Data Visualization Platform, Weave, Now Open Source | via Government In The Lab

Civic Commons, Contributors (Karl Fogel, Author)

With more and more civic data becoming available and accessible, the challenge grows for policy makers and citizens to leverage that data for better decision-making. It is often difficult to understand context and perform analysis. “Weave”, however, helps. A web-based data visualization tool, Weave enables users to explore, analyze, visualize and disseminate data online from any location at any time.

We saw tremendous potential in the platform and have been helping open-source the software, advising on community engagement strategy and licensing. This week, we were excited to see the soft launch of the Weave 1.0 Beta, which went open-source on Wednesday, June 15.

Weave is the result of a broad partnership: it was developed by the Institute for Visualization and Perception Research at the University of Massachussetts Lowell, with support from the Open Indicators Consortium, which is made up of over ten municipal, regional, and state member organizations. This consortium will probably expand now that Weave is open source, leading hopefully to greater collaboration, more development, and further innovation on this important platform.

Early-adopter data geeks should give it a spin. One of Weave’s key features is high-speed interactivity and responsiveness, which is somewhat unusual in web-based visualization software; try out the demo sites or watch the video below.

Transmedia experiment: Movie to be released via Facebook & Twitter | Combined Mind

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From combinedmind.com

"Combined Mind member, screenwriter Kristi Barnett is taking on the world of transmedia to tell her latest story and it involves the social media phenomenon.

...Kristi has discovered a way to visually tell a story that no one else has tried and the key… is Twitter.

THE SCREENWRITER’S PROBLEM

“As a Writer, I am constantly stuck with a dilemma; how do I get my story telling abilities out for the world to see? To have their screenplay actually filmed and released to the public is a huge achievement but very difficult to realize”.

With this is mind, Kristi has decided to use a different approach to getting her stories in front of the public. She will be using Twitter and its 3rd party applications like Tweetdeck, to tweet out the first Twitter movie over a 3 week live period, using pre filmed footage and photos to supplement the story.

In fact the Production has just wrapped! The actors filmed themselves using a 1080p Kodak Pocket Zi8 Cam (shooting in 720p mode for online) and a high quality smart mobile phone; the HTC Desire Z.

...Officially called Hurst, you can now start following @KarenBarley on twitter: www.twitter.com/KarenBarley or even on facebook: www.facebook.com/KarenBarley.Hurst

The story will begin end of June"

The HD phone is perfectly adapted for social networking sites and is a key part of the story as Karen Barley uses the phone to tweet. And it’s a creepy story to follow!

Something strange is happening to Karen Barley....

Karen is convinced by her sinister Boss to take on an outdoors project in an ancient Bronze Age woods in Surrey. Her boyfriend Darren is excited about the mysterious legend of the Hurst and can’t wait to find a hidden path he’s heard of.

On first appearance...."

Gamification. Are you an Achiever, a Socializer, an Explorer or a Killer? - via unicyclecreative.com

Excerpt:

In one insidious slide, Michael Kim from Kairos Labs showed how game designers actually design for specific chemicals in the brain.

  • Oxytocin – Bonding
  • Serotonin – Positive Emotions
  • Dopamine – Reward
  • Cortisol/DHEA – Stress/Eustress (the good stress!)

So, as a marketer how might you test ‘gamification’ in a simple, easy-to-implement program? The experts’ answer:

Make it small. Shoot for small actions in a small community of users and build from there. And whatever you do, don’t try to replicate Angry Birds with your logo on it.

TOTAL DROOL: Another Oliver Twist: British Library Builds 60,000-Book iPad App | Fast Company

"An ambitious new project by the British Library will place a huge number of 19th-century books--including original illustrations, page layouts, and design--on Apple's tablet for leisure reading.

The British Library is launching a new library-in-an-iPad application that gives tablet users access to tens of thousands of 19th-century books in their original form. The app, called the 19th Century Historical Collection, is taking a notably different tack to putting classic literature online than rivals such as the Kindle platform: Antiquarian books viewed through the British Library application will come in their original form--complete with illustrations, typefaces, pull-out maps and even the occasional paper wear.
Currently, the application gives access to over a thousand 19th-century books--primary travelogues and illustrated works of fiction that showcase the British Library's graphics-and-design approach to putting books on tablet computers. Later this summer, the amount of books available through the application will rise to approximately 60,000. Users will be required to pay an undisclosed amount for full access to the ebook collection and a full list of literature has not been disclosed; however, the British Library has stated that it will include early editions of Frankenstein and Oliver Twist...."

Jen Begeal Guest Posts: Keeping Your Sanity While Engaging Your Audience Through Transmedia

The Future of Film blog at TribecaFilm.com

Excerpt from a June 18, 2011 post:

"Summary: A successful transmedia project doesn't require a big budget or a large team. It just requires patience and foresight.

Cross-posted from The Future of Film blog at TribecaFilm.com, where leading filmmakers and experts within the film industry share their thoughts on film, technology and the future of media. Click here to follow commentary on the changing media environment on Tribeca's Future of Film blog.

Transmedia projects have multiple points of entry that follow multiple storylines across several platforms. This kind of attention to detail can be overwhelming to a small team, and let's face it, most transmedia projects function on micro budgets. Asking your audience to jump down the rabbit-hole with you requires finesse, timing, and above all energy. With so many moving parts it can be a daunting task to keep a project from becoming completely overwhelming.

In the spring of 2010 I joined a transmedia project already underway, called Zenith. Focused around a film (which was not set to release for months), our small team was tasked with designing and building a campaign that would invite our audience to engage with the film's central themes and incorporate them into their own stories. This is how we did it.

Zenith is a science fiction thriller, which takes place in two separate time periods: the present day and the year 2044. The film alternates between the realities of the two main characters: Ed Crowley, a paranoid conspiracy theorist, and his son Jack, a drug-dealing ex-neurosurgeon. Ed predicts a future where a hidden society controls the minds and actions of the population. Ed's future - Jack's present - has become a bleak reality where people are permanently numb, yet pay dealers like Jack for pain from expired prescriptions. Jack is pulled into his father's quest for the truth behind this genetic experiment when he is presented with the first in a series of ten VHS tapes that Ed has left behind.

Zenith's director, Vladan Nikolic, first conceived the concept of multiple entry points for a project years before the advent of Facebook and Twitter. It wasn't until production got underway in 2008 that Internet technology had reached a point to where it could lend itself to an engaging multimedia experience. The term "transmedia storytelling" was the latest buzzword in the film community and its definition closely matched that of the filmmaker's vision of a new form of storytelling.

The transmedia project was multi-tiered. The first tier, an outreach campaign, was developed to connect with bloggers in the gaming, film, science fiction and conspiracy theory communities. The initial goal of the campaign was to get people talking about the conspiracy theory portion of the project, called Stop Zenith. With a tag line of "What is Zenith?" the outreach garnered mixed reactions, some bloggers were afraid they had been accosted by a group of conspiracy theorists while others embraced the deception with the understanding that this was all part of a much larger project. Partnerships with other websites were also developed, like that between Zenith and Above Top Secret (ATS), a conspiracy website with a multi-million member fan base. These partnerships were instrumental to attracting a larger, more engaged audience. They also showed our team that to keep the conspiracy plot moving, we had to think fast and build out our story lines with intelligence...."

MUST Read Post from Gunther Sonnenfeld: Part V of FIVE EASY PIECES: Nurturing Holistic Media Ecosystems #transmedia #curation #culture #journalism - A Literacy of the Imagination

Excerpt from a long, extremely well-considered post:

"...More important is the possibility that we can actually co-create new media ecosystems. Fathom that.

These ecosystems have already gained momentum with profound effect in the educational space, and are flourishing in world-building features that can translate across “mass” mediums found in entertainment – ABC Kids TV Online is one example.

And of course, what this could do for global business leaves much to the imagination... (My upcoming book, A Literacy of the Imagination: Storytelling Approaches for the Collaborative Economy will address these dynamics in great detail).

So perhaps now we can divorce ourselves from looking at curation as a form of filtering and/or aggregating content, and more as a means for co-creating and delivering experiences of tremendous cultural value...."