Finding localised video; Google Earth & You Tube

I found this merger between the two functionalities of Google Earth and You Tube very exciting. Why? Because this makes it possible to tag video to place and space. And I can already imagine very exciting ARG (Alternate Reality Gaming) propositions coming from this. For Google it means, selling really localised advertising content with mobile video. Then if they go on making the connection to the social fabric, with a solution like Jaiku (again Google) you can augment relevance of a personal search by face (nearness in social fabric) and place (nearness in locality).. Google is materialising the hybrid space in fast pace.

Public, Privat, Secret Media

While the debate about facebook and the high google ratings it gives is in full swing I remember a part of our discussion back at Hemavan, sweden earlier this year. We talked about public, privat and secret media. The distinction between these is not clear to all users yet. As in they are not yet ABLE to distinguish in public, privat and secret domains, they do not know HOW to do so. People are only just beginning to learn about the consequences of being in social domains.. sharing information, thoughts and personal stuff.. without knowing how to close the gate on one and open in on the other. In social media domains, we like to portray ourselves.. most of the time from our best side or most exciting side anyway.
At the same time we like to communicate with people we know, familiar people, relatives and friends. All ties that differ in closeness and trust. BUT at the same time, newbees cannot yet distinguish what part of their communication is disclosed to the open net and what part is not. The tools on how to do that are not yet fully grasped. Maybe we can help a lot if we just give people the choice between these three options: Do you want this conversation or information to be public, privat or secret. It might be a format we can get used to relatively easy..

START listening

universecreation101

to some really good stories ;-)

The Break Up
Uploaded by geertdesager

sxip, identity 2.o

Tribler 4.0 ... try it

A bit late reporting about the introduction of Tribler 4.0 last week in Cristofori Amsterdam. A year after first introducing tribler, a peer 2 peer open source platform service for television that is being developed at the technical university in Delft a lot has happened. Leiden neighbour Joost was introduced and they have secured a lot of important deals with big networks and content suppliers. There is one important difference between Joost and other commercial p2p teams and tribler, namely that Tribler is an open source environment. Tribler 4 has been enriched with some very nice social tools as well, the interface has improved a lot as well as the technology itself. Not so much noise around Tribler, but if I learned one thing in the last 7 years then it is that having an 'open' architecture is very very important. Just take a look at it, download, try and see


http://www.tribler.org

Sagasnet; developing interactive narrative content

Today we will be working on how to pitch your idea (Sibylle Kurz and Frank Boyd)
Then Lee Sheldon is going to talk about the emotional divide in movies and games.

Tommorrow
Hunting for funds.. (Inga von Staden).
Understanding your user - personas as digital tools.(Frank Boyd)
Where the mass meets (Inga von Staden)
New virtual state of world of warcraft (Teut Weideman)
Creating tools for conviviality future challenge ( florian schmidt)
Second life rocks, second life sucks ( michael rueger)

Next day:
Raimo Lang (One of my favorite coaches!!) on interactive narratives and communities ..
designing content & context
IPTV ( Ingo Wolff)
Digital rooms with VVV (max wolf & Sebastian Oschatz)
The illusion of life - revisited (Ken Perlin... I am curious to see Ken again..)
The machinima circus ( Friedrich Kirschner & Klaus Neumann)
How television viewing is changing (peter olaf looms)

Word into action adapting other media ( Lee Sheldon)
We all want emotions in games (Gilles Montseil, Ubisoft)
Intermediary bodies and virtual worlds ( philippe Queau, Unesco)

Starting in a minute, keep you posted

Dutch Platform for 3D worlds

The EPN (Dutch platform for the information society) has launched a platform for 3D worlds, together with Technical University Delft, University of Twente and Free University in Amsterdam. Goal is to enhance knowledge of 3D worlds. Cooperating also are ING, ABN Amro, Philips and IBM. These parties are already active in 3 D world Second Life. But they are still in minority. From a research of BDO Camps Obers we see that 56% of companies know of Second Life, and 90% say they are not planning to do anything in this virtual world, 68% sees it as a hype and only 17% sees a real future promise in Second Life.

The plaform (Platform Virtuele Werelden; PVW) wants to accumulate international research on the subject and investigate demographics of the residents. What's on, what are there interests? Will this world reach critical mass? What applications are appreciated and which are not. Etc.

Sounds very interesting and relevant to me. I hope the platform will be open, so we may all learn some more..

http://www.epn.net/content/view/176/2/

source: http://www.emerce.nl/nieuws.jsp?id=1957272&WT.mc_id=nb (in Dutch)

nine months in second life

Douglas Gayeton lived in second life for nine months to find out the where abouts of Molotov Alva, a man who disappeared from his californian home. Gayeton found material of Alva in Second Life.. you can watch the seven episodes machinima documentary here http://www.molotovalva.com.
If you want to find out backstory to Molotov Alva check this: http://www.thecircuitbooks.com/pages/molotov.html

To make his documentary Gayeton lived in complete isolation for nine months and did not want to step out of second life (where the film was shot). The documentary "my second life" was premiered yesterday in Amsterdam, Toronto and Second Life simultaneously at the 23rd Fantastic Film Festival.. still running till 25 april in City Theatre in Amsterdam.

I met some people of this festival at Mediamatic a little while ago as we were working at a machinima workshop they where hosting. Very much fun to do! Machinima is an effective way of trying complicated shots, low budget, but also you do need a different way of working. Life in the game world continues, rules of the game still apply. Although you learn how to hack your way around that, it is not working as a set of actors that do as they are told when you want them too. Which makes it all the more interesting to do. It works much more like reporting in real life.

CMID 07

Finally I have some time to report on CMID07. First of all, what a wonderfull thing Charlotte did by organising this event in the lovely Hemavan Zweden. We had a very diverse bunge of people coming from all over the world and from all different disciplines.

Christy Dena made a clear start with addressing the subject of what crossmedia is. She envisioned the powers that influence the field and that are all to be counted for when developing crossmedia material. Content or the story off course, marketing, business modelling, technology and the audience. With a lively presentation on do's and dont's the head was off. We saw a couple of really nice projects, urls you can find at the bottom of this post. Liam Bannon came in the second day. As an interaction design specialist Liam posed the question what is the relation between crossmedia and interaction design? How are we to frame the field in order to
investigate and research its subjects? His general conclusion was that there were many different angles to the subject as was already visible through the wide variety of participants in this conference and a lot needs to be thought over to come to a good framing of fields. To me it is clear that there are a lot of questions to be investigated and researched. Framing the field scientifically is therefore highly important. Major issue within the framework of forcefields sketched by Christy Dena is the balance of power between audiences and "senders". Where the profound change is that audiences become senders as well, changing the classical balance of the value chain completely. Unnecessary to say that this has a large impact on our lives and therefore also needs close attention from academics and researchers.

Some interesting projects presented:
http://www.spaceacademy.tv
http://www.oclc.org (norways collective memory)
http://www.kuvakirja.fi
http://www.moo.com
http://www.sooda.com
http://www.eve-online.com
http://www.jpgmag.com
http://www.otava.fi
http://www.behavioristics.com

Co-creating games

David Perry starts a new project where he will -from the start- co-create a new game. Co-creation of new levels and characters is already much usance in the game environment. What makes this project special is the co-creation act of building the game from scratch. Currently 20.000 'amateur" builders have signed up to the project. Goal is to have 100.000 co-creators involved. Perry is setting up the project with gamebuilder Acclaim. It should be a platform where 'wannabe' builders can show off their skills to headhunters that will be online to check best talents. Alike a pop idol for the games industry.. Making use of the collective intelligence, crowd sourcing and creativity of the crowds I like the set-up of the project (codenamed top secret... ) and am curious if the collective is able to eventually make a better product.

Wanna co-create in this project and become the next Game-Idol? http://phpbb.acclaim.com/acclaim/viewtopic.php?t=28

(source: Emerce)

second life for teens

Nickelodeon has taken a bold step into the burgeoning virtual-worlds arena with the launch of Nicktropolis, a personalizable, avatar-dwelling playground for kids on the Web. Nicktropolis, which goes live on Nick.com and Nicktropolis.com on Jan. 30, is sort of a Second Life for tweens: Kids can create a virtual identity for themselves – a 3D video game-like character which they create, picking out what color hair it has and what kind of clothes it wears, for example. Then kids can take that avatar to visit various virtual locales within Nicktropolis, such as stores, friends’ rooms, amusement parks and even virtual versions of top Nickelodeon shows, like SpongeBob’s Bikini Bottom. Initially, Nicktropolis consists of four distinct areas: Nickname Lane, where kids maintain their own rooms with virtual possessions; Nicktoon Boulevard, an immersive area featuring the network’s characters; Downtown Nicktropolis, which houses a park and several stores; and The Pier, a gaming-focused region.Besides spending their time exploring, Nicktropolis offers a variety of multimedia options for its intended nine- to 14-year-old audience. They can listen to Nick.com radio stations, play numerous games and watch videos – either in a Rec Room located in Downtown Nicktropolis on virtual TVs they have purchased using points, which serve as the virtual world’s currency.But perhaps the primary appeal of Nicktropolis - and its potentially most controversial option - is chat. Kids can interact with other avatars either using a series of Nick-supplied phrases or their own words, as long as they fall within a Nick-safe dictionary. To stave off predatory fears, in a presentation to reporters on Jan. 29 Nickelodeon executives placed heavy emphasis on Nicktropolis’ various safety features. “We believe it is as safe as we can possibly make it for kids,” said Cyma Zarghami, president, Nickelodeon and MTVN Kids and Family Group. For example, kids are encouraged to use nicknames (not their real names) when registering for the sites.And to participate in Nicktropolis, kids have to supply their parents' email addresses, through which parents must provide their approval to allow kids to chat and pursue other activities. Plus, several persistent buttons on the Nicktropolis’ interface allow users to report any potential safety hazards, such as uncomfortable interactions with other avatars. Marketing-wise, Nicktropolis is launching without advertising, though execs said that sponsorships are coming soon. “Right now we’re having an open dialogue with marketers,” said Steve Youngwood, executive vp, digital media, Nickelodeon and MTVN Kids and Family Group. According to Nick.com vp Jason Root, the site is likely to sign on a presenting sponsor of some sort but would shy away more “immersive” ad inventory that might detract from Nicktropolis’ fantasy world.Executives said that prior to its launch, close to 300,000 kids will have tested Nicktropolis, which has been in development for over a year. While the new site isn't’ MTVN’s first foray into virtual worlds (MTV has launched Virtual Laguna Beach), it is certainly its most extensive launch to date of this kind. In the kids space, Nicktropolis will be aiming at Disney’s kids aimed virtual game Toontown, and possibly Cartoon Network’s coming Massively Multiplayer Online Game (MMOG), due in 2008.

copied from..
http://www.mediaweek.com/mw/news/recent_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003538925&imw=Y


There are some fast uptakes in the child and teenmarkets for new (virtual) environments as logically this is the most obvious 'playground' for new initiatives.

Take a look, at first glance it reminds me of habbo hotel: http://www.nick.com/nicktropolis/

figures on interactive content and convergence in Europe

A recent report on market expectations and development of interactive content and convergence:

http://europa.eu.int/information_society/eeurope/i2010/docs/studies/interactive_content_ec2006_final_report.pdf

http://europa.eu.int/information_society/eeurope/i2010/docs/studies/interactive_content_ec2006_annexes.pdf

Joost alias the venice project

finally I have some news on the venice project, alias Joost. Kazaa and Skype entrepeneurs Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis have landed in our country (holland) to develop a peer 2 peer television service, mainly motivated by tax policy (and I suspect the legal system and p2p being relatively favorible in the Netherlands). They aim at low usage of bandwith high resolution service delivery. It will take about 3 years before it can widely errupt to market because by that time most television will have an internetconnection. Untill then it is only internet based. Unlike you tube there is much less server capacity neccessary, because again of the smart use of p2p.
Everywhere the duo comes they disrupt markets (music and thelephony) and off course now television is next. I have already encountered some project proposals about this and not to forget the work of Johan Pouwelse in Delft. The market for broadcast channels is going to be disrupted, no news, but the influence of these two may speed up things a little bit.

what happens when you are gaming=

Jesper Juul on the experience of gaming

http://www.half-real.net/

Take some time to listen....

Thank you christy for mentioning this ...

http://cms.mit.edu/news/podcast/

Must read book

http://www.nyupress.org/books/Convergence_Culture-products_id-4756.html

I waited for this a long time, did not look at it for a long time to see that it is already available. Cannot be anything else then a must read