At one point during the dotcom heyday, internet broadcasters looked like revolutionising the entire entertainment industry. These days, defunct short-film sites litter cyberspace like ghost towns. Most contain broken links and a guestbook last signed in October 2000.
Happily, one of the original big hitters is still running. Atom survived the crash by merging with rival Shockwave and shedding a reported 120 out of 170 jobs. But it remains the obvious first port of call to check out short films on the web.
Easy navigation ushers the user through a vast array of material, from the domesticated antics of Wallace and Gromit to the inevitable Stars Wars spoofs. The disreputable Extreme section is home to a motley crew of phoney Osama bin Laden broadcasts and Bikini Bandits episodes.
The quality of Atom's content slaloms wildly between the good and the god-awful. But in that respect - if no other - it's no different from mainstream Hollywood.
