Posts
Tuesday, January 31, 2012
How The State of the Movie Industry in 1991 Echoes Through to Today (and Why Movie Fans Should Care) | Film School Rejects
On January 11, 1991, the then-head of Disney studios, Jeffrey Katzenberg, circulated an incredibly important memo about the state of the movie industry and the products they were making. It was called, “The World is Changing: Some Thoughts on Our Business,” and it had a simple purpose: to locate the root of a growing problem and to take steps to avoid falling victim to it.
Katzenberg began the memo by stating:
“As we begin the new year, I strongly believe we are entering a period of great danger and even greater uncertainty. Events are unfolding within and without the movie industry that are extremely threatening to our studio.”
Read the full post here:
http://www.filmschoolrejects.com/opinions/how-the-state-of-the-movie-industry...
I'll Follow: Sherlock Holmes and the Mystery of Social TV. | SocialMedia.ie
via socialmedia.ie
There's a full article here:;
http://www.socialmedia.ie/social-media-blog/sherlock-holmes-solves-the-social...
I'm following these now:
To follow the Sherlock characters check out:
@SherlockSH, @WatsonJW, @Molly_MH, @NotAHousekeeper,
@MoriartyJM, @MycroftMH, @HarryHW, @LestradeGL,
@AndersonSY, @SallyDonovan.
Whoa! University of Toronto: Oohalala Mobile Launches North America’s First Campus Augmented Reality Game
PRESS RELEASE: Oohalala Mobile Launches North America’s First Campus Augmented Reality Game
January 31st, 2012 by Leah Henrickson | Co-Editor
Note: The original text has been slightly altered.
On January 23rd, Oohlala Mobile announced the transformation of University of Toronto’s St. George campus into a virtual playground. By downloading the app, Oohlala, students become contestants in a digital treasure hunt, utilizing the GPS on their smartphones to locate and acquire the treasure. The hunt involves three simple steps:
Step 1: Locate the treasure chest using the app.
Step 2: Obtain the treasure chest.
Step 3: Prevent others stealing it from you!
Other students using the app are able to snatch the chest if they are within 50m of the prize holder. Students must use their wits, determination and speed while trying to hold on to the prize over a 5-day period! The person holding the chest on Thursday, February 6th at 5pm is the winner of a high-end Macbook Air, while the person who has held on to the chest the longest without its capture gets a semester’s worth of text books for free.
Check out the game here: www.CampusApp.com
via blogut.ca
read the full post here!
http://www.blogut.ca/2012/01/31/press-release-oohalala-mobile-launches-north-...
Sundance Film Hunger In L.A. Immerses Viewers In An Interactive Journalism Experience | Co.Create: Creativity \ Culture \ Commerce
via fastcocreate.com
BY: LIZZY GOODMAN
"One of the most talked-about--and harrowing--Sundance films wasn’t a film in the traditional sense. Hunger In L.A., which screened at the New Frontier Pavilion, is an interactive experience that puts participants in the middle of a shocking food line incident. Its creator, journalist-turned-documentarian Nonny de la Peña, talks about the making of the project and its potential impact beyond Sundance....
...The innovative project combines filmmaking, augmented reality, and journalism to recreate a real incident that took place two years ago at a food bank line in L.A. De la Peña used game development software Unity 3D, motion tracking, and a head-mounted goggle display, combined with live audio she recorded during the incident itself to create an immersive, and affecting, experience.
As de la Peña describes how she created the project, her colleague John Brennan follows a man around as he walks in circles occasionally reaching his hand out or crouching down to interact with avatars only he can see. He’s watching a simulation of the events at the First Unitarian Church’s distribution line when a man waiting for food went into a diabetic coma. Six and a half minutes later, Brennan taps him on the shoulder and helps him out of the goggles. “Wow,” the man exclaims, visibly affected. “That was intense.”...
Read the full post here:
http://www.fastcocreate.com/1679530/hunger-in-la-immerses-viewers-in-an-inter...
A Few Grim Truths About Media Right Now (and One Happy One) | Commentary and analysis from Simon Dumenco - Advertising Age
A Few Grim Truths About Media Right Now (and One Happy One)
Paul Deen and TV's Karaoke Economy Sadden Our Media Guy, but Stephen Colbert Saves the Day
As Ad Age's "Media Guy," it's technically my job to try to make sense of the media world. Sometimes it's not easy, but of course I stand on the shoulders of giants (including those of a certain Comedy Central host). Other times I wish I could stomp on the kneecaps of the media world's cretins, but I won't get into that right now. Anyway, here's a quick download of what I've figured out lately:
-->Colbert's antics in South Carolina have shown how ludicrous the political situation is.
Stephen Colbert is America's greatest living cultural/media critic
Hands down. Part of the credit, of course, goes to the writing team on "The Colbert Report" (somehow already 6 years old and more essential than ever), but it's Colbert's pitch-perfect rendition of the "Stephen Colbert" character that makes his show's satire work so brilliantly night after night. There is no funnier or smarter (or more heartbreaking or depressing) deconstruction of the American scene -- particularly our fatally flawed political process, as signified by Colbert's Super PAC -- to be found anywhere else in the culture right now.America's entertainment industry = the new Karaoke Economy
"China's products are popular, but rarely original," the journal of the British nonprofit Design Council declared in a 2007 piece titled "The Karaoke Economy." But if you read The New York Times' epic investigation last week headlined "How the U.S. Lost Out on iPhone Work," you know why China gets to make so many of the world's state-of-the-art gadgets even if the ideas for them originated in, say, Cupertino. (Hint: It's not just about cheap labor; the sophistication of China's supply chain has left America's in the dust.)What does the U.S. still make?
via adage.com
Read Simon Dumenco's full smart post on AdAge:
http://adage.com/article/the-media-guy/a-grim-truths-media-happy/232377/
Super Cool! RELEASED JUST NOW... Watch Terry Gilliam's new movie ONLY online… via Distrify
RELEASED JUST NOW… Watch Terry Gilliam’s new movie ONLY online… via Distrify
Today is a big day for online distribution pioneers Distrify – film legend Terry Gilliam has made a short and he is releasing on their platform. By now, it should be live and selling.
You can rent and watch it right her, right now…
That’s one of the GREAT things about Distrify. You can put the player (aka YOUR shop window) anywhere on the web – blog, homepage, Facebook, fansite. It’s not just your site, but through affiliate marketing, you can attract people who have websites with large audiences. There is a reason why this film is on the Guardian website – they get an automatic cut of every penny generated via the affiliate marketing deal on offer.
Monday, January 30, 2012
Very cool: Many Kickstarter-Funded Films Played at the Sundance Film Festival - NYTimes.com
Excerpt: "....Kickstarter-funded Sundance movies included the well-received documentaries “Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry” and “Me @ the Zoo.” Dramatic films included “Black Rock” as well as “My Best Day,” and “Mosquita y Mari.” More experimental efforts like “Abacus” and “Room 237″ (profiled here) were also Kickstarter projects.
Many of the so-called Kickstarter films were pretty far out there and were no threat for a theatrical release, but “Indie Game: The Movie,” a film about game developers, was optioned by producer Scott Rudin and HBO for development as a series..."
MUST READ! Mike Masnick & Michael Ho's State of the Entertainment Industry Report: The Sky Is Rising | Techdirt.
via techdirt.com
Grazie for Michael Masnick & Michael Ho for putting the Report online for downloading!
Link here:
Must Read: Uzi Shmilovici on How to make freemium work for you — Excerpt via Tech News and Analysis
By Uzi Shmilovici, Future Simple Jan. 29, 2012, 12:00pm PT
After studying this topic thoroughly and talking to many entrepreneurs, I found that there were two questions that people kept struggling with:
- What happens to the customer acquisition cost in freemium?
- What is the right free/premium segmentation?
Customer acquisition cost in freemium
Some people argue that freemium significantly increases the customer acquisition cost, and that the increase might in turn lead to disastrous results. The argument is that it costs money to acquire every new user, while only a sliver of them end up paying.
In order to understand what happens to the customer acquisition cost in freemium, let’s assume that your marketing investment is a given, so we’ll consider what happens to the total amount of premium users in the case of freemium.
The total amount of premium users depends on three factors:
- the amount of people visiting your site (traffic)
- how many of them sign up (signup conversion)
- how many of those who signed up become paying members (premium conversion).
via gigaom.com
Read the full post here:
Nice Post! Scott Walker on: Wyrd Con 2: One LARP, Two Panels, Infinite Fun
This is a long overdue post about my adventures at Wyrd Con 2 in 2011.
If any of this sounds interesting, be sure to contact Lauren Scime (lauren at witchfactory dot com) about running a LARP, organizing a workshop, or speaking on a panel at Tri Wryd this June!
I had the pleasure of slipping down to Costa Mesa, CA for part of Wyrd Con 2 on June 10th and 11th, 2011. It was my first time at a convention focused on live action role-playing (LARP), and while there was plenty of LARPing to be had, to say Wyrd Con was just an annual LARP convention is a grave disservice. Wyrd Con is much more than what you typically think of when you hear “LARP.”
In addition to a spectrum of widely varying LARPs, attendees also got to enjoy:
- panels
- workshops
- film screenings
- a dedicated space for merchandise
I was humbled to be asked to co-moderate the “Interactive Storytelling” panel with Kirsten Carthew, and I was a panelist on the “Transmedia and LARP” panel moderated by Angelique Toschi and featuring Lauren Scime, Alistair Jeffs, and Bret Shefter (all members of Transmedia L.A.).
I also checked out a few workshops on making original costume/clothing, crafting weapons for boffing combat, and even basic boffing techniques (not as sexy as it sounds but a lot more fun than you think).
The highlight for me was running the “Spirits of Kita-mura” LARP, an experience set in Runes of Gallidon (a shared world of fiction, art, and more, with its own history and mythos).
It was the first LARP I had ever designed, and my LARPing experience was (at that time) limited to traditional table-top role-playing in the form of D&D. I was nervous about a great many things.
via metascott.com
Read Scott's full post here!
http://metascott.com/2012/01/27/wyrd-con-2-one-larp-two-panels-infinite-fun/#
Very Cool: NY Times launches Deep Dive beta620 | Exploring Stories With Deep Dive
From the NY Times:
Why Deep Dive?
One of our central problems here at NYTimes.com is surfacing content. With hundreds of articles, blog posts, media features and apps published every day it is simply impossible for readers to see them all. This is a good problem to have, but a problem none the less. So how do we help readers find everything they would want to read given that they only have the time to scan a small fraction of what we have to offer? We do so in many ways:Our homepage/section front/subsection breakdown of the site itself goes a long way in allowing our editorial voice to guide visitors to a combination of what is important and what they want to read. The Recommendation Engine allows us to leverage the power of distributed computing to reference each user’s personal browsing history, then leverage connection via our semantic tags. Facebook and Twitter allow us to provide a social angle showing what people in networks are sharing. Elements such as Most E-Mailed take another approach allowing people to follow what is most popular.
What is Deep Dive?
Deep Dive stands among these, but differentiates itself in one key way: it allows users to discover something then focus their attention deeper based on that piece of content. Each of the methods above take a global viewpoint. For example the Recommendation Engine looks at all of the articles a reader has viewed (over a 30-day time period), Most E-Mailed shows popularity across the site. With Deep Dive, a visitor is able to leverage topical tagging (and eventually semantic, editorial, social and other) connections between content stemming from the piece of content that has piqued their interest.The first iteration of Deep Dive is basically a glorified “show me more like this” engine customized for the news reading experience. It allows a user to dive into a root article and see related articles based on date and topics. It is presented in a custom viewing experience that allows for quick scanning of related articles to allow readers to quickly get a deep contextual understanding of the greater scope of the story. At launch, this includes primarily articles and blog posts, but we intend to expand the viewer to support video, multimedia and other content types as well.
Looking Ahead
Beyond a root article, users can create any combination of topics and search terms they would like to customize a personally compelling dive. In the future we look to take advantage of more semantic and descriptive data to increase the ways in which users can refine their dives.Bringing the concept into the temporal dimension, Deep Dive will allow readers to follow these story arcs. By saving a deep dive, users are basically telling our system what slice of the news they want to follow. As new articles are published that fit the criteria, alerts will tell readers that there is something happening surfacing the article for them. For custom dives, this system can be used to keep and eye out for rare occurrences or simply keep up to date on a specialized interest.
Thinking socially, dives could easily be shared across existing social media or internal NYTimes social tools. Influence for dives can be measured by how many people follow them and navigate through them, which can lead into personal reputation for the people crafting the dives.
Ultimately, we look forward to continually improving Deep Dive as NYTimes content metadata and social mechanisms mature. We would love to hear any ideas or uses that you have for this concept.
Thanks,
David, Brandon and Priya
Henry Jenkins' New Post: On Transmedia and Education: A Conversation With Robot Heart Stories' Jen Begeal and Inanimate Alice's Laura Fleming (Part Two)
January 27, 2012On Transmedia and Education: A Conversation With Robot Heart Stories' Jen Begeal and Inanimate Alice's Laura Fleming (Part Two)
Some transmedia properties are entirely top-down, deploying fairly conventional models of authorship, despite their deployment across multiple media platforms. Others include strong elements of participatory culture. How central is youth participation in the production and circulation of media to your visions for transmedia education?
Jen: Youth participation is very important In production and circulation as many Transmedia projects are aimed at young people, and the ones aimed at adults require that the adults have some prior knowledge of media which leads us back to teaching media literacy at a young age. Specific youth aimed projects, like Robot Heart Stories, require that the students create their own videos, write collaborative stories and construct and color their own paper robots (called "heart packs") which were pdf downloads from the website. The theory behind transmedia education is that user generated content (i.e. created by the students themselves) should be at the core of these projects.Laura: Story-driven user-generated content is a powerful piece of the transmedia experience and in my opinion is an essential consideration for any educational property. Technology tools allow for new forms of participation and learners inevitably seek out those opportunities. Even just the notion of creating transmedia experiences for specific groups or demographics is something we need to consider carefully. Learners themselves should be immersed in the creative process to ensure that they are not mere consumers of the experience.What are the implications of teaching a generation not only how to read but also how to write across media?
via henryjenkins.org
Read the full post here:
http://henryjenkins.org/2012/01/on_transmedia_and_education_a.html
Reach and Frequency: SEO Secret to Brand Building on Google? - Search Engine Watch (#SEW)
By Mark Jackson, January 29, 2012
For those of us who have been in search engine optimization (SEO) for a number of years, we can recall the days when SEO efforts were measured by a ranking report, alone. That is to say, you might pick your top 50 keywords, dump these into a rank checker, run a report monthly, and determine whether these 50 keywords moved up successfully or fell in the search rankings.
SEO Evolution
We evolved. We:
- Incorporated reports on link building efforts.
- Started to incorporate increases in natural/organic search traffic from our web analytics reports.
- Started breaking out branded versus non-branded keyword traffic.
- Started looking at conversion rates (what percentage of our organic search visitors were completing lead forms and/or buying products from our site).
- Incorporated call-tracking and looked at conversion path, to include multi-channel conversion tracking.
What’s Next?
read the full post here:
http://searchenginewatch.com/article/2142065/Reach-and-Frequency-SEO-Secret-t...
Sunday, January 29, 2012
4 Simple Steps to a Facebook Timeline that Tells Your Marketing Story | Copyblogger
via copyblogger.com
Read the full post here:
http://www.copyblogger.com/facebook-timeline/
Here are the bullet points:
"There are four key parts to the Timeline that will help you tell your story:
1. Using the Subscribe button,
2. Adding a great Cover photo,
3. Crafting your About page, and
4. Adding activity and Life Events to your Timeline.
Let’s take a look at each of these four more closely …"
Love love love: Vivian Maier: Street Photographer – powerHouse Books
There is still very little known about the life of Vivian Maier. What is known is that she was born in New York in 1926 and worked as a nanny for a family on Chicago’s North Shore during the 50s and 60s. Seemingly without a family of her own, the children she cared for eventually acted as caregivers for Maier herself in the autumn of her life. She took hundreds of thousands of photographs in her lifetime, but never shared them with anyone. Maier lost possession of her art when her storage locker was sold off for non-payment. She passed away in 2009 at the age of 83.
CATS ON FILM: MY DAY BY JONESY: A CAT'S EYE VIEW OF ALIEN
Excerpt from a brilliant post by Jonesy.
"...In short, one cannot overestimate the importance of Jones to Alien. This is his story.
MY DAY by JONESY
Y-a-w-n. Was just having a pleasant dream about eviscerating a small family of fieldmice when the can-opener tipped me off her chest by sitting up. Impossible to go back to sleep with the can-openers all aflutter like this. S-t-r-e-t-c-h. They seem to think we're home. I could tell them we're not, but I'll leave them to work that out for themselves. No sense of direction, these people. But hey, since I'm awake, might as well take advantage of the situation to tuck into some moggynosh. I eat at the big table, like everyone else. I have my own bowl with JONES painted on the side so the can-openers won't steal my food.
Since it doesn't look as though anyone's going back into hypersleep any time soon, I do my usual patrol around the bowels of the ship. Yeah, no changes here. Everything just as I left it. But all that patrolling is exhausting, so I take a nap behind some nice warm pipes in one of the boiler rooms. Hmmmm. Hamsters. Crunchy little bones. Hmmmm..
Woken by the ship landing somewhere. Not Earth though, so go back to sleep. Woken again by a lot of shouting and neurotic activity coming from somewhere on the far side of the vessel. Honestly, can't these people show a hardworking feline any respect? But hey, since I'm up now, might as well go on the hunt for space rodents. Space rodents! Who am I kidding? No such thing, of course. When we first took off from earth, many cat-years ago, there was a family of rats nesting in the engine room, but I soon sorted them out. Maybe too soon; maybe I should have left them alone to breed a bit, so their descendants could have entertained me during the rest of the voyage. There's nothing left to hunt. Nothing. But how was I to know we'd be cooped up for so long? Anyhow, I offered generous gifts of dead rat to everyone in the crew, except the one who doesn't smell like the others; he tried to stroke me once, but got the rhythm all wrong and his fingers were too hard, so mainly I steer clear of him now...."
Read the full post here:
Free Online Book on Accessibility & Design | Just Ask: Integrating Accessibility Throughout Design
Just Ask: Integrating Accessibility Throughout DesignWelcome to Just Ask, a different kind of accessibility book
Just Ask: Integrating Accessibility Throughout Design
helps designers, developers, and managers
create websites, software, hardware, and consumer products that
- are accessible to people with disabilities and older users,
- provide a better user experience for all users, and
- help organizations maximize the benefits of accessibility.
Please read the Introduction, which sets the stage for the book and gives examples of why it's so important to make your products accessible.
- Just Ask is available free online in English, Spanish (Español), and Japanese (日本語) thanks to sponsors and supporters. If your organization might be interested in sponsoring Just Ask, see Sponsorship Opportunities.
- The print book is available in English from Amazon, and for much less from here. The print book is also available in Spanish from Imprimir libro.
via uiaccess.com
Brilliant Post from Rob Walker: Santorum's Tragic Sweater Vest: Design Observer
Excerpt from a great post by Rob Walker:
"...What are the semiotics of this particular garment? Demetri Martin once joked that life vests protect you from drowning, bulletproof vests protect you from gunfire — and sweater vests protect you from pretty girls. The popular reading of Santorum’s vest, however, seems to be that it makes him identifiable: a regular guy, down to earth, approachable, a man of the people. The candidate himself offers a talismanic explanation for the style, noting that it was while wearing a sweater vest at an Iowa campaign event that he felt his electoral fortunes beginning to change.
Possibly all of that can be rolled into a reading of the sweater vest as signalling geeky charm, dulling Santorum’s extremely hard-edged rhetoric. As anyone who’s been watching the debates knows, he deploys sharp elbows to underscore his uncompromising views on a variety of social and political issues. And if he was known for much to the general public prior to this election, it was mostly for inflaming ideological opponents. To be blunt, he largely comes across as angry, and sort of a jerk. Given that his more liberal enemies paint him as narrow-minded hate monger, maybe a sweater vest de-fangs that image a bit, at least visually. How threatening, after all, can a man in a sweater vest really be?..."
read the full post here:
http://observersroom.designobserver.com/robwalker/post/santorums-tragic-sweat...
Great Resource from The Arrglington Jump - A Year in Showcases (Part 3)
The Los Angeles Ghost Patrol is a paranormal investigation team focused on Southern California hauntings. The project came into our radar thanks to project producer Susan Bell, who has come up with a great Prezi presentation to describe exactly the Transmedia stratergy for LAGP. Among the platforms developed for the project include the web, film, TV and an ARG.
The Rising is an organization made up of both ordinary people & genetically unique warriors known as Seers. The Rising is dedicated to the preservation and advancement of human society, and the destruction of the Wraiths. The Rising came into our radar by creators Philip Gable and Lauren Scime from Witchfactory Productions. The driving platform for the projects is the book, which is currently available for purchase here.
GATES is a young man living a wretched existence in an isolated colony of humans. Deep within the caverns of an industrial mountain complex, his society is ruled by a totalitarian government called the ConGenement–who controls all facets of life. Gates came into our radar by creator Hal Hefner. The driving platform for the project is the web comic, which as of recently just wrapped up the first year of publication. The comic is being presented by Heavy Metal Magazine.
See April's full list here (& Part 1 & 2):
http://thearrglingtonjump.com/blog/2012/01/26/a-year-in-showcases-part-3#
5 low-profile startups that could change the face of big data — Cloud Computing News
5 low-profile startups that could change the face of big data
Big data is hot, but infrastructure-level platforms such as Hadoop, which focus on storage and processing, still need help to take them into the mainstream. They need a killer app or two that will let companies analyze, visualize and act on all that data without hiring a team of Stanford Ph.Ds, or that will let developers write big-data apps without having to reinvent the wheel.
Here are five startups (in alphabetical order) either in stealth mode or just out of it that could help take Hadoop and its ilk to the promised land.
1. BloomReach
The stealth-mode BloomReach is taking a very targeted, very hands-free approach to big data for its customers. It’s offering a SaaS-based product that job listings say is for “helping leading online businesses uncover the highest quality, most relevant content sought by their consumers, when and where they want it.” Founded by a team with roots at Google, Cisco, Facebook and Yahoo, among other companies, BloomReach has, according to one estimate, about 160 customers — all of them among the top 10,000 websites, and most of them in the retail space. Among its core technologies and methods are Hadoop, Lucene, Monte Carlo simulations and large-scale image processing.
via gigaom.com
Excerpt from gigaom.com. Full post here:
http://gigaom.com/cloud/5-low-profile-startups-that-could-change-the-face-of-...
Apple Buy Hollywood? That’s A Terrible Idea. Connect with Audiences? Do That. | TechCrunch
via techcrunch.com
Excerpt from the full TechCrunch group:
"Netflix, Amazon, iTunes and YouTube need to develop marketing chops, and ways to communicate with audiences on a deep visceral level. They all have a huge and powerful opportunity to move audiences — an intimate, activated, one-to-one relationship with a person sitting just an arms length away from their computer screen; or on their couch with a brand-new jury rigged gadget, invested, motivated and ready to get their socks knocked-off. Instead, users are greeted with a miasma of cover art, lists of titles in all shapes and sizes and a search box — no communication, no connection.
How can digital entertainment services connect with audiences? Three easy steps, and a bonus feature:
1. People. Tech companies need to hire people to shine a light on the best stuff, and craft the stories that sell it to audiences (at least for now, until computers catch-up and develop wit, emotion, creativity the ability to write with heart). Some people call this curation. Others packaging and promotion.
2. Design. They need to create interfaces to capture audiences and connect to users.
Living, breathing beautiful displays that make you watch, and want to click.
3. Tools. Tech companies should leverage what their platforms do best — target, track and account — to deliver those stories to interested audiences en masse...."
Saturday, January 28, 2012
The Definitely Not Hacked By Stephen Colbert Super PAC (taken verbatim from the Colbert Super Pac email)
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World’s first transmedia sculpture walk makes its home in UC Davis | Davis Enterprise
Our Sunday best: World’s first transmedia sculpture walk makes its home in Davis
Finley Fryer’s “Stan, the Submerging Man ” will be a “portal to another world” during the first-ever transmedia sculpture walk on Friday, Feb. 17. Fred Gladdis/Enterprise photoSorry, Mayor Bloomberg, but New York City won’t be the first city in the world to feature a transmedia walking tour through its busy streets. In a few short weeks, that honor will belong to Davis.
On Friday, Feb. 17, John Natsoulas, in collaboration with Monto H. Kumagai, a software developer, and Finley Fryer, a UC Davis graduate and local artist, will unveil the beginnings of a transmedia sculpture walk highlighting various pieces of artwork in key locations throughout downtown Davis.
The inaugural walk will take place at 4:30 p.m. that day, beginning at the John Natsoulas Gallery, 521 First St.
Natsoulas said that besides “Stan, the Submerging Man,” which already is in place in front of the gallery, artwork is scheduled to be installed next week in front of the Davis Commons shopping center at First and E streets; at Dowling Properties at Third and D streets; at Davis Ace Housewares at Third and G streets; and in front of Ace Hardware in the 300 block of G Street.
“These are the first five that will be placed. We will place five more in the month of March,” Natsoulas said. “Our goal is to have at least 15 to 20 new sculptures up by the end of the year.”
read the full article here!:
http://www.davisenterprise.com/features/sunday-best/our-sunday-best-worlds-fi...
Hurray! After 17 Years, Scott Snibbe Resurrects Animated Art Project As iPad App | Co.Design
Like his previous app Oscilloscoop, MotionPhone’s UI and controls don’t offer
via fastcodesign.com
John Pavlus' original post has more details here:
http://www.fastcodesign.com/1668901/after-17-years-scott-snibbe-resurrects-an...
'Camera Solo': Singer Patti Smith's photographs on display - Interview on BBC News
'Camera Solo': Singer Patti Smith's photographs on display
Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee, Patti Smith, who became a significant influence on the punk rock scene with the release of her debut album Horses in 1975, is far more than a singer-songwriter.
She is also a poet, an artist, a mother and an author. Her recent memoir "Just Kids" won the National Book Award.
via bbc.co.uk
STORYCODE AND “GAME OF THRONES”- Steve Coulson Gives Deets on the Campfire Campaign| The Filmmaker Magazine Blog
By Randy Astle in News
on Friday, January 27th, 2012
Excerpt:
"...All of this greatly expanded HBO’s audience for the new season, which reached 8.7 million viewers, and along the way hardcore fans were also offered a series of puzzles, embedded in each phase, that allowed them to advance along the “Maester’s Path” and unlock footage from the shows. The site is still live at http://themaesterspath.com and is well worth exploring. Social media was included throughout the campaign, and one important component of mastering the Maester’s Path was recruiting five other users.
Along the way Coulson learned several lessons he shared with us. Some include:
* In an increasingly digital world, physical objects can surprise and delight.
* Nothing creates story more evocatively than great actors.
* When world-building, define the experience as a story and you will find the story in the experience.
* Use live events to congregate communities.
* Use the community you’ve created to reach out and expand the community; deputize them by allowing them a creative role.
* Be like “old Lego,” which let users determine what to create out of their blocks, rather than “new Lego,” which predetermines what each set is designed to build. Create the materials and give users free range.
And finally:
* Everything you need to know about marketing you can learn from magicians, the technique they use to tell a story/perform a trick...."
Read the full post here for more details:
http://www.filmmakermagazine.com/news/2012/01/storycode-and-game-of-thrones/
Very Cool. Bookmarking...35 Best iPad Apps Creative and Useful - tripwire magazine
very cool looking apps:
1. Adobe Ideas 1.0
2. Draft
3. Freeform
4. OmniGraffle
5. TypeDrawing....
Read the full article Here
http://www.tripwiremagazine.com/2010/11/creative-and-useful-ipad-apps-for-web...
Facebook and Transmediale - your face is ours - Art Projects Critique Social Networks | 2010LAB
via 2010lab.tv
Excerpt from:
http://www.2010lab.tv/en/video/facebook-and-transmediale-your-face-ours
"...Online identities and social structures
But Facebook has also considerable downsides: the danger of abuse of power, be it in the area of data protection or be it regarding manipulation attempts, is immanent – there is a lot of discussion about it.
At the Transmediale, the artists Heath Bunting, Tobias Leingruber, Ursula Endlicher, and Christin Lahr have a critical look on Facebook, raising questions regarding our online identity, our motivation, and a changing social structure. Allen Gunn deliberately doesn’t provide real data to social networks. Kristoffer Gansing, the future artistic director of the Transmediale, deliberately has no Facebook profile at all.
Media critic Alessandro Ludovico has approximately 800 friends on Facebook. For him, it is crucial how much you can control your data in the future – his art project Face to Facebook is based on 1 million stolen Facebook profiles… Let's have a party!..."
The Top 10 Smart Cities On The Planet: Toronto is #2! | Co.Exist: World changing ideas and innovation
via fastcoexist.com
Read the full top 10 list here:
http://www.fastcoexist.com/1679127/the-top-10-smart-cities-on-the-planet
"2.) Toronto. The highest rated smart city in North America, Toronto also scores pretty well across the board. Recognizing its importance in the movement, IBM recently opened a Business Analytics Solutions Center in Toronto. Toronto is also an active member of the Clinton 40 (C40) megacities, which seek to transition to the low-carbon economy. The private sector in Toronto is collaborating too, creating a Smart Commute Toronto initiative in the hopes of increasing transit efficiency in the metro area. Toronto also recently began using natural gas from landfills to power the city’s garbage trucks. That’s smart closed-loop thinking..."
Friday, January 27, 2012
Love it! MakerBot Replicator!: The Pirate Bay file-sharing site offers 3D printing with Physibles!
via newscientist.com
Excerpt:
post by: Jacob Aron, technology reporter
"The MakerBot Replicator is the kind of personal 3D printer that could help with the Pirate Bay's plans (Image: MakerBot Industries)
The Pirate Bay, one of the internet's most well-known sites for downloading copyrighted material such as music, films and ebooks, has launched a new category of digital downloads: physical objects.
"Writing on the site's blog, a Pirate Bayer calling himself WinstonQ2038 explained the thinking behind the new category: "We believe that the next step in copying will be made from digital form into physical form. It will be physical objects. Or as we decided to call them: Physibles. Data objects that are able (and feasible) to become physical."
"...Objects currently listed in the Physibles category include a 3D version of the Pirate Bay logo, a toy race car and a model robot. The latter two are potentially infringing versions of existing designs, but WinstonQ2038 claims the site has more egalitarian aims: "The benefit to society is huge. No more shipping huge amount of products around the world. No more shipping the broken products back. No more child labour. We'll be able to print food for hungry people...."
Read the full post from the newscientist.com here:
http://www.newscientist.com/blogs/onepercent/2012/01/filesharing-site-serves-...
Get set for shakeup in big TV packages, Cogeco says | FP Tech Desk | Excerpt via Financial Post
By Jamie Sturgeon Jan 26, 2012 – 6:47 PM ET
"...The challenge the $8.1-billion industry must master is in creating the right mix of product and price to protect the comfortable margins the old model has produced.
“What’s going to happen is that everyone, every distributor, will gradually move to smaller-sized packages,” Louis Audet, chief executive of Cogeco Cable Inc., said Thursday on a first-quarter earnings call. “The art will be in pricing and offering these packages in such a way that we maintain or enhance our revenue.”
Erosion in the existing model doesn’t appear imminent. Montreal-based Cogeco, the fourth-largest cable provider in the country, reported better-than-expected subscriber additions to its premium digital television service while also posting gains in basic cable. Indeed, asked by one analyst whether the company saw any downsizing of packages by customers who may be augmenting television viewing by going online — called “cord-shaving” as opposed to “cord-cutting” — Mr. Audet said no. “We don’t see that right now.”
But trends are undoubtedly changing. Rate increases have hummed along for the past decade, up another 6% to an average $59.73/month in 2010, according to the latest data from the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission. Consumers have begun seeking refuge, some through regulatory complaints others via new Web alternatives...."
Thursday, January 26, 2012
This is a very Trippy Site. What IS This???: virtual destination - Web of Fate | Prediction
Prediction
Share your perspectives of the future
virtual destination
- Will take place on January 01, 2095
- Predicted on March 31, 2008
- Countdown 83 Years Left
- Votes 2
- Chance 50.0 %
- Influence 47
Dreamt of flying to Switzerland, but cannot afford the trip? You can take in the sights, smell and feel of Switzerland, by just sitting right in your bedroom! Towards the end of the 21st century, virtual travel will be set up on your home theatre. When you switch on the home theatre, you get a battery of destinations to choose from. From the Alps to the Andes, from the Pacific to the Atlantic ocean, from Japan to Canada, you can choose to be anywhere.
Suppose you choose to visit Amsterdam in spring, and you press the button, your walls will be filled with bright red and yellow tulips, with windmills and you will get to feel the breeze too. And if you want to go swimming or sun-bathe in the beaches of Florida, all you got to do is press the button and yes, your room will have a roaring ocean plus the sun and sand! After your tan, just switch it off and opt for another destination.
If India is where you want to go, you can feel the walls of the ancient Khajuraho temples or take in the beauty of the Taj on a moon-lit night.Where
home LAT: 9.50 LONG: 2.25 RADIUS: 248
via weboffate.com
What is this? I'm on the site poking around....
Fab New Post on Henry Jenkins Blog: On Transmedia and Education: A Conversation With Robot Heart Stories' Jen Begeal and Inanimate Alice's Laura Fleming (Part One)
January 27, 2012On Transmedia and Education: A Conversation With Robot Heart Stories' Jen Begeal and Inanimate Alice's Laura Fleming (Part One)
This week, I want to showcase two innovative projects which seek to explore the intersections between transmedia storytelling, participatory culture, and education -- Robot Heart Stories and Inanimate Alice. Here's some background on the two projects, taken from their respective home pages:
Robot Hearts Stories is an experiential learning project that uses collaboration and creative problem solving to put education directly in the hands of students. This fall, two classrooms, a continent apart, will work together to get a lost robot home, and they will need your help... The experience begins when a robot crash lands in Montreal and must make her way to LA in order to find her space craft and return home. Two class rooms in underprivileged neighborhoods, one in Montreal (French speaking) and the other in LA (English speaking), will use math, science, history, geography and creative writing to help the robot make her way across North America. At the same time, Robot Hearts Stories extends beyond the classroom, as the project welcomes involvement from a global audience. We need participants of all ages to share their own passions in the form of a creative act involving a robot they can print, customize and document. For each photo or piece of art featuring the robot that is submitted, the "signal strength" of the robot grows stronger and helps her to get back home. Robot Heart Stories is the first in a trilogy of experiential learning projects from award winning storytelling pioneer Lance Weiler and creative producer Janine Saunders.
Robot Heart Stories from WorkBook Project on Vimeo.
via henryjenkins.org
Read the full interview here & watch for Part 2!:
http://henryjenkins.org/2012/01/on_transmedia_and_education.html
Bear 71: Loc Dao on: Interactive Documentary Lets Users Experience The Forest Through Augmented Reality @PSFK
via psfk.com
Excerpt:
"Online users will be able to use access an augmented reality app that depicts an interactive forest environment rich with bears, cougars, sheep, and deer. They can also use their webcam and social media channels to get involved with the documentary through various gamification elements. According to NFB Executive Producer, Loc Dao:
The augmented reality app is a feature unique to the installation–that runs for 10 days at New Frontier and for four months at UMOCA (Utah Museum of Contemporary Art ). Online the user faces the disconnect from nature by the very form they are using — sitting in front of their computer. Similarly, at the installation the viewer is out of their element, being in a public space, and like many of us who live our lives through iPhones and digital cameras, the user at the installation experiences the grandiose 24-foot wide digital grid world of Bear 71 through a tablet app, limiting their view of the bigger picture and giving them safe distance from what’s happening in front of them."
The installation premiered at Sundance Film Festival and has been installed in The Yard in Park City and UMOCA until April 19.
Bear 71 here: http://bear71.nfb.ca/#/bear71
via PSFK: http://www.psfk.com/2012/01/interactive-ar-documentary-nfb.html#ixzz1kZ4ZLjiu
Wednesday, January 25, 2012
Today's MOST AWESOME Story: 2 Toronto Teens Launch Lego Man 24K into Space & Capture Video!
via youtube.com
2 Teens, a Weather Balloon, a Camera, & a LEGO Man. So unbelievably cool.
More details on the story here:
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/story/2012/01/25/lego-balloon-space.html
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