Maybe it’s a new kind of rock video, maybe it’s an old form of marketing.

It’s a mash-up, for sure. Of Web technologies, Internet browser capabilities, musical creativity and visual inventiveness, branding & marketing strategies.

It is The Wilderness Downtown, a new music video from Montreal-based Canadian rockers Arcade Fire, American writer/director/photographer Chris Milk and Google.

It’s a clever way to promote the new browser, Google Chrome – mostly ‘cuz the only way you can watch the video in its full interactive glory is to use Chrome.

As such, it shows off some cool new effects and real-time functionality built into new browsers and the emerging HTML5 Web standard.

The video uses multiple, resizable on-screen windows (one of the features of HTML5) as well as the vast image library that is Google Maps to create a unique and individually customizable video each and every time it’s viewed.

Just by punching in some details about the home or address where you grew up, the video dynamically fetches images from Google Maps and blends them into the song’s narrative arc. The main character in the video is running down your street, interacting with your neighbourhood.

So I download the browser to my desktop PC, just to see.

Getting the browser was quick and painless, but watching the video may not be unless you heed advice to close other programs, due to the processor-intensive nature of the video.

The song, ironically, is called We Used to Wait (from Arcade Fire’s new album, The Suburbs).

Well, once the downloader said 97% done, I was still waiting three or four minutes before the video would start playing – and there was still a ‘Play Film’ button to click.

At that point, however, Wow!

As many as six separate windows or ‘containers’ opened up on my screen, each a different size and each with distinctive visual elements inside. As the song plays, other effects and image sequences are triggered at specific times, thanks to the browser format’s ability to read and track timecode.

Having entered in my current home address at the beginning of the process, the video then used scenes of my neighbourhood and my building in its storyline. (I tried to use 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, but was told ‘Your address doesn’t contain enough Street-View and/or Google Maps data to 100% enjoy this experience.’)

The street images zoom in and out, and they are shown as 360 degree panoramas (with some coloured correction and tweaking to integrate them naturally into the video itself).

And, as a way to draw viewers in even further, we are encouraged to interact with the video (and other viewers) by typing or drawing in our own comments and ideas, using keyboard or mouse.

Some of that is created using SVG, or scalable vector graphics (most browsers support and render these smooth and sixe-independent graphics directly, except for Internet Explorer – but the next big version of Microsoft’s browser, IE9, is expected to) and an animated, generative typeface that gives life and movement to otherwise static on-screen elements.

Even the StreetView scenes are animated, with 3D trees and other graphic elements being superimposed on the shot, thanks to the HTML5 engine render called Canvas.

The video is an interesting way to look at new surfing features and functions, but in the process of finding and downloading the browser, I noticed other documentation and commentary from Google that pointed out:

• Chrome is in birthday mode, celebrating its second year; and
• Google itself is in the celebratory mode, marking its 12th anniversary with plans for some big announcements and updates in a few days.

So is this just a big teaser from Google, a way to set the table for bigger announcements and developments to come?

Even the company’s search engine home page, with a unique kind of interactive doodle being used to display the corporate name, seems to indicate something is up.

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