Well, not quite ‘death’ but an indefinite hiatus. I’m powering down this blog for a few reasons, one of which is my desire to finish my PhD. I’ve tried for the last year and a half to do PhD writing and work and this blog, but found the mindsets are somewhat incompatable. I’ve decided to close this blog down. I don’t know if I’ll bring it up again and if so when, or whether I’ll start another one. But I do know that I have thoroughly enjoyed blogging here these past few years. I have especially enjoyed meeting many of you because of the blog, and seeing ‘cross-media’ (etc) projects become pervasive. Thankfully, the area has alot more people looking at it now, from alot of different perspectives. Here are some blogs that will keep you informed:
Networked Performance: research blog that posts about emerging network-enabled practice;
You can read and listen to news about alternate reality games and just about any online extension of a film, TV or book property on the ARGNet blog and ARG Netcast (podcast);
DeMontfort University share their investigations into what they term ’Transliteracy’ at their PART blog;
Jeff Gomez, the CEO of Starlight Runner and longtime practitioner of ‘trans-media’ projects, is now blogging regularly about his insights and experience over at the Producers Guild of America blog;
Tony Walsh posts semi-regularly on alternate reality games;
Valentina Rao blogs about crossmedia games and anything related to that at Games Across Media, and will hopefully be starting her PhD on the subject soon;
Johnathan Gray, Derek Johnson and Ivan Askwith are blogging about everything around TV and film at The Extratextuals;
Crossmedia Dialog is a group blog that post regularly on crossmedia in Amsterdam and worldwide;
Faris Yakob, Adam Crowe blog about ‘transmedia planning’ and other changes to the marketing industry;
Jak Boumans posts every single day about stuff happening in the Netherlands and worldwide at Buziaulane;
MobileCrossMedia is a blog that looks at the different ways mobile phones can network with different devices and the real world;
If you don’t already get it, the Convergence Newsletter has regular interesting newsletters about convergence in journalism and has been my favourite newsletter for the past few years;
I don’t plan to be blogging here about events or publications I’m involved in, instead I’ll pop them on my bio site. But for now, here are some events I’m involved with, in the not-too-distant-future:
I’ll be on the ‘expert panel’ with Mark McCrindle and Tim Flattery at Mitchell Communications Group ’s launch of ‘While You Weren’t Watching’, a documentary on changes to branded entertainment etc in which I was interviewed. The launch is private but the documentary will be put online I believe in Nov;
In Feb 08, my essay on ‘Tiering in Alternate Reality Games’ will be published in the special issue of Convergence edited by Henry Jenkins and Mark Deuze.
I think that is all for now. But as I said, I’ll be popping in updates and links to publications etc on my bio site. For now though, I will continue to be online in a different way. I’ve started a podcast, a podcast where I’ll interview talented people working in this area. My ‘birth’ podcast is a bit awkward, but the second is a great one: An interview with Stitch Media’s Evan Jones. At the site, I also provide sneak preview information about Stitch Media’s latest project.
As I said, I won’t be posting here and I don’t know how often I’ll be doing the podcasts at this stage, so sign up to the announcement list at the podcast for updates there, but I will be blogging updates on my talks and essays at my my personal site so sign up for the feed there. But that is it for me here, thankyou all for sharing this time with me. I’ll see you on the other side of my PhD.
Dynamic Logic have just released their latest study:
Dynamic Logic, a Millward Brown company, releases new analysis of 32 cross-media campaigns across ten categories showing that media work best when used together. All three media platforms – television, magazines, and online – contribute incrementally to brand metrics, but at different levels, bringing various strengths at different points along the purchase funnel. TV and online’s contributions were more apparent during the awareness stages while magazines were stronger at building brand favorability and purchase intent.
David Varela, one of the writers who worked on Mind Candy’s alternate reality game Perplex City , has an article on writing for the ARG in the September issue (36) of Scriptwriting Magazine.
As I’ve mentioned before, the upcoming episode (Wed Oct 24th in the US) of CSI:NY will feature and continue in the online virtual world Second Life. A primer has been released on youtube, getting audiences excited and prepared for cross-platform traversal, which is good!:
I kept forgeting to post about this but just in case there are some of you that not aware of what Radiohead are doing, here it is. Radiohead’s latest album, In Rainbows, will be released in December but you can preorder at their website. Rather than just offer the CDs for buying, Radiohead have undertaken four very important strategies:
Cross-media bundling: When you purchase the album on their website, you get the box set which includes the music on CDs, the music on vinyl and as a digital file. They use the method common in the online pornography industry: order the tangible product, it’ll get posted to you, but while you wait you can download the file immediately. Considering the subject matter of the pornos, I can understand the desire for immediacy. :/ The point about cross-media bunding, however, is that it acknowledges the affordances and in the case of the vinyl, the sentimental and connisseur value of certain media. It also acknowledges the reality of use: people use lots of different media platforms to experience a product. A CD on the stereo for instance, digital files on the iPod and so on. The content is not bound to a particular medium.
Staggered release: The digital download is available as of 10th October, about two months before the boxset. This helps build awareness and familiarity with the product, which should translate to sales of the boxset with its added value.
Enhanced material: Like the pervasive method of the feature film DVD industry, the product provides extra materials such as new songs on top of the album, photos and artwork (which, I note, has also been used in the music industry as well). The digital download and obviously any pirated files, will not have this added value.
Consumer-defined price: The price of the digital download is not pre-defined, instead, the consumer (person!) can name any price they want to pay for the download. They can even put in nothing. Amazing. Obviously this is not something that most bands or creators in general can do. Radiohead are in a financial position to take such giant leaps. But gee it is great. I personally cannot stand the tactic producers use to combat pirating by locking their material and so this free-will counter-balance is endearing to me.
There is so much I could say but no need to delay you any longer.
A couple of years ago Scott Donaton, the editor of Advertising Age, published a book called Madison & Vine: Why the Entertainment and Marketing Industries Must Converge to Survive. Scott revisited ‘branded entertainment’ in a talk he gave recently, which has been published at the Madison & Vine section of Advertising Age. In the article he quickly explains what Madison & Vine is:
At its simplest, there were two primary factors that drove the entertainment and marketing businesses reluctantly into each other’s arms. For marketers, as I mentioned earlier, there was fear. New devices such as digital video recorders were giving audiences the ability to bypass traditional forms of media advertising. These devices let consumers decide when, how and whether they were going to interact with all forms of content. So some in the ad community decided that if they were going to avoid commercials, one valid reaction to that would be to embed products, logos and commercial messages into those entertainment vehicles viewers were choosing to spend time with.
Across the continent from Madison Avenue, those in Hollywood found their own business models and bottom lines under enormous pressure, partly from the same factors. There were other pressures felt all over Hollywood. For film studios, the costs of producing and marketing films became a huge burden just as some traditional sources of funding dried up. And the movie-business, too, was threatened by the same technologies disrupting the TV and music industries.
The result was that these two sides, the ad business and the entertainment business, which decades ago established outposts on separate coasts of the U.S. and mostly operated independently of each other since then were suddenly compelled towards each other. They realized that they had the potential to help each other out. If nothing else, the advertisers had the money and the entertainment companies had the creativity and the attention of audiences.
And covers some notable examples:
Paramount Pictures, Hasbro and General Motors: Transformers feature film
UK-based Hi-ReS! (Handsome information - Radical entertainment Systems), founded in 1999 by Alexandra Jugovic and Florian Schmitt, have been creating amazing award-winning websites for the film, TV, music and marketing industries for a few years now. Some of their sites, like Requiem for a Dream and Donnie Darko, I mention in my article about ‘Filmmakers That Think Outside the Film‘ over at Lance Weiler’s WorkBookProject. Here is a listing of some of the sites they’ve worked on:
Any day now a book (with DVD), Hi-res!: Amantes sunt Amentes, detailing their projects will be published. You can preorder at: Amazon UK and Amazon US. Great stuff!
That got your attention. Playwright and screenwriter Jason Grote’s new play, 1001, is set to premiere in New York on October 22nd. Jason has done what not many playwrights have done (that I know of — tell me if not!) and created a fictional newspaper for the play, with links to a diegetic blog and a wiki. Although it isn’t an ARG, it certainly plays with the idea of creating a fictional universe as a precurser to the live experience.
Those who have attended one of my presentations over the last few years will recall Peter Greenaway’s multi-platform project: The Tulse Luper Suitcases. One part of this massive work is the online game Tulse Luper Journey. Here is some info about the TLS and the TLJ from the game’s site:
Tulse Luper is the lead character in an ambitious series of projects initiated by film director Peter Greenaway.
So far, the project includes three feature films, a series of DVD’s, travelling exhibitions, books, publications and this online game produced by Submarine.
These are all part of a growing universe of stories, facts, fiction, history and drama based on the adventures of a man who spent most of his live as a prisoner - mistaken for someone important, a spy, a lover, an artist, a writer and an observer.
Greenaways statement that “cinema is dead” calls for new ways of communicating ideas. This game is part of the search for a crossover format that breaks the boundaries and rules that have been imposed by film, theatre, books, games and other traditional media.
Created by developers, artists and students from around Europe, The Tulse Luper Journey explores new boundaries of online interactive media.
The online game finishes on October 15, so all those “researchers” out there are prompted to hand in their findings pronto.
