At GDC recently, Jane McGonigal announced her latest game: World Without Oil. It officially begins on April 30th, but sites and content are up already. It is apparently sponsored by Independent Lens and PBS, and is designed by Jane and written by Ken Eklund. This looks to be Jane’s move towards creating more socially responsible games … Read moreWorld Without Oil: towards a responsible ARG
LOS ANGELES — The online social networking site MySpace.com and reality TV producer Mark Burnett are teaming to launch the search for an independent presidential candidate. The political reality show “Independent” comes with a $1 million cash prize. But there’s a catch: the winner can’t keep the money. The prize can be used to finance … Read moreBurnett, MySpace, Reality TV & Politics: "Independent"
EA AND ENDEMOL ANNOUNCE CREATIVE PARTNERSHIP FOR VIRTUAL ME CANNES, FRANCE, – April 16, 2007 – Electronic Arts (NASDAQ: ERTS), the world’s leading interactive entertainment software company, and the Endemol group, a global leader in television and other audiovisual entertainment, today announced a creative partnership for the development of Virtual Me, a new … Read moreEA & Endemol's "Virtual Me"
In the first of my posts about my recent 5 country cross-media tour, I’ll cover my quick visit to Finland. As I’ve mentioned before, I was asked to give a talk at the Nokia headquarters in Finland on ‘Alternate Reality Games’. It was an overview presentation pitched for designers and business managers (as that was the audience). It … Read moreFinland: Nokia & IGDA
I love this. This free (for now): RobotReplay lets you record and watch your website visitors in action. View recorded sessions of every mouse movement, click and keystroke: Improve your site’s usability See where your readers get bored Convert more visitors to buyers It’s usability testing for the rest of us. Check it out: http://www.robotreplay.com/
I love visualizations. In fact, I’m been working on some for cross-media entertainment. What I want to do isn’t asking much: to create software that shows the relationships between texts, that is also a database interface and a media player interface. So, if you’re keen to work on such a project, tell me. But in … Read morePeriodic Table of Visualization Methods
This looks quite interesting. A usability ontology workshop. I like it because I’m into ontologies and have been working an ontology for studying transmedia forms. My ontology is proposed under my framework: transmodiology. I’ve been working on this myself because, frankly, not many researchers and practitioners have got to the point where they realise the … Read moreTowards a Usability Ontology
Adam Lawrence has put together 12 Tips from Showbusiness to apply to Experience Design: Storyboard your highlights: BoomWowWowWowBOOM! Plan your experience like a Hollywood movie; have a great opening impression, a series of highlights, and a finale that tops even the opener! “The Making of” – show hidden values People are interested in what happens … Read moreExperience Design & Showbusiness
Dan Taylor has this great post about Heroes. Why is it great? It lists just about (not everything) every element NBC offers with Heroes, which as a cross-media researcher, saves me alot of time. I’ve been looking at Heroes and can see some really great things, and some bad ones. It seems they are separated … Read moreAll (most) the elements of Heroes listed
This blog, Beyond the Tube, looks like it is just an aggregator of press releases to major broadcasters, but that is pretty helpful in itself. Indeed, the latest post is pretty interesting: TV Guide magazine, one of the most popular magazines in the country, with 21 million readers each week, has partnered with NBC and … Read moreBeyond the Tube & My Name is Earl Cross-Media Sniff