Asking an online psychic for dating advice might not be the best way to find a mate, but for viewers of Fallon's ESP Billy, it makes for entertaining content.

Designed to promote MSN Messenger's video chat capabilities, the episodic series features a lovetorn college co-ed forced to make a decision between two romantic prospects. On a lark, he consults ESP Billy, a low-rent clairvoyant played by actor and famed magician Ricky Jay, via video messenger, who presents him with two options that result in different outcomes. Users then choose his fate. The first episode was made available online in January before the full promotion in late February. Subsequent episodes are only available on MSN7.

Fallon art director Christian Erickson says the difficulty in getting users to download new versions of programs was the impetus for creating a piece that would only be available on MSN. "That's where the idea to put the video conferencing capabilities in the story came from," he says.

Directors Honest (Cary Murnion and Jonathan Milott) of Czar Films say extensive pre-pro was essential to the project, which was shot over five days and yielded nearly 40 minutes of content. "The multiple endings made things a bit more complicated because if you change something at the beginning it dominoes throughout. But it turned out better than we thought."