cut out the boring parts.”

Internal documents reveal that Cameron may be onto something. The movie “Avatar” cost a reported $237 million to make, whereas “VwAvatar” cost around a dollar. “And that’s only because Affleck kept flubbing his lines,” Cameron said. “We originally budgeted it at 9 cents.”

Not all critics agree, though, that Vweets are Vwonderful to Vwatch. The 1.4-second feature films show up on computer screens and cellphones in a frame that’s less than half the size of a postage stamp. Plus, some people complain that many of the more important parts of the script seem rushed.

“Are they griping that they don’t like the movies or that they’re too small to see?” Cameron demands. “You can’t have it both ways. Maybe some of these so-called critics will put their money where their mouths are and pony up a few million dollars in venture capital. Then I’ll listen to their complaints.”

Investors, though, have balked at putting up the money for films that run more than 1,000 percent over budget. Rumors of drug use and huge cost overruns have been swirling for months over the Vietnam War epic, “VwApocalypse VwNow.”

“Vwietnam has become my Vwaterloo,” Cameron confesses.

Chief among the disagreements said to have caused a rift between Cameron and director Francis Ford Coppola was the set location, which Coppola insisted should be the jungles of Vietnam, overriding Cameron’s belief that the whole thing could be shot in his parents’ basement.

“He’ll never understand just how awful my parents’ basement is,” Cameron fumes. “He wasn’t there, man.”

In an effort to attract investment, Cameron is said to be working on a new function of Vwitter. “Basically, it’s an app for your cellphone that, when you push a button, you get a mouthful of soup.”

Industry professionals are skeptical. “Of course there are technological barriers,” Cameron said defensively. “That’s why I need millions of dollars. But think about it, who wouldn’t want to lick a teaspoon of soup off their cellphone? You could watch a movie at the same time. Soup and a movie — what goes together better than that?”

(He derides people who disagree with this notion as “popcorn-eaters.” “I suppose next they’ll want scrambled eggs with their movies,” he sneers. “Like in France.”)

Will the world soon be watching 1.4-second versions of their favorite comic books brought to the screen?

“The important thing,” Cameron states, “is that we get plenty of investors.”