The technical side of cross-media projects is usually the most discussed item at cross-media events that I’ve attended. Conglomerates now want to produce works across all the platforms within their empire and they need systems to manage the data, traffic, security and payments. One company, of many, is offering such an ‘end-to-end’ solution. Zone4Play ‘provide a range of solutions to the satellite, cable TV and mobile phone carriers/providers. Zone4Play’s technology uses a single account that enables switching from one platform to another with the same virtual account balance and user information – be it iTV, Internet or Mobile.’ The 3 areas of the ‘solution’ includes ‘client applications’, ‘game engines (server side)’ and what they call their ‘Management Applications Suite (MAS)’. The suite manages the communication between all the platforms as expressed in their diagram:

Such ‘back office’ systems will have/do have a great impact on the effectiveness of cross-media works but what about the discussions, the research, the diagrams, the funding into how these ‘stories’ and ‘games’ will work? We’ve (cross-media researchers and practitioners) have got to get out there more…Inspired?