Fascinating....Storyteller App Turns Facebook Posts Into Sponsored Stories [via Mashable]

"...The application allows brands to add a new tab to their Facebook Pages. On this tab, brands can ask their fans to answer a question or provide an opinion (e.g. What’s your favorite thing about Mashable?). Users can then share those answers with their Facebook friends and post it onto their walls. These wall posts can be customized to include images, videos and descriptions the brand wants to include. A film would be able to share a promotional poster and a description in every single wall post generated from the app.

That’s not what makes this app special, though. The app’s real purpose is to generate engaging Sponsored Stories ads from all of those user responses. By asking the right question, brands can create far more engaging social ads. My friends are more likely to click on a Starbucks Sponsored Stories ad if it says “I love the Starbucks Chai Tea Latte!” than if it just says I checked into my local Starbucks franchise. Storyteller also comes with filtering options so negative comments don’t appear in Facebook ads.

Wildfire Interactive CEO Victoria Ransom says that ads generated via the Storyteller app are four times more effective than traditional Sponsored Stories. While the traditional Facebook had has a 3.3% conversion rate, Storyteller-generated ads have a 17% conversion rate. Ransom warns that Sponsored Stories are more effective with larger brands, since smaller brands simply don’t have the reach to make Sponsored Stories effective..."

Big Chunk of Awesome: New California Law Will Boost Social Entrepreneurship - Business - GOOD


A new California law that comes before Governor Jerry Brown today could make it easier than ever to combine business with social mission, a welcome respite for those seeking to harness the engines of capitalism in the service of good deeds.

While growing ranks of entrepreneurs are combining business and social missions—think Toms Shoes or Method cleaning products—current law makes it difficult for them to raise money and control their enterprises. 

That’s changing around the country, and California could be the next frontier, if advocates of social business ranging from the Silicon Valley Leadership Group to apparel giant Patagonia have their way and create a new legal category for what they call Benefit Corporations.

excerpt - read the full article on good.is

Like!: The English Major is the Next Geek Success Story by Thursday Bram

Excerpt:

"...The Rise of the English Majors

Technology is a money maker, without a doubt. Over the past couple of decades, it’s been made incredibly clear that anyone who can figure out even a little beyond the knowledge of the average person when it comes to technology can find a way to get ahead. There can be a lot of money in being a geek.

We’re already starting to see those opportunities extend to writers and and the folks that geek out about language. Being able to write decently can be translated into a high-priced career as an SEO writer. The number of opportunities to create online content have absolutely boomed.

Those opportunities can’t help but grow. Every time I hear about a new start up, I smile: someone plans to collect information about local restaurants and rank them? She’ll need a writer to put together descriptions of each eatery. Someone wants to launch a new online ad network? She’ll need people to write content to provide a home to all those ads. Someone builds a new social networking site? She might not hire her own writers, but every company that wants to use that site to connect with buyers will hire several.

Content Will Be the Future of Startups

While there are incredible opportunities for writers as it is, a lot of the more successful startups of the past decade have essentially provided infrastructure for doing cool things. The next great wave of startups, of successful businesses in general, are going to focus on content. Take a look at Pottermore...."

INTERVIEW | Guillermo Del Toro, Part II: 'The most important element of filmmaking is your freedom.' - indieWIRE

by Eric Kohn (August 24, 2011)

EK: "...Most recently, you were going to make an epic adaptation of H.P. Lovecraft’s “At the Mountains of Madness,” produced by James Cameron, but Universal passed because it would have been rated R. Why not try to make something like that outside of the studio system?

GDT: "It would have been impossible. Part of what made the novel interesting to me was that it had scale. There are other Lovecraft stories you can tackle with small budgets, but this is not the one. It’s essentially a period film about exploration, almost like mounting a movie about Ernest Shackleton stumbling upon the horrifying remnants of a civilization. So you need scale for that. You need to not compromise. I think it was possible that we could have gotten a PG-13 from the MPAA, but as proven by “Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark,” you can’t be sure, and we couldn’t deal with that danger.

EK: Still, the way things are headed now, couldn’t you find a way to do the special effects with a couple of green screens and create a sense of scale without a massive budget?

GDT: If you know the Lovecraft novel, you know it’s about mounting and expedition, which means going as much as possible to real locations up north. Most of it happens in Antarctica. I really thought long and hard about this, because it would not have been an issue if we had gone under $100 million. But the way I saw it, I couldn’t find a way to solve that. By the way, I’m really good at making small scale movies. “Devil’s Backbone” was about $4 million dollars. “Rudo y Cursi” cost about the same. I’m not alien to that. I made what I thought was the best decision.

EK: What happened to your involvement with the “Haunted Mansion” franchise? You were talking about directing a story focused on the Hatbox Ghost.

GDT: Yeah, we’re working on all that. The first draft has been delivered to Disney. That’s exactly the same thing we were discussing—there was a version of the “Haunted Mansion” movie before that I’m not touching at all. I’m trying to honor the ride, so in my mind it’s not a remake, but entirely a new approach to what I think, as a fan, the “Haunted Mansion” is. I was at the theme park the year that ride opened and I’ve been going at least twice a year since then.

EK: Speaking of which, “Pacific Rim,” which you’re shooting now in Toronto, sounds like it will also be a large scale production.

GDT: Yes, it will. It’s a movie that, even thematically, is all about scale. It’s a big, spectacular monster movie full of action. I’d like to flex those muscles, and then with a little bit of luck, I can go back to something smaller and more like a chamber movie."

INTERVIEW | Guillermo Del Toro, Part I: Videogames, Transmedia and Here's His E-mail - Excerpt via indieWIRE

by Eric Kohn (August 22, 2011)

EK: "...You mentioned your affinity for transmedia. Last year, you launched a transmedia studio called Mirada. What have you been doing with it so far?

GDT: We’ve had a very interesting first few months. We’re a very curious company. We got involved in a huge multimedia installation celebration for IBM’s 100th anniversary called the THINK Exhibit [opening at Lincoln Center in September]. Using all the resources of our company, we created a special shooting rig that [Del Toro’s cinematographer] Guillermo Navaro designed called the Medusa. It’s a four-camera rig that shoots panoramic images that are almost life-size. It was fulfilling, exactly what we want to do. We did commercials, video clips, all the regular stuff, but we’re also developing a viral for [Del Toro’s next feature] “Pacific Rim,” and a teaser trailer for it internally to show the studio what it would look like.

It’s been a really interesting year. When we talk about transmedia, I think it’s incredibly important that one of the words that’s sacred for what we do at Mirada is “storytelling.” The word “transmedia” is very fancy, but what it means is that we’re at the edge of a new era for storytelling, one that I am convinced will be multiplatform. It will be a delivery-driven experience. You can have an audience participate in the way a story evolves. It’s really important as a storyteller to know how to write a novel or a comic. People think about them as if they need to be similar. They fixate on those similarities. For example, they say, “comic books are storyboards.” Absolutely not. They are not. I think it’s a mistake to talk like that. It negates everything that is unique about storytelling in that medium. I cannot qualify my work, but I know that I am a storyteller. I can only qualify the passion I bring to it, and that’s why I’m involved in transmedia...."

Very Cool: Music producer builds interactive mirror wall to accompany live sets (via Wired UK)

The Memory Dealer - via vonviral (case study on 2010 project)

Created by: Rik Lander
Start date: July 2010
Funding: Towards Pervasive Media, Nottingham University
Country: UK

The Memory Dealer has been performed twice through the Broadway Media Centre, Nottingham in 2010.

Watch the trailer:

Synopsis of Second Iteration, (Sept. 11th 2010):
Part 1
The story begins with the audience/players listening to an mp3 file as they meander where ever they like through the city. The voice and music are relaxing and somewhat hypnotic and they are encouraged to see the city anew and to explore their own memories of the places they pass through. They are told they are waiting to meet Eve, an engaging but unreliable friend with whom they have lost contact. They are told how they met and how they fell out. After a while the mood of the soundtrack becomes darker, they have wandered into an area frequented by memory dealers and those who have become addicted to their wares.

They receive a 'call' from Eve who tells them she has been arrested under trumped up charges. If they can find a memory dealer they will be able to experience what she did at the time of crime and prove her innocence. They are told to return to the Broadway bar, fins a memory dealer and be discrete.

Cool Idea: Telling stories through Foursquare: Derby 2061 (Wired UK)

Richard Birkin of production company Mudlark is experimenting with using Foursquare as a storytelling platform, turning it into a wormhole to the future.

The project is called Derby 2061, and imagines a future where a company has used the vast amounts of personal data being made public online to allow people to experience the memories of other people. The result is a memory economy, where people's emotions, thoughts and feelings can be bought and sold.

Birkin has set up more than 50 Foursquare locations around Derby city centre and Darley Abbey, exploring what the city might look like in half a century's time. They're organised into a list, which you can find here.

"There's a story in it to find. In fact there are a few," says Birkin in a blog post on Mudlark's site. "There's the story of new industry, of civilian life in a new culture changed by it, the story of buildings being repurposed, of politics, of clock-making and time. All told by a female guide from the future."

For example, when you arrive, you can check into Derby Monorail Interchange & Vacuum SubLine Hub on Foursquare and read tips about the memory ports in the carriages.