Smart Distinction from Paul Bennun: 'Transmedia' holds back storytelling (Wired UK)

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Excerpt:

"..."Programme" was a one-word user manual for radio listeners and producers. It still is: "television programme" describes that product with a simplicity and accuracy that is almost the perfect opposite of "transmedia" or "multiplatform". The first is a noun; the other two are -- at best -- bloody obvious in the 21st century.

These words don't consider the true nature of our new "programmes" -- the way in which their elements interoperate. Until we fix that, we can't describe what we do; what we do won't live up to its potential.

Where the defining characteristic of broadcast technologies are their one-to-many, linear dissemination of content, something designed to capitalise on the affordances of the network is neither. It's atemporal. It's inherently personalised. More importantly, the network is a huge machine for processing information. When we're using network technologies to the full, the elements in our services have an active relationship governed by logic...they're part of a system.

Consider SuperMe, a Channel 4 commission from my company designed to teach teens about happiness. You can't really call it a website, although it has one. You could call it a game, but that would reduce the importance of the video or the minigames when fulfilling their purpose as syndicated media.

So we propose the phrase "content system" as the digital analogue to "television programme". A system processes information and energy. It implies an active relationship between pieces of disparate content. It understands state. It has a purpose, inherently designed. It can include television, a mobile phone baked into a cake, actors in the street, Twitter or an app...."

‘PEANUTS’ launches major digital & social-media expansion - freemium & facebook games included- from The Washington Post

For “Peanuts,” that consumer market will include “a new freemium game for smartphones and tablets” based on the characters, Iconix says. The mobile game, from the Capcom subsidiary Beeline Interactive, should be available in the fall.

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The digital initiatives also include a deal with Barnes and Noble that makes the books “Happiness Is a Warm Puppy” and “Happiness Is a Warm Blanket” available through Nook apps. And starting next month, two collections of “Peanuts” strips — “It’s a Dog’s Life, Snoopy” and “It’s a Big World, Charlie Brown” — will become available on iTunes in a deal with iVerse.

Earlier this year, KaBOOM! issued the first “Peanuts” “graphic novel, ”Happiness Is a Warm Blanket.” The two companies are planning to create more original graphic novels in both print and digital formats.

Peanuts Worldwide — whose Facebook page has more than 800,000 fans — also has launched a Facebook gaming app called Amazement Park.

Monty Python's Terry Jones crowdsources funding for book (excerpt from Wired UK)

"Traditional publishing is in the doldrums, it's collapsing. Publishers are looking around for new ways of going forward. I think Unbound could be the future," says author and Monty Python member Terry Jones -- the first author to gain funds for a book through a new crowdsourcing platform.

Described as acrowd-funded Kickstarter-like project for books, Unbound launched in May. Since then, six novels have been put up on the website -- each accompanied by a video curated by the author explaining more about their tome and why the public should invest in its creation.

Jones' book, Evil Machines, is the first to reach the target set by the Unbound team and is set for publication in November. Fans who have pledged money will get anything from their name in the back of the book; a signed first edition; an invite to the book launch or even lunch with the author.

Could this be ANY MORE recursive??? Silicon Valley Social Media Agency Launches new #Transmedia Event

San Jose, CA (PRWEB) August 05, 2011

J. Stephen Hayden in San Jose, CA today made the initial content release of his new social fable "The Black Blog of Struller John Clark" The blog is being offered as part of the sale of the Capricorn Folio. The Capricorn Folio represents a monumental creative property of which the blog is a part. The release campaign is being referred to as the 'Calamander Disclosure."

The Black Blog of Struller John Clark represents a new form of social autobiographical transmedia disclosure. The Blog is a compendium of the history and life of J. Stephen Hayden, Director and Founder of the agency. J. Stephen has posted a personal disclosure on the agencies blog concerning his background and its relevancy to the content of the Black Blog.

The initial content release of the creative properties is intended to allow potential buyers to view and assess the value of the offering prior to the agency hosting a dutch auction for their sale.

looks faux to me if you check the links!

25% of Toddlers Have Used a Smartphone & Kids of GenY Moms are Earliest Adopters | Ad Age Stat - Advertising Age

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"The chart above is data provided exclusively to AdAgeStat from an annual survey from Parenting Group, the publisher of Parenting, Babytalk and Parenting.com, and the BlogHer network. The generational breakdown is striking. Across the board, younger moms are passing technology along to their kids at an early age. This might not seem too surprising, given the Gen-Y embrace of technology. But when you consider that many of the youngest Gen-X moms are still having their first kids, whereas many millennials are putting off having kids, the adoption rates of technology start to blur.

Digging deeper into the data we see that the percent of moms who haven't let their children use a smartphone corresponds roughly to the percent of moms who don't have a smartphone themselves. We suspect that moms who haven't let their 2-year-olds use a smartphone likely got a smartphone when their kids were already older than that. Crazy, eh? Looking at stats for more-established technologies would seem to confirm that. The Gen-Xers and Boomer moms -- who are more likely to have older kids -- do show a higher overall rate of having passed the laptop or non-smartphone to their children of all ages."