Geez, Veronica Mars and Samuel L Jackson Keep Calling Me

ARGs have had characters calling ‘players’ (people?) for some years now. In the last couple of years we’ve seen this technique being used by film and TV producers. Rather than provide unique narrative content, however, they have a more economic function: motivating you to watch the TV show or film. Well, September last year I reported on a scary call you could receive for the film Ring 2. In April this year I gave a talk in which I mentioned how the character Veronica Mars called fans on their mobile phones 45 minutes before the broadcast. This resulted in an increase in viewers and website traffic (source). In that same talk I spoke about the various ‘citizen marketing’ by excited fans of Snakes on a Plane (which as since then also made it to SecondLife!). Well, news from Steve Peters is that you can register to have Samuel call or email you. With this one you select some personality traits of the person you want to send the message to. Very funny. I like this technique, pretty fun.