Confessions of an Aca/Fan: Jeff Watson on ARG 2.0 (Part One)

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Excerpt from henryjenkins.org/2010/07/arg_20_1.html#

JULY 7, 2010

ARG 2.0 (Part One)

The Alternate Reality Game (ARG) remains a topic of great interest to me and to my students at MIT and USC. Through the years, we've discovered that the ARG falls at the intersection between our recurring interests in participatory culture, collective intelligence, new media literacies, transmedia entertainment, and civic engagement. In my Fandom, Participatory Culture, and Web 2.0 graduate seminar last spring, Jeff Watson wrote a provocative essay which reviewed and challenged the current state of ARG theory and design, proposing some of the limits of this still emerging genres, as well as identifying some experiments that stretch the ARG in new directions. I immediately knew that I wanted to share this essay with my readers, who have a range of different investments in this space, in hopes that it might serve as a catalyst for enlarging the conversation around ARGS and might give him useful feedback as he hopes to prepare this essay for publication.

Watson comes at this topic as a student in the USC's Cinema School's innovative iMAP program, which is designed to bring together students who are interested in both media design and theory. I am going to be teaching a seminar through the program this fall on Medium Specificity, and will be sharing the syllabus here shortly. Each of the students I have met through this program have impressed me with their creative insights and their willingness to test their ideas through experimental practice. The Cinema School as a whole is exploring how to break down the silos between theory and production and between the different craft specializations within production, because the media maker of the future will need to think and create across media platforms. This is yet another of the many reasons I am excited about being at USC right now.

ARG 2.0
by Jeff Watson

I. Abstract
As marketing instruments, alternate reality games (ARGs) are powerful tools for generating buzz and fostering audience engagement. Their capacity to initiate and maintain playful and creative dialogue between producers and fans signals the immanence of interactive and participatory transmedia entertainment. However, the established structure of the ARG as a time-sensitive and event-driven experience managed by the behind-the-scenes machinations of "puppet masters" (PMs) forecloses a number of important design possibilities. Consequently, ARGs often lack the qualities of accessibility, replayability, and scalability that are so crucial to the adoption and impact of other kinds of socially-articulated interactive systems. In instances where the objective is to create or engage an elite class of "in the know" participants, such a lack may in fact be a strength; but for other use cases, accessibility, replayability, and scalability are critical. This paper outlines the significance of the absence of these characteristics from many "first generation" ARGs, and points toward an emerging "2.0" iteration of the form through reference to recent projects and practices in both industrial and institutional contexts.

Read more: http://henryjenkins.org/2010/07/arg_20_1.html#

MTV Networks Acquires Social Express - developing social games based on original IP, shows & characters

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Press Release Source: MTV Networks On Thursday July 8, 2010, 9:30 am EDT

NEW YORK and SAN FRANCISCO, July 8 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- MTV Networks (MTVN), a division of Viacom, Inc. (NYSE: VIA, VIA.B), today announced that it has acquired Social Express, Inc., a social gaming development company, marking the company's first entry into the social gaming space. MTV Networks will develop social games based on original IP, as well as shows and characters from MTV, Nickelodeon and its other brands, with the first game to be introduced in the third quarter of 2010. MTV Networks will also leverage Social Express's expertise to launch a publishing platform for independent game developers. Based in San Francisco, Social Express's veteran management team boasts former executives and developers from Apple, AOL, Yahoo! and Zynga.

"Social gaming is one of the biggest drivers of the explosive growth in social media – it's fun, it's engaging, and it's shareable," said Judy McGrath, Chairman and CEO of MTV Networks. "Social Express brings us strong experience and know-how in this burgeoning space, which we'll supercharge with the IP and scale of Nickelodeon and other MTV Networks brands to create great new social gaming experiences for our fans and cool tools for independent developers as well."

Social Express will be integrated into Nickelodeon Digital, with Social Express co-founder and CEO Tony Espinoza overseeing social gaming strategy and development as Vice President and General Manager of Social Gaming for MTV Networks' Nickelodeon Kids & Family Group. Neil Souza, co-founder of Social Express and FoulPlay Media, will be Vice President of Technology, Social Games. Both will report to Dave Williams, Senior Vice President and General Manager of Games, Nickelodeon Kids & Family Group, who reports to Stephen Youngwood, Executive Vice President for Digital, Nickelodeon/MTVN Kids & Family Group.

"The Social Express team is a great addition to our gaming unit, and they are set to be a key part of our growth strategy," said Youngwood.

In May, MTV Networks game sites attracted more than 22 million unique visitors and ranked as the number one destination in the online gaming category (MTV Networks game sites are a custom entity in ComScore – MMx). MTV Networks game sites include AddictingGames.com, Shockwave.com, Nick.com Games, Nick.com Arcade, Neopets, GameTrailers, and Xfire. The acquisition of Social Express is the latest gaming initiative for the Nickelodeon Kids & Family Group, which has also launched AddictingGames on the iPhone with the AG iNetwork and introduced a virtual goods platform to the site in the past year.

YouTube bids for screen dominance - Leanback & The Channel of YOU

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People watch 2 billion videos a day on YouTube

The world's biggest video site wants to dominate every screen where content can be viewed and created.

YouTube is already a leader online and in mobile and has firmly set its sights on the living room.

The company charted its course during the launch of a new product called Leanback, described by some as web video for couch potatoes. It also unveiled upgrades for its mobile site which has over 100 million playbacks a day.

"You can start to break down the mental picture of 'these are the videos I watch on my computer, on my tv or on my phone,'" Hunter Walk, director of product management told BBC News.

"Now you just say 'these are the videos I watch and I watch them wherever I happen to be, or whoever I happen to be with'. We are going to have a world where people increasingly expect their content to be available to them on anything with a screen, whether that be a computer, a phone or a tv. That is the vision," said Mr Walk.

'Opportunity'

With 24 hours of video uploaded to the site every minute, YouTube is already the world's biggest video website. And with Leanback, YouTube is now vying for the attention of the user in the living room.

"This really is where the opportunity is biggest for YouTube right now," said Kuan Yong, senior product manager for Leanback....

Read more: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/8799114.stm

Narcissus Lament/ a video project on chatroulette & our desire for self-recognition

(source: eyelevelgallery.arloartists.com )

"The Narcissus series

excerpt from Narcissus Lament, single channel HD video, 10 min

According to one reading of the legend, the tragedy of Narcissus was not his vanity and self-love but that he was cursed to be unable to recognize his own reflection. Having unrivaled beauty, his fatal end was inevitable. A few millennia later, neuroscience discovered a condition known as Capgras syndrome, associated with damage to the fusiform gyrus, an area in the brain that specializes in reading faces. Patients afflicted with the Capgras syndrome are unable to recognize faces, including their own face in a mirror. This ability, to recognize one’s reflection is common to very few animals and may be one of the keys to consciousness, language acquisition, empathy and perhaps a neurophysiological theory of the understanding and appreciation of art...."

more details on website

Is Web 3-D Coming?: Taking Sites to the X-Axis by Joe Shepter

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(source: www.commarts.com)

"Web 3-D
Taking Sites to the X-axis
by Joe Shepter

If it’s possible to feel sorry for a technology, we should all feel very sorry for Web 3-D. Its sad history began in the mid 1990s with the Virtual Reality Modeling Language (VRML) standard, which was too early and too heavy. Then almost everyone took a blind swing at the piñata. Adobe tried with Atmosphere, Macromedia with Shockwave 3D, Microsoft with Chromeffects and Sun Microsystems with Project Wonderland, not to mention hundreds of smaller companies. The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) also produced not one but two major 3-D standards, which browser makers have completely ignored.

“Why isn’t 3-D fully integrated into the Web browser today?” asks Tony Parisi, the co-creator of VRML and a 3-D Web consultant. “That’s the long and tortured part of the story. It seems like a good idea and that it should be attractive to brands and businesses, but it hasn’t happened—and not for lack of trying on the part of a lot of people.”
The good news is, great Web 3-D is probably coming, and good Web 3-D already exists. For several years, digital agencies have been making 3-D in Flash, mainly using third party code libraries like Papervision and Away3D. But for all its virtues, Flash (and competitor Silverlight for that matter) has a glaring weakness when it comes to 3-D: software rendering. It uses your CPU to generate graphics—which isn’t something it is meant to do or does particularly well. If you want to incinerate swamp rats with a virtual flamethrower (or pick up a realistic boy or girl in a virtual meat market), you need to assign those tasks to your graphics card. This is known as hardware acceleration. Web 3-D advocates burn incense on its altar...."

read more: http://www.commarts.com/columns/web-d.html

Fring Adds 3G Video Calling to iPhone 4, Android, and Nokia Phones

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source: Mashable.com

"Popular mobile VoIP and chat client Fring has updated its mobile app to add support for 2-way video calling for the iPhone 4. You might be brushing off this feature because the new iPhone has FaceTime, but the Fring app has two big advantages over Apple’s video calling feature: 3G support and compatibility across multiple platforms.

Fring launched video calls on iPhone last year, giving iPhone 3GS users a simple way to make calls, although 2-way video calling wasn’t possible because the 3GS didn’t have a front-facing camera. Earlier this year, the company brought 3G video calling to market...."