Well, not quite ‘death’ but an indefinite hiatus. I’m powering down this blog for a few reasons, one of which is my desire to finish my PhD. I’ve tried for the last year and a half to do PhD writing and work and this blog, but found the mindsets are somewhat incompatable. I’ve decided therefore to close this blog down. I don’t know if I’ll bring it up again and if I do when, or whether I’ll start another one. But I do know that I have thoroughly enjoyed blogging here these past few years. I have especially enjoyed meeting many of you because of the blog, and seeing ‘cross-media’ (etc) projects become ubiquitous. Thankfully, the area has alot more people looking at it now, from alot of different perspectives. Here are some blogs that will keep you informed:
Networked Performance: research blog that posts about emerging network-enabled practice;
You can read and listen to news about alternate reality games and just about any online extension of a film, TV or book property on the ARGNet blog and ARG Netcast (podcast);
DeMontfort University share their investigations into what they term ‘Transliteracy’ at their PART blog;
Jeff Gomez, the CEO of Starlight Runner and longtime practitioner of ‘trans-media’ projects, is now blogging regularly about his insights and experience over at the Producers Guild of America blog;
Tony Walsh posts semi-regularly on alternate reality games;
Valentina Rao blogs about crossmedia games and anything related to that at Games Across Media, and will hopefully be starting her PhD on the subject soon;
Johnathan Gray, Derek Johnson and Ivan Askwith are blogging about everything around TV and film at The Extratextuals;
Crossmedia Dialog is a group blog that post regularly on crossmedia in Amsterdam and worldwide;
Faris Yakob, Adam Crowe blog about ‘transmedia planning’ and other changes to the marketing industry;
Jak Boumans posts every single day about stuff happening in the Netherlands and worldwide at Buziaulane;Â
MobileCrossMedia is a blog that looks at the different ways mobile phones can network with different devices and the real world;
If you don’t already get it, the Convergence Newsletter has regular interesting newsletters about convergence in journalism and has been my favourite newsletter for the past few years;
I don’t plan to be blogging here about events or publications I’m involved in, instead I’ll pop them on my bio site. But for now, here are some events I’m involved with, in the not-too-distant-future:
I’ll be on the ‘expert panel’ with Mark McCrindle and Tim Flattery at Mitchell Communications Group ‘s launch of ‘While You Weren’t Watching’, a documentary on changes to branded entertainment etc in which I was interviewed. The launch is private but the documentary will be put online I believe in Nov;Â
In Feb 08, my essay on ‘Tiering in Alternate Reality Games’ will be published in the special issue of Convergence edited by Henry Jenkins and Mark Deuze.
For now though, I will continue to be online in a different way. I’ve started a podcast, a podcast where I’ll interview talented people working in this area. My ‘birth’ podcast is a bit awkward, but the second is a great one:Â an interview with Stitch Media’s Evan Jones. At the site, I also provide sneak preview information about Stitch Media’s latest project.
That is it for me here, thankyou all for sharing this time with me. I’ll see you on the other side of my PhD.
A link to the audio and transcript for a casual (but invited) talk I gave at the Web Standards Group. See the ‘Thinking Outside the Web’ talk in the industry presentations section.
I have a short essay, ‘A Quick Primer on Alternate Realities’, that has been published in Friedrich von Borries, Steffen P. Walz and Matthias Bottger (Eds) book: Space Time Play: Synergies between Computer Games, Architecture and Urbansim. The book is now available to buy, and includes an amazing collection of game theorists: www.SpaceTimePlay.com
And, I’m sad to say that I’ve powered down my blog. I need to concentrate on my PhD. But will be online a little bit…as I’m thrilled to report, I’ve launched a podcast: www.UniverseCreation101.com. I’ll be interviewing expert practitioners in the area of cross/trans/multi-platform/media. The first interview is up, it is with Evan Jones. Check it out!
Evan Jones of Stitch Media is the first guest on this podcast. Evan has a grand background, present and future in all things to do with contemporary entertainment. He used to be the Creative Director at Xenophile Media, where he worked on acclaimed projects such as the ReGenesis Extended Reality Games. In this podcast he”ll talk about artificial intelligence, alternate reality games, communities, his not-so-secret past and we”ll reveal some secret future projects.
Here are links to items we touch on during the interview:
Bonus Level!
Stitch Media has launched the online component of Survivorman and here is a sneak preview of the interactive component created by Stitch Media for CBC”s upcoming TV show ”The Border”:
Any questions for Evan? Let me know and I”ll ask him and you”ll have the answers in the next podcast…