Sony Pictures invests in interactive video company Interlude for new shows

Hollywood studios have struggled to contend with the increasingly fleeting attention spans of online consumers. But now Sony Pictures Entertainment thinks it may have found a way to better hold people's interest with online video – by letting them affect the outcome. Sony Pictures Entertainment is making a multimillion-dollar strategic investment in New York-based Interlude, a digital firm that helps production companies and advertisers make interactive videos to better target online audiences. As in video games, Interlude's videos allow viewers to control aspects of what they see on screen with the click of a button, bringing the choose-your-own adventure concept to traditional entertainment. In a promotional video for MTV's "Scream" series, for example, viewers choose what to do in a short home-invasion thriller by clicking on icons that appear in the corner of the screen.