NOTE:Hunger Games online store to launch & will "sell both officially licensed film merchandise & fan-created designs." » Kidscreen

via Kidscreen

"E-commerce engine CafePress has partnered with Lionsgate to create an official online store for The Hunger Games which will launch on February 21 and sell both officially licensed film merchandise and fan-created designs.

The official merchandise will come in advance of all licensed products for the film (apparel, accessories, and novelty items).

The site’s fan merchandise portal will allow fans to purchase self-designed t-shirts, canvas bags, water bottles, and more than 250 other products.

A special Facebook promotion also began on February 14 and will continue throughout the lifetime of the store. The promotion gives fans a chance to create a free District ID Card through a new exclusive Hunger Games Facebook application that will be available within the CafePress shop..."

full post here:

http://kidscreen.com/2012/02/15/hunger-games-online-store-to-launch/

Wow. Want: Onswipe Expands Into A Content Distribution Network

Media_httpcdnthenextw_wdztm

Excerpt:

"Born out of TechStars, Onswipe makes it easy for any publisher, from a new blogger to the NY Times, to transform their content into an immersive experience on the iPad. It delivers a beautiful, app like experience on the web that’s completely built for the tablet.

Still fresh from the release of Onswipe 2.0, the startup has just launched a unifying content network and a brand-new UI. Originally, Onswipe had functioned as a tool, not a network. Today, it is exploding as a content distribution platform, bringing together publishers like Ziff Davis, Stylecaster, Refinery29, the BBC and more.

By tapping the Rocketship inside an article, readers can find more interesting content. According to Onswipe:

We’ve always believed that Onswipe is a network of sites—not a tools company that treats each publisher like a silo. If the tablet is the TV of this generation, then what we’re launching today is a lot like channel surfing...."

full post here:

http://thenextweb.com/apps/2012/02/15/onswipe-expands-into-a-massive-content-...

Modern Mythology: The Story of a Transmedia Revolution: (Part 1) To Arms...

Excerpt from:

The Story of a Transmedia Revolution: (Part 1) To Arms...

Posted by Peter Usagi

The Book Thump Heard Round The World

After more than thirty years of fits and starts, a storytelling revolution is finally about to begin. Naturally, the catalyst was a book; surprisingly, however, it was a high school text book...

Immersive and interactive digital books will
soon be jumping off screens everywhere...
(Image via Creative Commons)
Earlier this week, Apple announced the release of iBooks Author, a new content creation platform for their ubiquitous iPad. However, unlike most of Apple’s hardware or software announcements, this one has seemed to garner little public interest. This could be attributed to the fact that according to Apple’s keynote, the only things that were “unveiled” were a new kind of digital school textbook, and a software program to make them.

School, text books, and reading…ho-hum.

The average person is as likely to sit through a keynote presentation on those two topics, as work on their taxes for fun. And this new software isn’t even wrapped in shiny high-tech aluminum: a baby iPad to combat Amazon’s encroaching Kindle Fire. As I watched the footage of the keynote, and it become apparent there was going to be no iText, iTome, or iTablet reader—just a pair of “un-Jobs” like Apple executives walking the audience through the pages of a digital biology text book—I was sorely tempted to give up early on the hour long presentation..."

full post here:

http://www.modernmythology.net/2012/02/story-of-transmedia-revolution-part-1....

Excellent Post from Caspar Sonnen on Craft of Digital Documentaries

Excerpt from original post by Caspar Sonnen

"As we speak, the digital revolution is unfolding. It’s destroying age-old business models and ruthlessly blurring almost every existing boundary within society, media and the arts. The good news is that the need for great storytellers has become bigger than ever. And so have the opportunities for the ones who dare to explore and invent new forms of digital documentary storytelling. So, for what it’s worth, here are a few random tips for anyone considering to make a webdocumentary, based on my experiences as curator of IDFA DocLab and as someone who still thinks Pong is she best game ever invented. (By the way: Check out the project catalogue at www.doclab.org for more than 100 innovative digital non-fiction projects and profiles of digital pioneers.)

Caspar Sonnen is an expert on webdocs. He started working as a film programmer, journalist and festival organizer while studying film and new media at the University Utrecht. In 2005 he started working for IDFA, where he set up the New Media department and IDFA TV. In order to better present emerging documentary formats outside the realm of linear filmmaking, Sonnen started the festival program Doc Lab at IDFA in 2007. Caspar is co-founder and program director of Seize the Night, the annual Open Air Film Festival Amsterdam. Foto © Corinne de Korver

1. Create a cinematic interface, not a website with video
Many of the webdocs that were selected for IDFA DocLab succeeded because of their cinematic interface. Besides being aesthetically pleasing and user-friendly (which helps), a truly cinematic interface becomes the story. It awakens peoples’ curiosity to explore, pulls them into the narrative(s) and surprise them once immersed (similar how camerawork and editing function in traditional filmmaking). An innovative cinematic interface is why you’ll never forget projects like ThanatoramaWe Feel Fine,Soul PatronGazaSderotJourney to the End of CoalWe Choose the MoonPrison ValleyWelcome to Pine Point,The Wilderness Downtown or Highrise/ OutMyWindow.


2. Don’t focus on technology
The only technological asset you really need, is the ability to recognize a great website and a great interface when you see one. Taking a piece of paper and turning your webdoc idea into a wireframe sketch is a great way to develop this ability (and convey your idea to a web developer)...."

Read the full post on Caspar Sonnen's site:

http://peterkasza.com/2012/02/caspar-sonnen-storytelling-tips/

Very Cool: Sonic Notify: the inaudible QR codes only an app can hear (Wired UK)

Excerpt from the original post:

"A startup called Sonic Notify is working on a product that embeds inaudibly high-pitched signals into music and audio, which can be detected by your smartphone.

When a compatible app hears the signal, it could be triggered to take an action -- linking you to a website, displaying text or an image, or bringing up a location on a map. That yields all sorts of possibilities -- you could vote on your favourite song of a performance, or be directed to a secret aftershow party, for example...."

http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2012-02/08/sonicnotify-audio

Excellent Post! Simon Staffans puts the People into the Five Pillars of Transmedia

Saturday, February 11, 2012

The five pillars of transmedia

by Simon Staffans.

Again this past week I find myself impressed by the amount of thought processing that people put into thinking about transmedia and its’ impact on all kinds of media (and other kinds of art expressions, such as theatre for instance, (which admittedly was from last year but popped up on my radar only now).

Reading through a number of posts and articles on everything from social television to transmedia in marketing, I think one thing stands out very clearly. Everyone is looking at transmedia from their own angle. This is very natural and exactly as it should be, as everyone have their own area of expertise, everyone have their own skillsets and everyone have their own projects in mind when deliberating using transmedia storytelling methods.
A classic view of transmedia. Nothing wrong with it, except for the fact that no people are involved.
Picture from sonofhowell.com

What this means, however, is that on many occasions a full-fledged transmedia project cannot be successfully developed and implemented – at least not one that would realize the full potential of transmedia storytelling – without there being people representing all these different areas of expertise present in the project. This, in turn, points to what was discussed over atTransmythology earlier, the need for translators between different possible parts and people in a transmedia project. These translators – or a very comprehensive glossary that everyone would be required to memorize – are crucial in order for everyone to understand everyone else and pull in the same direction. 


Basically it is very easy to get lost in the myriad of storytelling, technical and other possibilities and connections outlined in the picture above. We need to remember that it is actual people who will design, develop, produce, distribute and market the content that is created; these people need to gel, at least in the context of the project, or else we'll have something worth less than the sum of its' parts, instead of the other way around....

Read Simon's full post here:

http://muchtoolong.blogspot.com/2012/02/five-pillars-of-transmedia.html#

Good Overview if You're Not Familiar: How to Crowdfund Your Next Big Idea

How to Crowdfund Your Next Big Idea

Scott Steinberg is a small business expert, professional keynote speaker, noted strategic consultant, and creator of The Business Expert’s Guidebook series and video show Business Expert: Small Business Tips, Trends and Advice. Entrepreneurs and startups can download and share free guides, tip sheets and inside advice from his website.

Cult favorite video game developer Double Fine recently shocked investors by raising over $1 million in 24 hours on Kickstarter for its new adventure game, despite the genre’s supposed death. This has led critics to speculate that crowdsourcing isn’t just the hottest new thing to happen to startups and small business owners since Apple’s App Store; it may also present tomorrow’s most promising new source of venture capital and angel investment.

From both research and ROI perspectives, the model makes sense. Why spend years building a better widget when you can instead find and fund tomorrow’s next million-dollar idea simply by asking potential customers?

This Stat Floors Me: 'People on Facebook install 20 million “Apps” every day' via 20 Stunning Social Media Statistics Plus Infographic | Jeffbullas's Blog

20 Social Media Statistics

These figures reveal the huge black hole that our time disappears into when we visit Facebook, Twitter or YouTube or other social media sites.

  1. One in every nine people on Earth is on Facebook ( This number is calculated by dividing the planets 6.94 billion people by Facebook’s 750 million users)
  2. People spend 700 billion minutes per month on Facebook
  3. Each Facebook user spends on average 15 hours and 33 minutes a month on the site
  4. More than 250 million people access Facebook through their mobile devices
  5. More than 2.5 million websites have integrated with Facebook
  6. 30 billion pieces of content is shared on Facebook each month
  7. 300,000 users helped translate Facebook into 70 languages
  8. People on Facebook install 20 million “Apps” every day
  9. YouTube has 490 million unique users who visit every month (as of February 2011)
  10. YouTube generates 92 billion page views per month (These YouTube stats don’t include videos viewed on phones and embedded in websites)

Gamasutra - Emily Short's Analysis: The heroine's journey - A very interesting discussion & my response

Excerpt from Emily Short's longer post. Do read the thread below - many good points made

"Months ago I ran across a description of "the heroine's journey," a counterpart to the hero's journey, a concept summarized like this:

"The Heroine begins from a position of minimal privilege, but has some powerful goal or passion. She may then take on a mentor or helper to assist her in her attempt to escape her traditional role and do what she wants in life. Along the way, she rejects or loses a 'typical' romance with a man who wants to protect her but who would stifle her. She undergoes further trials in the attempt to establish herself; if she does marry/become romantically attached, it’s much later in the story, after she's distinguished herself as an individual and met someone who is willing to regard her as an equal. Alternatively, sometimes she ends up alone but self-realized to some degree."

That story format resonated with me, but when I described it to one of my friends, he said, "I don't know. What I think of as heroic is sacrificing yourself for others." In other words, he suggested, the story I'd outlined was the story of selfishness, not heroism.

The Life of Sacrifice

Sometime back I wrote about Delicious Emily's Holiday Season, a time management game that featured a surprising amount of narrative content and a branching storyline...."

 

Read the full post here:

http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/39841/Analysis_The_heroines_journey.php#

My response:

A very interesting post - one great gap in the discussion thread is Joseph Campbell's very clear statement on the heroine's journey. In Campbell's TV series with Bill Moyers, The Power of Myth, he presented a trans-cultural analysis of archetypes across different spiritual systems. In one episode, he states explicitly that the young girl's journey is different from the boy or young man's and that it is determined by the experience of childbearing and that this biological experience determines the female journey. It's a striking moment in the series, as his popularization of the Hero's Myth in contemporary culture and Star Wars in particular is absolutely gender determined.

Granted, Campbell was working from ancient myths and legends and biological determinacy is no longer the sole or primary factor for girls and young women. Yet, as any woman knows, juggling children and a career, let alone adventure is a challenge.

So, it's great to see this discussion under way - it definitely deserves greater attention and a rigorous critical updating to reflect contemporary models and experience.