Oh Liking! & Now Downloading! "Bumpy Road" Flips Touchscreen Game Mechanics On Their Head | Co.Design

From fastcodesign.com:

"In this ingenious game, you don't control the characters -- you control the world around them instead.

Hit games for smartphones tend to be ultra-simple, like Angry Birds. But was designing that experience simple? Hardly. Creating an engaging experience on a tiny screen that's inevitably obscured by the player's sausage-fingers is a pretty tough nut to crack. Maybe that's why a game called Bumpy Road is getting so much love: Players dig it because it's fun as hell, and gaming nerds adore it because the touchscreen-optimized game mechanics are pure genius. Instead of using a fingertip to awkwardly control an avatar, you control everything else onscreen instead. Call it the Portal of your palm...."

BIG Numbers: Location-based services worth $10B by 2016 — Tech News and Analysis

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From gigaom.com By Ryan Kim Jun. 9, 2011, 4:28pm PT

"Location-based services are expected to bring in $10 billion in revenue by 2016, according to research firm Strategy Analytics. The biggest chunk, just over 50 percent, will come from location-based search advertising.

The firm said the biggest obstacle is consumer privacy concerns about location data, something that has been stoked lately by recent questions about tracking from iPhones and Android devices. But if location services provide enough transparency about how they use and store this information, it should not derail the approaching money train.

It’s still early days but I agree there’s going to be a lot of money in location-based services, particularly advertising. That’s where things get interesting: We’re seeing that location-based ads can demand a premium because they’re more targeted and often more relevant to users. There’s a big opportunity in being able to use a very personal device like a smartphone to deliver tailored, very local ads. That’s still a ways off but that’s something Google, the recently acquired WHERE, and a host of other mobile advertising companies are banking on.

Search ads, however, are just one part of the mix. There’s a whole business brewing about pushing ads, offers and deals to consumers based on their preferences, location, shopping history and other signals. Groupon and Living Social are testing more real-time local offers to users. Increasingly ad and marketing offers won’t wait for someone to search for something. Companies are going to try and anticipate what a user wants and provide it for them. That’s the future that Google’s Eric Schmidt has talked a lot about...."

Sensational images of an artist's mini planets styled on the world's favourite landmarks | Mail Online

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"An artist who has a new view of the world has created awe-inspiring tiny 'planets' from our most iconic landmarks.

Alexandre Duret-Lutz took a series of stunning photographs of some of the world's most famous buildings and made them into montages of miniature worlds.
Suspended in space, the tiny spheres make our most loved landmarks look even more impressive, with tourist attractions such as the Eiffel Tower and the Colosseum towering over the minions below..."

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1222162/Sensational-images-artists-mi...

BBC: Transmedia storytelling panel w Adrian Hon (Six to Start), Meg Jayanth, Chris Sizemore

"This week's episode of the CoP Show explains what transmedia storytelling is and why producers might want to use it.

The simplest definition of transmedia storytelling is that it is a technique used to tell stories across multiple platforms: TV, radio, games, novels, social media, online or anywhere a story can unfold.

A transmedia storyteller may create many "entrypoints" across different platforms, so that, for example, a fan of a drama can read the online diaries of their favourite characters or follow their comments on Twitter.

The theory goes that by doing this not only can you give your audience more of what they want and love but you can also bring in a whole new audience that otherwise would not find your content.

Joining presenter Simon Smith are Chris Sizemore, Executive Editor of BBC's Learning & Knowledge Online, Adrian Hon the Chief Creative at transmedia specialist Six to Start and Meg Jayanth, a BBC multi-platforms producer."