News from MocoNews: Channel 4 is running a website called FourDocs. FourDocs is the “place to upload, watch and learn about documentary“. It is addressing the desire for audiences to create their own shows, learn about filmmaking, share their view of the world, and their stories. Audiences have been jumping on uploading video clips, viral videos, vlogs, machinima and now Movies for a while. Some traditional media antecendants include TV shows like Funniest Home Videos, in which audiences send in video tapes of their friends and relatives making fools of themselves or narrowly missing a violent death. So this site is fitting in nicely with an audience desire. But it is doing something else too, docs created by the audiences are available for viewing online and also for download on the street…
FourDocs are being “bluecast” in from underground train stations and cinemasa cross the UK. Through specially created posters advertising the show people can download through their mobile phone using bluetooth 8 different FourDocs. The online ‘show’ started 2 weeks before the Viacom Outdoors Bluetooth campaign. The campaign was “planned by OMD UK and Michaelides & Bednash”. [Brand Republic] Channel 4 is the first to sign up for the bluetooth poster sites using bluetooth technology.
Another has jumped on the bluetooth service already though: Trans World Entertainment Partners (a music store franchise) & WideRay are creating “Download & Go” mobile entertainment stations. Upon entering the store, people with a bluetooth or infrared-enabled phone will be sent an offer to download: “music, video, games, ringtones and wallpapers from EMI Music, Twentieth Century Fox, Digital Chocolate” for free or as “try-and-buy applications”. Also on offer will be full-length games that can be paid for in-store. [WideRay press release]
This is great for mobile phones, but also for users and content creators. It also opens the door for wireless advertising. I really like the idea of getting good content, good stories from an advertisement in a bus shelter. The breaking down of the boundaries between advertising and storytelling, between story space and real-life space, between story technology and real life technology will have an interesting effect on people me thinks…