Trumblog

The following is a liveblog of a series of 6  short presentations on the convergence of media and devices that is taking place.  Presentations dealt with larger themes of convergence, tools for supporting convergence, current issues with it, transmedia story telling and possible futures.  The session was given at South by Southwest on March 15, 2010.

Convergence 2010: Ten Cool Things That Could Happen This Year – Dan Shust

4:34:15 PM: Social becomes the thread: source for news, media, purchasing, etc.

4:35:32 PM: Location Matters: we tell apps where we are and that will be taken into account with interaction

4:37:12 PM: Entertain Me Now: real time availability of entertainment & media anywhere on any platform

4:39:47 PM: Birth of the Front Channel: ability to add additional content & data on top of media

4:41:17 PM: Commerce Atomizes: Small bits of data and media that can be shared, exchanged, e commerce

4:42:46 PM: Life is a game: games, rankings and rewards become aspect of most interactions

4:44:28 PM: Interactive Products: expectation of digital interaction with physical products

4:45:31 PM: Your Reality Will Be Augmented: augmented reality at stores, home, etc for a variety of uses

4:46:22 PM: Imagine impact of augmented reality ala Bing maps for live TV

4:47:40 PM: Digital is the new paper: tablets will change how people use magazines, etc.

4:48:44 PM: Rise of the connected things: convergence means that our bathroom scale will tweet, fit bit, MS sync, etc

Convergence: Already Here, and Gosh It’s a Mess! – Jared Benson

4:55:37 PM: Rebuilding the Tower of Babel: use semantic web to bridge languages and other barriers

4:56:25 PM: Semantic web: tagging items to put data in context

5:00:48 PM: Publishing scientific results with common semantic database, allows reuse & reduce subsequent research cost and time

5:03:06 PM: Merc, Biogen Idec, GroupM & Chevron all using semantic tags

5:04:23 PM: Could we use semantic tags to media to rate and understand media and impact on viewers

5:06:03 PM: Semantic databases can bring together divergent data thus accelerating discovery

5:11:51 PM: Why is this presentation so much harder to take notes on than the previous one? Not sure where it’s going?

From Hulu To Yahoo Widgets: Will The Internet Transform The TV? – Richard Bullwinkle

5:15:12 PM: Q: Do we really want widgets overlaid on TV or an uninterrupted entertainment experience?

5:16:35 PM: Widgets on a TV are bound to be worse than those on your iPhone, laptop, etc.

5:18:03 PM: Why should it be that searching for media on your laptop so much better than on your TV?

5:22:36 PM: Imperative steps for better TV: add meta data for media for searching, create social networks around media

Imminent Fusion of Intelligent Mobile Devices & Entertainment Content – Rebecca Allen

6:02:59 PM: Mixed Reality – blending physical and virtual worlds to create new forms of entertainment leveraging mobile

6:03:43 PM: Mobile particularly suited to mixed reality because of interaction with location

6:05:21 PM: Case study: Augmented reality markers on Hollywood Walk of Fame w/ photos of actors

6:06:49 PM: Altars on Michael Jackson Hollywood star an example of importance of virtual place

6:16:43 PM: Nokia used transmedia, augmented reality, image recognition, image clues, etc. for tour of 6 blocks in LA

Tour starts in a theater with a projected video of the tour guide, then the actor.  Once the audience solves a team-based projected video game puzzle with their phones they leave the theater and use their phones to view and augmented reality of the street in the 1940′s using their phones.  They go to a diner and then a dance studio where using 3D audio they hear about the actor’s tryst with a dancer in the 40′s.  Finally the tour leads to a cemetery where that dancer, revealed to be Marilyn Monroe is buried.  The Nokia transmedia experience felt like creative for the lowest common denominator.  I suspect that the creatives did not have fun creating the story and so based on the second point in his presentation….

Transmedia Storytelling – Creating Stories That Work Over all Platforms – James Milward

6:23:20 PM: Key element of transmedia is using individual platforms for each’s unique advantages

6:24:07 PM: If you are not having fun creating the story on multiple platforms then people won’t have fun doing it.

6:25:36 PM: Why Transmedia? 1. Reinforce/ sustain and grow your audience 2. develop/ build your audience 3. Have fun

6:27:12 PM: Expect people to contribute to transmedia experience it, make space for it and encourage it

6:28:42 PM: Audiences for transmedia 1. hard core users 2. lifters (not dedicated but share for social currency) 3. casual users

6:35:16 PM: Transmedia rules of thumb 1. start early 2. set goals 3. know your audience/ genre 4. find partners 5. enfranchise advocates

6:36:38 PM: Loyalty = success for transmedia campaigns

6:38:05 PM: Transmedia seems to be either monetized through subsidiary products & events or are publicity for monetized media

Convergence 2015 ‘ A Look Ahead – David Berkowitz

6:44:59 PM: Convergence future #1: 1 media device, does everything, omni-tasking

6:45:22 PM: Fooks – books written out a Facebook status updates

6:48:54 PM: Convergence future #2: devices are still basically function specific w/ some additional features

6:50:44 PM: Convergence future #3: divergence as devices continue to multiply #convergence2010