Christy Dena

[BCS3 promo video from BCS2 pics by Ivo Brett]

I went to BarCampSydney 3 yesterday as an attendee, not an (un)organiser, for the first time. I pulled out of (un)organising because of the time needed to commit to the preparation, time which I had to put towards finishing my PhD. So, it was a real blast to be able to turn up when I felt like it and just move around listening to whatever talks I wanted. Previously I had blogged writeups of BCSs that spoke about the spirit of entrepeneurs and facilitating and feeling the effects of participation. This year I’ll just give a short run down of some of the highlights for me and a handful of observations.

Some Highlights:

Joseph Gentle’s talk about object-oriented operating systems. That isn’t what he called the idea (he hasn’t got a name for it yet), and it isn’t the first time it has been attempted, but I really liked hearing someone talking blue sky about making computing better.

Ryan Cross’s sensible talk about Drupal (Drupal Asia Pacific Conference) and Project Pier (open source project management and community system) and then sharing villager tactics during Werewolf.

Laim Hodge (Nick Hodge jnr) talking about Anonymous. I was really curious to find out some more information about Anonymous.

I have to admit, I only found out about them for the first time in January when the Chanology Project launched:

Laim said that he is a member of Anonymous (yes, you can be known and unknown at the same time). He explained that Anonymous began in Japan with the chan image sites (and have grown to English sites such as 4Chan and 7Chan and so on). [Warning, there are no restrictions on what is posted and you may need to clear your cache afterwards.] Anonymous has at least 20,000 members worldwide and is not governed by any leaders. There have been many events undertaken by members that are not accepted by the others, but there is no control or repurcussions within the community. Fox News did a report on Anonymous after Anonymous accessed Fox’s ftp site and changed the file names to those of a song.

And then Anonymous apparently posted a response (which it should be noted is authored by an individual or a small group — Anonymous does not speak as one voice):

Many members of anon and non members of anon (!) have also posted their extreme views on the Foxx11 report:

Haha! I couldn’t help myself.

The BCS Anonymous member explained that some of the events mentioned in the Fox11 report were not the work of Anonymous, some were denounced internally and others were just for laughs. Well, it was no surprise to find out that the main demographic of Anonymous is high-school male geeks (ITers). Project Chanology seems to be the only project they’ve done that attempts to do some good. It seems such a waste to have all these skills and dispersed power being used on destructive activities. I cannot help but juxtapose ARGers with Anonymous: both have alot of Net skills and are quite cyberculture literate, yet ARGers channel their skills in a more creative direction than Anonymous, whereas ARGers are perhaps not as proactive as Anonymous; ARGers have a strong sense of community whereas Anonymous are unified by their anonymity…I think perhaps it is an unfair juxtaposition but I find it interesting culturally nevertheless.

One thing I want to add to my comments about Liam’s presentation is his attitude. I spoke with Liam afterwards and he was sincerely interested if he got his message across. I believe he got up again on the second day and attempted to improve on his previous presentation. I just love that: being sincerely interested in getting your message across and improving yourself over and over again to make sure that happens. Impressive life skill to have so young Liam. Good on ya.

On that note, I did a quick presentation (with no prep) to get a t-shirt and some feedback. My talk was crap, but I’m not bothered. I learnt more about how tech people think and I was reminded of a lesson I’ve had the opportunity to learn over and over again (that is the funny thing about experience, it takes time to develop). The lesson I allude to is the need to start right from the beginning when explaining a problem or solution to something. I often presume some degree of shared knowledge or understanding and jump straight to a middle or end thought. In my experience, this approach has never, ever, worked! Start from step (A) always, but you can vary how long you take to get from (A) to (Z).

Back to BCS3. I also enjoyed Brett Welch’s talk about how GoodBarry has faired since the last BarCampSydney. GoodBarry is an integrated system for running an online business. It is pretty cool the way it bundles together website management, customer database, web analytics and customer profiling. Brett’s ‘5 Lessons in 5 Months’:

1. Advertising is useful but measure it carefully.
2. Leverage PR around (before, during and after) your tech releases.
3. Take a punt on marketing.
4. Make mistakes properly.
5. Everything takes longer than you think.
Bonus: Be UnConventional. Unlike some tech businesses, they’ve created a ‘storybook‘ to share the beginning of GoodBarry. (See below)

Now, the lessons Brett has learnt are nothing new, but what I appreciated was his desire to share these lessons. As with previous BarCampSydney’s, the discussion after Brett’s talk started to move into general entrepeneur discussions with Mike of Atlassian throwing in some gems. However, the conversation was cut short to keep to the alloted time. This is something I’d recommend to change as the entrepeneurship sessions are great discussions (and since they even ran into 2 hour sessions at the last BarCampSydneys we had decided to put a longer dedicated session.) Unfortunately this lesson didn’t rollover into BCS3, but maybe the next one.

Speaking of Atlassian, I just peaked again at Mike’s blog and saw their recently articulated company values. Very nice.

• Open company. No bullshit.
• Build with heart and balance.
• Don’t fuck the customer.
• Play, as a team.
• Be the change you seek.

In terms of the BCS (un)organisation. The Great stuff:

• Ideal new venue (finally!)
• Timekeepers who told you what is happening in the other rooms so you could choose where to go
• Alison R’s great idea of the Geek-i-odic Table of Elements (you put your elemental abbreviation on your name tag)
• Great breakout room
• Great to have a free meal! and drinks (thanks to Atlassian for the drinkies and Tangler for putting towards the din dins)
• BCS tweets
• Playing Werewolf for hours was the best! (Thanks Mike!)

Stuff to change?:

• In the previous BCS (do I sound like an old fart? “back in my day!”), we made sure in blog posts and on the day that everyone knew what BCS was about and primed with the spirit. I missed the intro session at BCS3 so this may have been covered.
• Although the t-shirt for presenters-only was a good incentive (I did a random talk to get one), it would of been nice to just have a t-shirt. There wasn’t any problem getting people to present in the last BCSs, but maybe it encouraged newbies. I don’t know, from what I saw the majority of presentations were prepared in some manner.
• A dedicated long entrepeneur discussion session (as well as the pitch session)
• We tried to arrange podcasts of the talks last time (Nick Hodge did some in the first BCS), but it never happened. Hope it will happen sometime.
• One thing I requested and so I’m not sure if anyone else wants it, is a way to know the handles and avatars of the people there. I know most people that way and would of loved to have been able to track them down (through a board perhaps where people bring their own avatar print out or something?). They did run a speed networking session which was very popular I believe.
• Mick came up with the great idea of a sausage sizzle for lunch (though they had free pizzas on Sunday, supplied by acidlabs)

Speaking of Mick. It was fab to catch up with Mick and find out about his great new business: Pollenizer. He and Phil are a start-up swat team that come into a business and help solve problems etc. Fab stuff.

Well, that is it for another few months of BCS. I had a great time. Congrats to the unorganisers, sponsors and participants…and I can’t believe I missed the paper plane session:

Oh yeah — postscript — to all those who were friendly, interesting, intelligent, helpful, generous, curious, funny and brave @ BCS3:

Yes, that’s right, my podcast at UniverseCreation101.com is now in video. In this vodcast I interview filmmaker Lance Weiler, who has been extending his films to different media platforms for years, and spearheading digital distribution & social networking for the film community. Check it out. Also, for those in Facebook I’ve started a UC101 group. It is there I’ll ping you when a new video or substantial post is up, you can post stuff you think I and the others in the group will find interesting, and you can heckle me.

• Interview with Lance Weiler at UC101.com
• Large screen version of interview with Lance Weiler at Blip.tv
• Join the UC101 Facebook group

My latest articles to be published include an academic book review and two opinion pieces/reports about a film festival panel and a new media art panel I participated in.

My review, in the latest issue of Cyberculture Studies, covers Anne Friedberg’s very interesting book about the history of windows, screens & frames in film, art, architecture & philosophy: The Virtual Window: From Alberti to Microsoft. The review is also graced with a response from the author: Anne Friedberg. As an extra note, the man behind CyberCulture Studies — David Silver — included the online augmentation to my essay on Tiering & ARGs (and Sean Stacey’s article on ‘Undefining ARGs’) as reading material in his class on Digital Literacies, which was guest lectured by Bryan Alexander. Ah, the world is getting smaller and smaller.

I participated, chaired & organised a few panels last year, and as I intimated in an earlier post, I was commissioned to write opinion pieces on two of the panels I participated in. The first is a short review/opinion piece about the ‘cyber-born film panel‘ at Megan Spencer’s Destination Film Festival. Here is the blurb about the panel:

The revolution will be downloaded… It’s an exciting time in filmmaking right now. Using Four-Eyed Monsters as a starting point - the superb ’YouTube feature’ - our panel will explore how online and digital culture has r/evolutionised and challenged traditional means of production, distribution and exhibition. Has the internet made these conventional methods all but redundant? How? And where are things moving to? A range of viewpoints will be heard across the spectrum - from filmmakers and producers to artists and web designers.

The article, ‘Cyber-Conceived/Cyber-Birthed Films: Christy Dena on Making and Distribution at DestFest’ has been published in RealTimeArts (an Australian arts magazine) and has been edited somewhat. Of particular significance (regarding the editing) is the listing I included of all those who participated in the panel. So, here it is: This panel was organised by film critic, journalist and director Megan Spencer. The panelists included Arin Crumley of Four Eyed Monsters fame (via video Skype); remix artists Dan & Dominique Angeloro of Soda_Jerk ; highly regarded film producer Rosemary Blight; Rachael Lucas, the director of cult hit Bondi Tsunami; DOP, Producer/Cinematographer Streetsweeper Toby Ralph; director and composer Jason Sweeney and me.

The second article in the same issue of RealTimeArts and is an opinion piece/review of the panel ‘What Happened to New Media Art?’ from the 2007 Australasian Interactive Entertainment Conference. Here is that blurb:

So was it the mobile phone or changes at the OzCo? Why has new media art apparently disappeared from the cultural landscape? Key cultural institutions such as ACMI have made the transition from pixels to Pixar. Games criticism is thriving at a time when discussions of media art histories recede into the background. Or do we need to revise our definitions of what is new media art? Does anyone really care about interactivity any more? In the age of machinima and Second Life, is there still a place for “new” media art?

In this panel discussion key media artists, curators and writers will debate these issues.

Interactivity may, or may not, be present during the discussion.

For those interested in a bit a background to the debate: recent notable essays & discussions include Steve Dietz’s 2004 ISEA essay ‘Art After New Media’ and 2006 Olhares de Outono Symposium essay ‘Just Art: Contemporary Art after the Art formerly known as New Media’. In 2007 Steve Dietz was in Australia and continued the discussions there (here): ‘A Meeting with Steve Dietz’. For an Australia-specific (though internationally relevant) article about Art & funding bodies etc, see Keith Gallasch’s (the editor of RealTime) 2005 essay: ‘From Art in a Cold Climate’.

So, in light of such history new media arts critic, academic and educator Darren Tofts organised the ‘What Happened to New Media Art?’ panel. It included educator, critic and curator Shiralee Saul; director, critic, writer and curator Philip Brophy; new media artist Marcia Jane and myself.

My article on the panel is now online: ‘Playing the Moon: Christy Dena on the Fate of New Media Art’.

As an added bonus, a participant on the panel and long-time (well for me) colleague of mine Shiralee Saul also has an article about game art in the just-released: SwanQuake: The User’s Manual. Also, one person who was in the audience of the panel (but who participated in the panel I organised for Interactive Entertainment 2007) — Christian McCrea — is participating in this months’ empyre discussion ‘Game Off’:

Whether we play or not, whether we live in the moneyed west or not, games occur.
Using the rubric of ‘game off’, our stellar guests will tease out and map intertwined threads of play culture, game art, game theory interrogating the frictions and fissions of experiential pleasure, avatar uprisings, the game engine medium, collection and archiving, futility and joy. Join Marguerite Charmante, Daphne Dragona, Margarete Jahrmann, Max Moswitzer, Julian Oliver, Melanie Swalwell, David Surman (and maybe Helen Stuckey) in multi-streamed dialogues moderated by Christian McCrea and Melinda Rackham.

Empyre is an interesting new media arts listserv that I had the pleasure of participating in as an invited guest about Second Life art a few months ago. Ah yes…cyberspace can seem really small at times. Then I wake up. There really is no end of the Internet, though the idea is funny.

Anyway. Enjoy the finger-linking-goodness!

Last year and this year I was a guest lecturer at the De Montfort University’s Online MA in Creative Writing and New Media — run by Sue Thomas and Kate Pullinger among other notables. Well, after my lecture last year I had the luck to be a mentor for a talented writer: Alison Norrington. Alison created what she calls a ‘cross media work of fictional blogging’. Basically, she created a fictional character, Sophie, and had her come alive across the web — conversing with people through her blog, Twitter, Bebo, Second Life and other sites. I wrote a bit about Staying Single at my CME blog. It was the first time Alison had explored this type of media design and she was quite taken by it…and I loved exploring it all with her.

Well, on the 12th (sorry about the short notice!! :() Alison is giving a talk on her work at O’Reilly Tools of Change for Publishing Conference in New York: Fictional Blogging: Can Web 2.0 Translate to Publishing 2.0?. Go Alison! I’m sure you’ll do a grand job. Yay! [And if you see her, say Happy Birthday]

Recently pervasive game designer & researcher Jane McGonigal’s idea about ‘Alternate Reality Business’ mades the Harvard Business Review annual “Top 20 Breakthrough Ideas”. Here is a snippet from Jane’s blog:

In the coming decade, many businesses will achieve their greatest breakthroughs by playing games—specifically, alternate reality games, or ARGs. Custom-designed ARGs will enable companies to build powerful collaboration networks, discover solutions to specific business problems, forecast opportunities, and innovate more reliably and quickly.

Why? ARGs train people in hard-to-master skills that make collaboration more productive and satisfying. Playing an ARG teaches 10 collective-intelligence competencies. These include cooperation radar, a knack for identifying the very best collaborators for a given task, and protovation, the ability to rapidly prototype and test experimental solutions. Using these skills, players amplify and augment one another’s knowledge, talents, and capabilities. Because ARGs draw on the same collective-intelligence infrastructure that employees use for “official” business, games will map directly to a familiar reality—no translation required.

As these competencies mature within a business, ARGs will provide a truly stimulating framework for doing everyday work. Few meetings are as engaging as an ARG, whose emerging narrative evokes players’ shared sense of urgency and whose puzzles and clues deepen their curiosity. The structure for collaboration is clear, with players rallying around explicit goals and continually sharing theories, tactics, and results. Playing also generates compelling momentum: The puppet master monitors and rewards participants’ efforts, and times the release of new challenges so that players experience multiple cycles of success.

Of course, Jane was also involved in the design and community management of the biggest serious ARG World Without Oil. There have been many examples of small-scale ARGs being created for education and training though. Well, recently, ARG designer Dave Szulborski was involved in the design of an ARG for the military. Here is some info from their release:

This is the scenario behind a new ARG created by BBN Technologies and Dave Szulborski, author of This Is Not a Game and creator of five well-know ARGs. ARGs have been used with great success to promote books, movies and television shows and BBN scientists proposed that the method could be applied to serious training with equal success. Now, the US military is testing that hypothesis with the first evaluation of an ARG as a tool for training military personnel. In a month-long demonstration, a group of 124 participants made up of active duty military, reservists, government staffers, and university students is working together to cope with the tsunami scenario. This is the kind of situation that is most difficult to train for; not an acute, episodic crisis than can be simulated in a short course or in a classroom, but a longer term situation that changes as the circumstances unfold. ARGS offer the benefit of allowing trainees to practice the skills needed for such exceptional situations while they continue to do their regular jobs and to develop real relationships in a virtual scenario that will help them respond effectively when they are required to cope with an unexpected situation such as the tsunami scenario.

Bill Ferguson, division scientist at BBN Technologies, one of the partner organizations for the demonstration, said, “The military needs a training solution for longer term, intermediate intensity situations that involve multiple agencies. Because ARGs are inherently distributed and built on complex, engaging scenarios, they are an effective and cost efficient way to train for the long duration, large-scale problems that require individuals to respond both collectively and individually.”

Jointly funded by the Joint Forces Command and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, the demonstration is being executed by BBN Technologies, Dave Szulborski, and Aptima. BBN, which was contracted to develop the tools and pedagogy and administer the demonstration, provides tools to support ARGs under its trademark, Helical Training. BBN engaged Szulborski to develop the ARG’s initial scenario and to build on the rich content as the responses and changing circumstances affect the fictional situation. Aptima will evaluate the demonstration and measure participants’ responses against specific learning goals.

Congrats Dave and Jane!

Last year DIY filmmaking pioneers Lance Weiler (The Last Broadcast, Head Trauma, WorkBookProject), Arin Crumley (Four Eyed Monsters) and M dot Strange (We Are The Strange) got together and came up with the idea for a film festival in which audiences can watch films they choose in theatres, in their living room, online and via mobile phones. Not only does this give audiences choice and the filmmakers a global audience, all filmmakers are welcome to submit, they retain their rights, pay no fees AND get revenue directly from the distribution outlets. They’ll also be running virtual panels. Here is some more info about their goals:

The festival’s goal is to create a direct connection between filmmaker and audience. There are no submission fees for filmmakers. FHTA attempts to create multiple revenue opportunities for the festival filmmakers by providing a platform that enables distribution across multiple outlets - mobile, online, living rooms and theaters. Filmmakers retain all their rights and choose how to price their work.

In an interesting twist we’ve decided to put the programming of the festival directly in the hands of the audience. By harnessing the power of social tools, audience members will be able to discover, share and assist in programming the festival.

FROM HERE TO AWESOME consists of four main parts.

1. Discovery – filmmakers and audience members use core features and functions of youTube and myspace to submit and select projects that will be showcased in FHTA.

2. Education – audience members learn filmmaking in an engaging and fun way that has them interacting with their peers and directly with showcased filmmakers.

3. Sharing – audience members enjoy interesting feature length and
short form entertainment which they have helped to program.

4. New Models - the goal of FHTA is to experiment with new distribution models for filmmakers that give them realistic options for reaching global audiences and seeing a return for their creative efforts.

In their generous style, they’re already sharing tips and tricks:

So check it out! It is going to be AWESOME!

I’ve gone a bit New Year crazy and posted four items on UC101:

Ep 002: Transcript of Evan Jones Interview

The first is the text transcript of Evan Jones’s interview – he’s got some great quotes in there (and my conversational style doesn’t translate too well) :/

Admin Update: What’s Happening?

The admin update is a quick overview of what I think this exciting area needs, changes to the UC101 site and a call for contributors. So let me know if you’re interested!

Launching Strategy: Birth Your Alternate Reality in an ARG Community

The launching strategy post is the first in single-topic articles that share some of the lessons learnt so far. In this article I tackle how one can get around the ‘hoax’ issue in ARGs.

Possibility Post: Will Integrated Media Homes Kick the Holodeck’s Butt?

This article is the first exploring possibilities for the future. In particular I look at storytelling and gaming possibilities in a media integrated home.

I look forward to hearing any feedback and ideas you may have.

Welcome to 2008! Wohoo!

As many of you are aware, I’m busy in my PhD writing cave…tapping away at my keyboard to share with you some of my findings from my research over the past few years. Although I’m still active in social sites like Facebook, doing some consulting and writing some articles, I’m working hard to keep focused on writing a PhD I will be proud of. At times, it is a particularly looney state of mind in my cave. Indeed, I bought a t-shirt for myself for Christmas with the writing: “Caution: Thesis Writing in Progress”.

I also counter-balance my deep-furrowed-brow-leather-patched-elbowed-jacket-contemplation with extreme cyberslacking. So, here are some of my favourite distractions for the year so far, along with some notable announcements:

Following on from the 2006 conference, the Beyond Belief series continues the exploration of religion, consciousness, belief and quantum physics with top generous and deep thinking scientists with Enlightenment 2.0. All the vidoes of the presentations are online. I’m enjoying the friendly academic jousting and discussion and also some really clear explanations of complex theories. For instance, David Albert’s presentation on the questions quantum physics has raised.

As for pure non-fiction. I’m so pleased to see a webisode that isn’t targeted to some teen or tween. I’ve been enjoying quarterlife because it does deal with people a bit older. The acting and script is alot better than most webisodes. As for looney surprises. I’m a bit addicted to iChannel now. Here is the webisode premise:

“iChannel” is a collaborative web series about a young man who has his life magically taken over by an audience… YOU. Our goal is a compelling original series where the audience can interact with the creators and the show’s characters in unique, unprecedented ways.

Now, that blurb does on the face of it smell like every other claim about interactivity and participation etc. But this one is really well done. What they do is take comments from the previous episode and integrate them throughout the next episode. Sure, this has been done before, but not to the degree undertaken in this webisode. For instance, while the protagonist is dealing with some issue, he receives an SMS from one of us, or he sees a video, a bit of grafitti on the wall and responds. For the audience, this means we start making comments that we feel will work well in defining or answering certain situations we anticipate. Check it out.

Another bright-side of looneyness is artist Ethan Hayes-Chute’s weekly Good News Newsletter. It is a great way to balance the influx of serious email.

Speaking of participation (not looneyness), theorist Axel Bruns has launched the companion website for his forthcoming book: Blogs, Wikipedia, Second Life, and Beyond: From Production to Produsage:

Produsage, and Produsage.org, is an idea whose time has come.

It builds on a simple, yet fundamental proposition: the proposition that to describe the creative, collaborative, and ad hoc engagement with content for which user-led spaces such as the Wikipedia act as examples, the term production is no longer accurate. This is true even where we re-imagine the concept of production as user-led production, commons-based peer production, or more prosaicly as the production of customer-made products: not the adjectives and qualifiers which we may attach to the term production are the problem, but the very noun itself.

Another colleague, fellow Rotten Tomato Mark Marino has published his elit peice A Show of Hands in the latest issue of Hyperrhiz. While the other rotten tomato Jeremy Douglass has not only finished his PhD on interactive fiction (yay!), he already has a postdoc researcher position for the Software Studies program at the Uni of California San Diego. I love my fellow robed techies.

Best quote of the year (so far):

[W]hile the industry talks about “participation” and “user-generated content,” I don’t think developers always realize how important this is – how they take me back to a time when the best thing in the world was making a new one. Chris Dahlen

As for Cross/Trans/Multi-platform/media/storytelling, the National Association of Television Program Executives (NAPTE) is happening on 28-31 Jan and has a special session on alternate reality games with lots of familiar faces:

Adventures in Storytelling: Alternate Reality Games
Audiences are now living across platforms where their viewing experience is enriched with additional characters that advance storylines and unravel plots beyond weekly broadcasted episodes. Alternate reality games allow the audience to interact with characters and each other in worlds were fiction fuses with reality. Now, both story and audience evolve together. Fast becoming a genre unto itself, cross media production demands new shot callers. What are the roles of executive producers of cross-media? How does technology, distribution, content and social behavior dictate development? With audiences living across multiple platforms in story specific communities, what is the future for traditional television show formats? Brian Seth Hurst, newly appointed second vice chair for the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences and one of The Hollywood Reporter’s Digital 50 for 2007, will be our expert resident for this panel discussion.

Moderator(s): Brian Seth Hurst, CEO, The Opportunity Management Company, Inc.
Panelist(s): Stephen Andrade, Senior Vice President of Digital Development and General Manager, NBC.com; Patrick Crowe, President, Xenophile Media, Inc.; Matt Wolf, Founder, Double Twenty Productions

Before then, on the 21st of Jan, submissions for the 2007 MIPTV 360 Content Pitching Competition will need to be in. Interesting change of terms and themes in this years event: ‘multi-platform co-production on human rights’, ‘mass participation fiction and entertainment’ and ’cause related marketing’.

By the end of Jan you’ll need to get in your application to be an Alternate Reality Game Producer for Six to Start, with (among others) the team from Perplex City.

Also, as many of you would be aware, a lot of projects will be coming out this year and many have already launched. Find815 is the latest outside-TV extension of the Lost universe. The five week interactive online experience is created by Australian company Hoodlum Digital Entertainment. That was obvious (to me), as they’re using a similiar game mechanic and interface they used for Yahoo!7’s PSTrixi. Hoodlum is also behind projects such as ITV Emmerdale’s ‘Who Killed Tom King?’ and Fat Cow Motel.. Although I love the billboards popping up all over the US it seems the ABC have decided to scale down the amount of platforms, reduce the advertising (ya!), and make it more accessible to casual audiences. I hope it works for them.

Well, the final goodie is another ARG design chart. This one is the excel document for the Sharp Legend of the Sacred Urn campaign. It is generously supplied by Michael Monello of CampfireNYC. The pdf is on the ARG Design Charts page.

Okay, I think that is it for now. Except for…Hi, my name is Christy Dena and I’m addicted to area/code’s Facebook Parking Wars game.

Apologies for the lateness of this post — I’ve been snowed under in tropical Australia.

For your holiday pleasure, I’ve put together a listing of ‘Cross-Media Christmas’ gift ideas of goods that came out in 2007. The following are not only cross-media (they’re transmedia & 360 etc) and they’re not only for Christmas, but the alliteration sounds good.

CROSS-MEDIA BABIES

Tiny Love’s DVD MAGIQ™
For babies 3-36months, Tiny Love’s DVD with specially integrated toy looks like a great pressie. What I find especially interesting is the language used in the product sheet. The arguments put forward about the functions of this cross-media product are almost exactly the same rhetoric for those in cross-media entertainment in general. Here is a snippet:

The MAGIQ™ lies within the special triangle formed by baby, doll and media. Baby no longer stares passively at the screen, but looks aside at her friend the doll, pondering its reactions, and causing her to explore her own feelings and react proactively to the stimuli on the screen. The experience here becomes a multi-directional and dynamic interaction between the DVD content, baby and doll. This experience is Active Viewing. The result: Baby is stimulated on a much deeper level, and has a richer and more holistic experience. The Active Viewing experience that DVD MAGIQ™ provides engages baby on a higher intellectual, emotional and social plain and encourages genuine interaction. [source]

CROSS-MEDIA TEENS

Joel and Cat Set the Story Straight
The novel is delivered rotating between the POVs of the characters Joel and Cat, and is linked by their tandem storytelling assignment. The writers, Nick and Rebecca, also wrote the story in a tandem storytelling style, and readers can also participate in the tandem storyelling assignment by submitting story threads on the website or via SMS. I posted about this here.

OTHER CROSS-MEDIA BOOKS

Raw Shark Texts
Steven Hall’s book, Raw Shark Texts, was launched with special content on the website and had a small ARG surrounding the launch. I posted about it here.

CROSS-MEDIA TV

Twin Peaks
The beginning of it all, David Lynch and Mark Frost’s Twin Peaks came out this year in the Definitive Gold Box Edition. You’ll have to buy the feature film and books separately though.

Heroes
NBC’s Heroes exploded from the TV with Heroes Evolutions (Heroes 360 Experience) and graphic novels. You can buy the season one DVD, but you can’t buy the comic that is in the TV series (9th Wonders) (although they did give copies away to fans, the fact that you cannot buy this comic is IMHO a very big missed merchandising opportunity). You can buy the comics that are part of Evolutions though.

Lost
The complete season three of Lost is now available on DVD. ABC’s Lost TV show had of course the The Lost Experience, a book and numerous websites that expanded beyond the episodes. I posted about The Lost Experience when it first started here.

Jericho
During September 1996, CBS launched Beyond Jericho the day after the pilot aired on TV. The webisode series was to follow different characters than those in the series. Only one webisode aired however. But in October the same year a new webisode, Countdown, began. Countdown (Oct/…) was published during the nine-week hiatus. It is a prequel to the events in the TV series. It has only one character from the main series, Robert Hawkins, and follows his research about nuclear bombs before moving to Jericho. In 2007, the first season was made available on DVD.

CSI: NY
In 2007, the complete third season was released on DVD. It includes episode 4, ‘Hung Out to Dry’, which includes real life websites and the ARG t-shirt company EDOC Laundry. So you can buy the DVD (or individual episode) and the t-shirts featured in the series (which are also part of their own ARG).

The Office
October 2007 (perhaps earlier) NBC put up a fictional company website for The Office: Dunder Mifflin Infinity. Mid 2006, between season 2 and 3, they also put out a webisode: The Office: The Accountants. You can buy the DVD and the game that was released in Nov 2007 as well.

Ghost Whisperer
In March 2007, CBS’ Ghost Whisperer: The Other Side webisode provides a shift of point-of-view from the TV series as it is told from the perspective of a ghost, Zach. Eight webisodes were netcast. Slam Internet Productions produced an online graphic novel for Ghost Whisperer, titled Spirit: The Ghost Whisperer . It was edited by Ron Frenz and is available for download in PDF form. The graphic novel is a flashback to the character Melinda Gordan’s school days as a cheerleader, prefiguring the release of the ‘Mean Girls’ TV episode which was broadcast on 9th Feb 2007. The complete second season DVD includes the webisodes.

Skins
From January 2007, after each television episode of Channel 4’s Skins is aired on their pay-TV channel E7, an episode that elaborates on events is released on the web in Unseen Skins. Two extra episodes not published online are supplied in the DVD of the first season.

Firefly
Joss Whedon’s Firefly TV series continued in webisodes, comics and a feature film. A Collector’s Edition of the feature film, Serenity, was released this year and includes the webisodes. You can Buy the comics and TV series on DVD and you’re set!

My Name is Earl
In May 2007, for a special episode of NBC’s My Name Is Earl, ‘Get A Real Job,’ viewers could participate in ‘the first ever “Laugh ‘n Sniff” interactive episode’. Whilst watching the show, viewers were prompted to scratch the special boxes supplied on the scent card in TV Guide. The scents included a ‘new car smell’ for a blow-up doll. So, if you get the episode, ‘Get a Real Job’ through iTunes and an old copy of the TV Guide — you’ve got a replayable simultaneous media experience that is alot of fun. Indeed, this episode was one of the year’s highlights for me. MNiE also has a blog and has done lots of interesting things with fans. I posted about the ‘Laugh ‘n Sniff’ episode here.

CROSS-MEDIA FILM

Late Fragment
This Canadian interactive film by Daryl Cloran, Anita Doron, Mateo Guez, Anita Lee & Ana Serrano, Late Fragment, is the first interactive dramatic feature in North America. It was Vjeed live is available on DVD.

Head Trauma
Lance Weiler’s feature film Head Trauma was, in cross-media exploration terms, the stand-out cross-media project for 2007. It included both a cinema ARG, ARG (Hope is Missing), interactive graphic novel and many other online explorations. YOu can buy the Head Trauma DVD at Lance’s online store, get it VOD through portals such as Amazon UnBoxed and Xbox Movies, or even a DVD bundle with The Last Broadcast — the first integrated feature film & website project. I posted about Head Trauma here and here.

Pirates of the Carribean
Pirates of the Carribean: At World’s End Collector’s Edition came out in 2007. Pirates of course has a long history, beginning as a ride at Disneyland and includes projects such as the 2006 online interactive adventure: Dead Man’s Tale. Worthy of note too, is the specially-crafted book that came out in 2007: The Secret Files of the East India Trading Company. This book is set after the events of the third film, and is written in the style of ARG-like Cathy’s Book: written incharacter with bits that fall out of the pages. Respected imagineer Jim Hill reviews the book created by Becker & Mayer.

The Host
In 2007, Magnolia Films commissioned ARG Studios to create an ARG for Bong Joon Ho’s The Host . The ARG, Monster Hunt Club, helped market the release of the Korean film in the US. The DVD was released July this year.

Southland Tales
Richard Kelly, the director of Donnie Darko, brought out his cross-media project that combines a feature film, experiential website, and graphic novels.

CROSS-MEDIA MUSIC

Year Zero
Earlier this year Trent Reznor expanded the music experience to an alternate reality game: Year Zero. Though the game has finished, you can still go through most of the sites and read the still-active community posts, and buy the music in digital and/or CD form.

American Girl Posse
Tori Amos’ album American Girl Posse features five different characters, each of which have their own blog: Clyde, Isabel, Tori, Santa, Pip. So, you can read the blogs and then hear the characters sing on the CD.

CROSS-MEDIA GAMING

World of Warcraft
You can buy a subscription to the World of Warcraft MMORPG and the comics have begun to be sold.

The Lord of the Rings Online
2007 saw the release of the Lord of the Rings Online: Shadows of Angmar, a highly regarded online game that is set in the LOTR universe. You can give a subscription to this continuation of the LOTR experience.

CROSS-MEDIA DONATIONS
And then of course there is the trend of using the money you would to buy someone a gift and donating it to a charity, cause or community of their behalf. Here are a couple of cross-media related communities ideas:

• Donate to the Unfiction Unforums, the community where most ARGs and most transmedia works are played
• Donate to Networked Performance, a blog that has for the last few years been sharing information about all forms of networked performance, locative arts and games, along with Turbulence, and important organisation that funds networked performances. They need $25,000 by Dec 31st in order to keep going, and ask for a mere $5 pledge. More info on the fundraising.

CROSS-MEDIA THEORY
As for theory or design books…There have been no books dedicated to cross-media that have come out this year. There have been plenty of books out about Heroes and Lost etc, but none of them feature any substantial information about their extended experiences. There are two publications, however, that aren’t academic books (they’re written by academics & designers for general readers) that may be of interest:

• Kristin Thompson’s The Frodo Franchise: The Lord of the Rings and Modern Hollywood. Check out the blog for more info.
• The edited collection of Space Time Play: Computer Games, Architecture and Urbanism: The Next Level. In this collection ARG and pervasive game designers & theorists contributed lots of short entries (including me). Check out the main site.

Anyway, that is a quick list of some gifts you can buy for a cross-media fan. They do not include all the cross-media projects that happened in 2007, and not all of them are good, but the list is nevertheless fun. Let me know if you have some suggestions too.

I look forward to 2008 — there are some great projects coming out, and I’ll have my PhD finished. Very, very exciting.

All the best,
Christy

Now this is something I find interesting. The Entertainment Technology Center at the University of Southern California (with big entertainment industry sponsors such as Disney, LucasFilms, NBCUniversal, Fox, Sony, Paramount) are building an ‘Anytime/Anywhere Content Lab’ (AACL). The overview:

The AACL will showcase a wide spectrum of leading edge products, services and technologies in action. It will use these tools to examine the technological and sociological implications of providing content to consumers who desire it at anytime, on any device, anywhere they happen to be. The Lab’s activities will advance the interests of all industry stakeholders, especially content producers and distributors, network providers, electronics manufacturers, hardware and software companies, service providers and consumers.

The lab research questions:

1. Understanding the Consumer – What are consumer expectations for the integrated digital home and for content on the go? What new attributes and features will consumers find valuable? How can we begin to illustrate tomorrow’s consumer demands and usage patterns, today

2. Digital Delivery – How will consumer demand shape the delivery of digital content, whether by pipe (terrestrial TV, cable, satellite, broadband) or by physical media (DVD, solidstate memory, portable devices)?

3. Managing Content – How will content be moved from device to device and from server to device? How can access to content be made seamless, yet still support commercial transactions and a range of consumer usage options?

4. Identifying Synergies – What are the potential areas for cross-industry collaboration to create new product offerings and to provide greater choice and enjoyment to consumers?

Boy, I would love to get in there are trial specially-designed stories and games for such a media-integrated environment. Indeed, my intention at the beginning of my PhD research was to do user-testing of cross-media stories I had created…but I just ran out of time. It is great to see this sort of thing happening though: a lab for the next generation of technologists and creators.

• Check it out