Published by nichodges August 26th, 2008
in Uncategorized.
Scorched.tv is a new ’social media television series’ being produced by Channel 9. It’s a story based in 2012, when Australia has run out of water and evidently a great disaster is looming. The site features video bits, character blogs, and the climax of the whole thing is a 90-minute show on Channel 9 later in the year.
Sounds like a moderately good idea, however the only problem I can see is that there’s nothing social about it. The few comments on the characters blogs are just confused people, and the way users submit content is by emailing their ideas to the writers. Oh and there’s no rss feeds for new videos, but you can subscribe by email.
So it misses the mark in the social sense, but it’s a good first time effort, generating mostly positive talk.
Published by nickt August 4th, 2008
in Uncategorized.
We get so used to the conventional ways in which sites are constructed that we get caught up in what is expected sometimes. Â But every now and again someone comes along and creates something different, something that uses the medium in the way it should be used.
girleffect.org is a great example of how a charity site could look. Like all charity sites they need to convey their story in an emotional and compelling manner, most fail at this first hurdle but girleffect.org manages to captivate the viewer from the very start.
It is also a good example of how a site can be made to be distributed and shared
Nike are behind the initiative which just shows that every sector can learn from the big consumer brands experiences with digital; it tend to be those brands that are at the cutting edge.
Published by admin August 17th, 2007
in Uncategorized.
You killed it. We all did. As soon as we thought we’d save two seconds of our precious lives by texting ‘gr8′ instead of ‘great’. Not you? Maybe you plunged the spear into writing’s side when you decided to use punctuation marks as emoticons? ; ) Whose bright idea was it to bastardise a language used for over 1 000 years in the blink of an eye? (Or the blink of a semi-colon?)
So can we lay the blame squarely at the feet of our ‘busy’ 21st century lives? Please. Are we really arrogant enough to think that at no other time in history were people ‘busy’? Surely Shakespeare was a busy sod. I mean, in his 52 years he compiled over 150 sonnets and 38 plays and I don’t remember any “R, R, Whr 4 art thou R ; )”.
Another apparent suspect in the murder of writing is the dawn and subsequent embracement of the digital age. The vast channels of communication open to people have us twittering to each other incessantly, but should brevity really take precedence over the beautiful ebb and flow of well-written prose?
Time deficient? Digital age? All I hear is the excuse train chugging along. My prime suspect is downright laziness. The solution? Don’t let people get away with it. Pull them up. Point out that you won’t tolerate jumbled letters, poor grammar and a general disregard for the already generous guidelines of the English language. Make a stand. We can resuscitate the written word and restore it to its former, resplendent glory. It starts with you; or should that be U?
Published by davidk July 23rd, 2007
in Uncategorized.
 
Online infographics using dynamic data feeds are increasingly letting us visualise situations in interesting ways (see marumushi.com for some nifty examples). With WiFi and 3G networks becoming more pervasive (in some areas of the world), there are greater opportunities to use these visualisations with urban, location-based parameters. On the weekend I read about the Bio Mapping project which attempts to map people’s location and corresponding emotion using Galvanic Skin Response sensors. In doing this, the project organisers can look at whether patterns emerge between places and feelings. This is an another amazing example of the real and digital worlds being fused.
See more: biomapping.net
Social networking sites are now so many that the term is nearly obselete. As result of the collective success of Facebook, Bebo, Orkut (if you’re Brazilian) and the ‘Space, a generation of people are heading online having never seen the internet without these experience. So interactions like adding buddies, shooting an IM, joining groups and um.. ‘poking’ Facebookers come to them as naturally as sending an email or performing a search. We used to browse content: now we aggregate, rate and tag it.
Now we’re starting to virtual worlds heading the same way. With a 3D game-like user interface, there is a very low barrier to entry for the younguns in attempting to navigate their avatar around a new environment. Of course there are still lag, rendering and other technical issues to resolve in these alpha experiences, but it’s really not a big leap for the Playstation generation to adopt the basic mechanics. So it stands to reason, that as the basics begin to be ingrained, providers of these worlds can start to tailor and personalise these experience to specific segments.
A great example of this is the recently announced (somewhat released) Virtual Lower East Side (think Vice Magazine meets Second Life). Of course there is value in a massively horizontal, user-generated platform of virtual content. But we’re starting to see virtual worlds translated into targeted editions for all sorts of demo- and psychographic audiences. VLES is the realistic virtual depiction of just one corner of Manhattan. When an area has such distinguishable characteristics that define it - live music, seedy past, grungy cafes - it has real potential to come alive in a game-like world. Clearly this is something Rockstar are trading off. But for these immersive, connected spaces, this is just the beginning.
Australians: maybe a virtual Maroubra could be an interesting place to explore from the safety of your own Macbook..
This is pretty big news for those keen to see the aesthetic of Second Life evolve: Linden is testing the introduction of ’sculpted prims’. Prims are the basic shapes used in constructing all kinds of objects within Second Life. Until now, the process of buidling something has been fairly rudimentary and the shapes very basic. But what is a sculpted prim? This from the FAQ:
“A sculpted prim is a prim whose shape is determined by a texture - its “sculpt texture”. Sculpted prims can create organic shapes that are not currently possible with Second Life’s prim system.”
This, together with the new capability to export from professional 3D packages such as 3DS Max and Maya, will mean Second Life will soon be peppered with architectural visuals similar to that of animated films and video games.
An interesting potential effect of this could be that branded (ie better funded) development will begin to look quite different from the user-generated constructs. I am curious to see how the residents react to big companies bringing in their professionally sculptured Maya models. It could create a greater divide between individuals and brands, or maybe the professional developers that make their living within Second Life will take on a new array of modelling skills with much of the development across the board migrating to sculptured prims.
Personally I think it’s a great step forward and may potentially result in more users hanging around to check out Second Life beyond their initiation. Many users expect to see a Grand Theft Auto-style rendering of the virtual world and can feel a little let down when it doesn’t appear as smooth as it appears in still photos. I will post some happy snaps of sculpted constructions in the near future when this capability is released onto the main grid.
Cheers,
Holden.
A colleague just sent me the below link which is another great example of what consumer participation can contribute to your online campaign. Come Clean is a neat, personalised video message ad application that includes a clothe-depraved guy and girl prancing about in jeans. But I think what this example (again) shows is what exactly this whole user-gen thing can add to your ad:
http://www.come-clean.com.au/DailyVidBlog/blog.aspx?714
Ohh.. isn’t it a little bit of a thrill to see something slightly naughty embedded in a video on a major brand’s site? Yes, it is (for now). And like everyone, we at the office continually raised the ante until the Come Clean app was ****ing out our copy.
So what happens now? Are Lee and their agency secretly hoping that renegade consumers like you and I dip into the dark arts, and conjure up sordid tales of office shenanigans? And that subsequent PR/journalism trawls through the videos for the most depraved, only to write it up and filter it to mainstream press? Of course.
So, as a marketer..
a) You get us consumers feeling like we’re involved.
b) You get us harnessing your platform, and considerable creativity, to share the experience with our fellow consumers (yet always thinking that we’re authoring the joke).
c) And you offer journalists readily indexed fodder for their next Web 2.1 meets return-on-engagement piece.
I think this is a fair and just trade in value 
Although details are still sketchy, Electronic Arts has announced a partnership with Endemol (producers of Big Brother) intending to combine Second Life-type interactions with reality TV properties. The Guardian (subs required) says:
” Endemol chief creative officer Peter Bazalgette said it represented “a wholly different level” of interaction between viewers and programme makers.
He added that participants would be able to compete in their own “incredibly sophisticated” versions of Big Brother with other people from around the world and that there would be crossovers between the online worlds and the television series”.
The combination makes sense but clearly user-uptake of this kind of ‘converged interactivity’ will depend on its specific uses. EA obviously have access to some high quality avatar-making software (see make your own player options in EA Sports games) but Endemol will still be requiring users to vote with their mobile (for revenue reasons) - the whole TV + plus online avatar + mobile thing is a delicate balancing act. Still, it’s exciting. Branded spaces will be an obvious direction for the online 3D world so happy sponsors will soon see their logos delivered by Endomol into another medium. One question that comes to mind is - how will these Virtual Mes be allowed to interact with the brands?
Published by davidk March 27th, 2007
in Uncategorized.
In a bid to better understand the inner workings of virtual worlds, such as Second Life and Sony Home, St Edmonds Lab has hired Holden Mulgrave in the position of Cultural Attache. This important role will assist us in offering clients rich insights into how brands can be successful in these emerging landscapes. Holden will be blogging here from time to time, posting to our FlickR feed and can be reached via email at holden.mulgrave@netx.com.au. We’re all very excited to Holden on board and look forward to his missives from exotic virtual locales.
