Big LOVE: Modern Victorian photography - Telegraph

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"A group of British photographers and artists are mounting an exhibition of pictures created using Victorian cameras and processes such as the wet plate collodion method. Victorian lenses give the pictures a very particular feel which makes it odd to see cars, modern clothing and other anachronisms in a view which seems pulled straight out of history books. The photos will be exhibited at at the Arts Bank in Saltburn-By-The-Sea from 2 to 29 July. There will be a a free, hands-on demonstration and an evening talk by wet plate collodion expert John Brewer.

See www.citiesandparks.com/Festival.html for more information."

Newsgames: Videogames as A New Way of Doing Journalism - Georgia Tech Journalism & Games Project

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From the site:

"A newsgame is an application of journalism in videogame form.

Journalism has embraced digital media in its struggle for reinvention. But most online journalism just translates existing practices to the Web. Games work differently: they simulate how things work by constructing interactive models. Newsgames can persuade, inform, and titillate; make information interactive; recreate a historical event; put news content into a puzzle; teach journalism; and build a community...."

lot's on the site - exciting! Grazie Carlos Scolari!

Grazie! (Almost) Everything You Need to Know about Culture in 10 Books | via Brain Pickings

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#1 of 10

"DATA VISUALIZATION

Long before there was The Visual Miscellaneum or Data Flow, there was Graphis diagrams: The graphic visualization of abstract data — a seminal vision for the convergence of aesthetics and information value, originally published in 1974, which codified the conventions of contemporary data visualization and information design. One of the 100 most influential design books of the past 100 years, it features work by icons like iconic designer and animator Saul Bass, Brain Pickings favorite Milton Glaser, TED founder Richard Saul Wurman and many more...."

Gaming the library | via The Harvard Library Innovation Laboratory - LOL - he likely never paid the overdue fees...

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A couple of weeks ago while reading Jerome Lettvin’s obituary I noticed this gem:

“At MIT, his office in Building 20 was crammed with books, most overdue from the college library. Dr. Lettvin claimed he did not return them because the library would send him the students who wanted those books, and he would interview them as potential assistants.”

Jerome was gaming the library. He was holding onto resources that like-minded individuals desired in order to make professional connections. Cool.

Jerome’s approach clearly has some scaling problems and some issues surrounding content that can’t be stacked in an office (digital content), but he was onto something. People connect through works held at the library and the library should encourage these connections. How do we do that? I’m not sure, but I’m giving it some thought.

Web Of Games via Tech Crunch (When everything is gamified, won't that be boring?)

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Guest Author on Tech Crunch

"...The tech industry has a neologism: “Gamification.” Inside this awkward term are three profound truths:

Social games change engagement in deep and dramatic ways. If you want to get people to do something that they might not otherwise do—such as plan for retirement, study for exams, learn something new, get healthier or pick a school for their kids—make it a social game. You will see engagement rates change from a mere 5% to 70% or more, and people will sustain those rates week after week after week. Why? Because games are fun and appeal to the primitive brain in all of us that wants constant rewards, social recognition and adventure.
Gamification will accelerate the movement from physical to online solutions. Already, we read about vanishing shopping malls being replaced by online shopping, but as websites that sell goods and services become games rather than content sites (and this is already happening), the trend away from buying at bricks-and-mortar stores will accelerate dramatically unless we can make shopping more fun—because as Groupon has already demonstrated, people like this juxtaposition of shopping and games.
Mobile will finally take its place as king, a position to which it has rapidly been ascending the last several years. Japan provided early evidence of this (watch any group of people there riding the train), but social games lend themselves to this form factor and this form factor is location-aware and constantly with you. We will see the end of PCs within a decade. They will be replaced by mobile devices, including tablet devices.
We used to teach information design. Then we taught UI design and UI interaction. But now it will be game mechanics. Within two years (if not already), lack of understanding appointment mechanics, game mechanics and leveling will be as crippling to someone who aspires to design online solutions as it is today for someone who doesn’t understand HTML and CSS and AJAX and JQuery."

Average YouTube Viewing Topped Five Hours in May: via comScore

Last month was the first in which the average YouTube viewer in the U.S. watched more than five hours of video on the site, according to comScore.

Some 176 million U.S. Internet users watched online video content in May 2011 for an average of 15.9 hours per viewer, the research firm says. Google-owned sites, driven primarily by video viewing at YouTube.com, ranked as the top online video content property in May, with 147.2 million unique viewers. Music video service Vevo placed second for the month with 60.4 million unique viewers.

Here We Go - Next Gen Branded Distribution of Rap Band The Cool Kids - Smart « Culture Hacker

Smart smart smart!

Excerpt from article by Peter Katz, June 18 2011

"...In exchange, the Cool Kids get to keep all of their income from iTunes album sales, except for processing fees (Source Billboard). They are promoted by a marketing budget much larger than most record labels, since Green Label Sound is owned by PepsiCo, a Fortune 500 company that has sold billions of dollars worth of soft drinks vs relying on album sales. “Labels suck,” the Cool Kids’ Chuck Inglish said, “What can they do that Pepsi can’t do? We had a good experience with Green Label Sound — we got more from that single than we got from our previous album. I was tired of the album sitting around and just wanted to get it out.”(Source Billboard)

Here’s where indie film distribution fits in. Sponsors at prestigious film festivals might evolve into distributors: starting to acquire titles that make sense for the brand’s identity, focusing on marketing themselves as patrons of the arts, distributing films to theaters where their target demographic lives e.g. college towns. This strategy increases brand loyalty by adding value to people’s lives.

Content producers will win because all of the typical costs associated with theatrical film distribution will be covered by the brand. So, creators are going to be able to keep more money. Filmmakers will still own the digital rights for their project and the buzz from screenings will increase the projects’ value. “Theatrical will drive awareness of the film,” WME agent Liesl Copland said regarding distribution for Blue Valentine (Source Eugene Hernande at IndieWire)."