Well, not quite ‘death’ but an indefinite hiatus. I’m powering down this blog for a few reasons, one of which is my desire to finish my PhD. I’ve tried for the last year and a half to do PhD writing and work and this blog, but found the mindsets are somewhat incompatable. I’ve decided therefore to close this blog down. I don’t know if I’ll bring it up again and if I do when, or whether I’ll start another one. But I do know that I have thoroughly enjoyed blogging here these past few years. I have especially enjoyed meeting many of you because of the blog, and seeing ‘cross-media’ (etc) projects become ubiquitous. Thankfully, the area has alot more people looking at it now, from alot of different perspectives. Here are some blogs that will keep you informed:

• Networked Performance: research blog that posts about emerging network-enabled practice;
• You can read and listen to news about alternate reality games and just about any online extension of a film, TV or book property on the ARGNet blog and ARG Netcast (podcast);
• Henry Jenkins personal blog and the Convergence Culture Consortium blog has lots of goodies from a media studies perspective about ‘transmedia storytelling’ and ‘convergence culture’ in general;
• DeMontfort University share their investigations into what they term ’Transliteracy’ at their PART blog;
• Jeff Gomez, the CEO of Starlight Runner and longtime practitioner of ‘trans-media’ projects, is now blogging regularly about his insights and experience over at the Producers Guild of America blog;
• Monique de Haas blogs about ‘crossmedia communication’ occasionally;
• Tony Walsh posts semi-regularly on alternate reality games;
• Valentina Rao blogs about crossmedia games and anything related to that at Games Across Media, and will hopefully be starting her PhD on the subject soon;
• Johnathan Gray, Derek Johnson and Ivan Askwith are blogging about everything around TV and film at The Extratextuals;
• Crossmedia Dialog is a group blog that post regularly on crossmedia in Amsterdam and worldwide;
• Faris Yakob, Adam Crowe blog about ‘transmedia planning’ and other changes to the marketing industry;
• Jak Boumans posts every single day about stuff happening in the Netherlands and worldwide at Buziaulane; 
• Max Giovognoli runs everything to do with cross-media in Italy;
• MobileCrossMedia is a blog that looks at the different ways mobile phones can network with different devices and the real world;
• If you don’t already get it, the Convergence Newsletter has regular interesting newsletters about convergence in journalism and has been my favourite newsletter for the past few years;

I don’t plan to be blogging here about events or publications I’m involved in, instead I’ll pop them on my bio site. But for now, here are some events I’m involved with, in the not-too-distant-future:

• I’ll be on the ‘expert panel’ with Mark McCrindle and Tim Flattery at Mitchell Communications Group ’s launch of ‘While You Weren’t Watching’, a documentary on changes to branded entertainment etc in which I was interviewed. The launch is private but the documentary will be put online I believe in Nov; 
• I have my own panel on ‘Designing, Experiencing and Analysing Games in the Age of Integration’, and I am a panelist in Darren Toft’s panel on ‘What Happened to New Media Art?’ at the Australasian Conference on Interactive Entertainment in Dec;
• I’ll be on the panel on ‘Cyber-Born Film’ at Megan Spencer’s Destination Festival (or DestFest) in Dec;
• In Jan 08, I’ll be a guest lecturer again for Sue Thomas and Kate Pullinger’s Online MA in Creative Writing and New Media, De Montfort University, UK;
• In Feb 08, my essay on ‘Tiering in Alternate Reality Games’ will be published in the special issue of Convergence edited by Henry Jenkins and Mark Deuze.

For now though, I will continue to be online in a different way. I’ve started a podcast, a podcast where I’ll interview talented people working in this area. My ‘birth’ podcast is a bit awkward, but the second is a great one: an interview with Stitch Media’s Evan Jones. At the site, I also provide sneak preview information about Stitch Media’s latest project.

That is it for me here, thankyou all for sharing this time with me. I’ll see you on the other side of my PhD.

Check it out: www.ChristyDena.com  

Check it out: www.UniverseCreation101.com

1. Cross-media bundling: When you purchase the album on their website, you get the box set which includes the music on CDs, the music on vinyl and as a digital file. They use the method common in the online pornography industry: order the tangible product, it’ll get posted to you, but while you wait you can download the file immediately. Considering the subject matter of the pornos, I can understand the desire for immediacy. :/ The point about cross-media bunding, however, is that it acknowledges the affordances and in the case of the vinyl, the sentimental and connisseur value of certain media. It also acknowledges the reality of use: people use lots of different media platforms to experience a product. A CD on the stereo for instance, digital files on the iPod and so on. The content is not bound to a particular medium.
2. Staggered release: The digital download is available as of 10th October, about two months before the boxset. This helps build awareness and familiarity with the product, which should translate to sales of the boxset with its added value.
3. Enhanced material: Like the pervasive method of the feature film DVD industry, the product provides extra materials such as new songs on top of the album, photos and artwork (which, I note, has also been used in the music industry as well). The digital download and obviously any pirated files, will not have this added value.
4. Consumer-defined price: The price of the digital download is not pre-defined, instead, the consumer (person!) can name any price they want to pay for the download. They can even put in nothing. Amazing. Obviously this is not something that most bands or creators in general can do. Radiohead are in a financial position to take such giant leaps. But gee it is great. I personally cannot stand the tactic producers use to combat pirating by locking their material and so this free-will counter-balance is endearing to me.

There is so much I could say but no need to delay you any longer.

Check it out: http://www.radiohead.com

At its simplest, there were two primary factors that drove the entertainment and marketing businesses reluctantly into each other’s arms. For marketers, as I mentioned earlier, there was fear. New devices such as digital video recorders were giving audiences the ability to bypass traditional forms of media advertising. These devices let consumers decide when, how and whether they were going to interact with all forms of content. So some in the ad community decided that if they were going to avoid commercials, one valid reaction to that would be to embed products, logos and commercial messages into those entertainment vehicles viewers were choosing to spend time with.

Across the continent from Madison Avenue, those in Hollywood found their own business models and bottom lines under enormous pressure, partly from the same factors. There were other pressures felt all over Hollywood. For film studios, the costs of producing and marketing films became a huge burden just as some traditional sources of funding dried up. And the movie-business, too, was threatened by the same technologies disrupting the TV and music industries.

The result was that these two sides, the ad business and the entertainment business, which decades ago established outposts on separate coasts of the U.S. and mostly operated independently of each other since then were suddenly compelled towards each other. They realized that they had the potential to help each other out. If nothing else, the advertisers had the money and the entertainment companies had the creativity and the attention of audiences.

And covers some notable examples:

• Paramount Pictures, Hasbro and General Motors: Transformers feature film
• BMW: The Hire film series, comics and game
• Virgin America: Virgin Americans animated series
• Dove: Evolution video, part of Campaign for Real Beauty
• Sundance Channel and Grey Goose Vodka: Iconoclasts interview series
• Burger King: games
• Volvo and MSN: Mr Robinson’s Driving School
• Axe and MTV: The Game Killers

Check it out: http://adage.com/madisonandvine/article.php?article_id=121042

This is a cross-cultural, critical history of social life on the Internet. It captures technical, cultural, and political events that influenced the evolution of computer-assisted person-to-person communication via the net. Acknowledging the role of grassroots movements, this history does not solely focus on mainstream culture with all its mergers, acquisitions, sales and markets, and the (mostly male) geeks, engineers, scientists, and garage entrepreneurs who implemented their dreams in hardware and software. It does trace the changing nature of labor and typologies of those who create value online as much as it searches for changing approaches toward control, privacy, and intellectual property. This history shows strategies for direct social change based on the technologies and practices, which already exist.

Emphasizing the role of women whenever possible, this history shows that the interests of those who used the Net as social platform shaped it in the interplay of military, scientific, entrepreneurial, activist, artistic, and altruistic agendas. The evolution of the Social Web was driven by fear, desire (to be with others), and fandom. By no means exclusively an American story, it shows instances in which users succeeded when striving for open access, jointly negotiating with corporate platform-providers.

Check it out: http://www.collectivate.net/journalisms/2007/9/26/a-history-of-the-social-web.html

Check it out: http://xtimeline.com/

URBAN SCREENS is a concept developed by Mirjam Struppek. It investigates how the currently commercial use of outdoor screens can be broadened with cultural content. We address cultural fields as digital media culture, urbanism, architecture and art. We want to network and sensitise all engaged parties for the possibilities of using the digital infrastructure for contributing to a lively urban society, binding the screens more to the communal context of the space and therefore creating local identity and engagement. The integration of the current information technologies support the development of a new integrated digital layer of the city in a complex merge of material and immaterial space that redefine the function of this growing infrastructure.

Check it out: http://www.urbanscreens.org/

We are witnessing the birth of a new generation, described not so much by their age, as by their actions in the world. They are using the freedoms of the new economy to develop a set of behavioral strategies: Digital Aboriginal.

This new generation is driven, yet they rarely plan. They function equally well in the accelerated Net time of the high-tech world and in the empty spaces that tend to provoke synchronicities. Although brilliant strategists, they often chart their courses based on pure instinct. They are highly individualized, yet depend on deeply tribal ways of birthing ideas. In the guise of looking for killer applications and the next technical edge, they are leading a revolution. They are operating from clear and coherent models of success and leadership, which are at the heart of this book.

They are forging new business scenarios based on their insatiable creative spirit. They are driving new values in the workplace from their relentless commitment to reshape the future with greater meaning. (2002, ix)

This year I had the priviledge of being an unorganiser for both the BarCampSydneys. The second one we held on Saturday 25th August and once again I walked away so excited, keen and inspired!! Last time I posted about how the event was a conference for initiates, and one observation about BarCamp I made then was:

Rather than have a small group of programming-committee-appointed experts to deliver to a large audience, a small of group self-appointed experts share with each other. Because anyone can present or talk or workshop in any manner they desire and anytime, BarCamp attracts more experts. Events that say they will provide the experts attract more people who are not experts. Events that encourage anyone to come and emphasis that everyone is important, attract more experts…

This time I’d like to explore this further, under the governing logic of: the power of unconditional participation. The ‘unconditional’ nature of BarCamps is a rockin’ key trait. Unlike most events:

• Anyone can attend: no-one has to pay or be accepted after an application;
• Anyone can present: no-one has to be selected or peer-reviewed;
• Everyone is treated equally: no-one is paid or given VIP treatment.

These may seem like simple characteristics but they have a far-reaching impact. In the two BarCampSydney events I’ve unorganised & participated in, I always walk away feeling so motivated, so excited, so full of excitement about my future and I feel fulfilled and regenerated. This feeling is not specific to the unorganiser experience: many people I’ve spoken to have walked away feeling this way.

Now, although I walk away with valuable information and key insights, it is not, I believe, the knowledge I walk away with that affects me the most. Instead, it is the BarCamp spirit. It is the spirit of unconditional participation: where all are given to without vetting, without the requirement for having to earned or paid for it. How can you walk away from that feeling anything but worthy and valuable yourself? You don’t have to prove anything, just be present. It is those sort of psychological designs, paradigmatic approaches to knowledge production, that will affect the workplace, indeed society in general, to a greater degree and quicker than any furniture or forum construction. 

The events are unconditional in the sense that industry leaders provided top-notch advice to everyone, to every question, without hesitation, for free. No question was considered stupid. Everyone had equal access to advice. Now this is VERY different to industry conferences, labs and residentials. I’ll speak about entertainment events because that is my area. As an organiser, mentor, MC, moderator, keynoter, panelist, presenter and attendee of many entertainment events I have to say that the quality, relevancy and diversity of information passed on in the single day at BarCampSydney surpassed all of those I have been present and watched from afar. The only event which comes close (in my admittedly limited opinion) is TED. OK, perhaps not exactly. But that is what it FELT like. As Nick Hodge said in the Tangler discussion:

The VC/Startup stuff was the shiznit this year. Like getting $100,000 of free consulting. 

Here are the industry leaders that put on their best tribal elder hat for the day:

• Ben Duncan, founder of Calacode and AtMail
• Mike Cannon-Brookes, founder of Atlassian
• Dean McEvoy, founder of Booking Angel
• Martin Wells, founder of Tangler
• Nick Gonios, founder of 3eep

And ‘Mark’ I think it was (someone tell me!) who started a session on the non-tech aspect of a start-up: how to get a business going if you’re not a techie. I loved that he did this because although I’m tech-friendly, I’m not a code expert. I come up with ideas all the time but do not have the skill to implement them. It was great to hear about how someone was addressing this. This, for me, is a really important aspect of the BCS experience: that pretty much every stage and personal angle of creating a business is covered. That happens because people feel, no matter what stage they’re at or how much they know, they get up there and start a conversation.

Another approach I found interesting is the notion of intrapreneurs. Yep, you read that right. Intrapeneurs are those rockin people inside a company created by an entrepreneur that keep the inventions coming. Coined by Gifford Pinchot, intrapreneurs create within the company instead of creating another company.  It would of been great to hear Elias Bizianne’s talk on this subject but I missed it. Here is a music video that explains some of the ideas:

Another book that comes to mind (though I have not read it yet) is Got Game: How the Gamer Generation is Reshaping Business Forever:

Think video games are kids’ stuff? Think again. Provocative new data show that video games have created a new generation of employees and executives–bigger than the baby boom–that will dramatically transform the workplace. And according to strategists John C. Beck and Mitchell Wade, managers who understand and harness this generation’s distinct attributes can leap far ahead of their competition. Got Game shows how growing up immersed in video games has profoundly shaped the attitudes and abilities of this new generation. Though little-noticed, these 90 million rising professionals, through sheer numbers, will inevitably dominate business–and are already changing the rules. Although many of these changes are positive–such as more open communication and creative problem solving–they have caused a generation gap that frustrates gamers and the boomers who manage them. Got Game identifies the distinct values and traits that define the gamer generation–from an increased appetite for risk to unexpected leadership skills–and reveals management techniques today’s leaders can use to bridge the generation gap and unleash gamers’ hidden potential.

But beyond the benefits for those working in industry, it is exactly these sort of approaches to sharing information, encouraging self-motivated creation and heterarchical environments that are yearned for by academics. For many years I’ve been saying that I want to be an independent researcher like Marie-Laure Ryan. It is only now that I’m at the final stages of my PhD and have to think about what to do next that the reality of that is hitting home. But I’m not the only one. After pervasive game designer and researcher Jane McGonigal finished her PhD, she went to the Institute for the Future – a place where she can balance both design and research with a cycling range of clients. And now, Danah Boyd has said that she will not go straight into an academic post. I’m the same. I want freedom…freedom that most academic institutions and corporations cannot offer. Which makes complete sense actually. Freedom isn’t given.

After reading this definition [Jenkins 'transmedia storytelling'] I automatically thought about Lara Croft: Tomb Raider as an example of transmedia storytelling. Lara Croft is in multiple media platforms, such as video games, comic books, novels, movies, animation and through modeling (yes people are hired to be Lara at conventions and other events!). There have been 2 Tomb Raider movies to date and the third is being rumored to be in production and Angelina Jolie has placed Lara on the map. The movies as a medium for Lara is incredible, it provides a life like stunning image of how Lara would look in the real world. Video games as a medium in the Tomb Raider series have the record for being the highest selling video game series of all time. Lara as a video game character is even in the Guinness World Book of Records as “The Most Successful Video Game Heroine.” In the novels, they take off from where the video games end. [...]

I am really into having access to Lara Croft: Tomb Raider in many different media outlets. I have the opportunity to keep up with Lara in different ways, I can play the game one day, watch the movie, read the book, and even see her in “person”. [...]

No matter what form of media Lara is distributed in, the story is easy to follow, she is on a mission, and the viewers are along for the adventure. [...]

A second reason for Lara’s success can be compared to Indiana Jones success, “When Indiana Jones went to television, for example, it exploited the medium’s potential for extended storytelling and character development: The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles (1992) showed the character take shape against the backdrop of various historic events and exotic environments (106).” There was potential in expanding the character development of Lara Croft and extended storytelling. She was able to take shape against other forms of mediums. Hence how Indiana Jones is still around and is currently in production of a new film. This is a perfect example showing how Tomb Raider is able to be successful. Characters in the Matrix have no room for development because they are following specific guidelines for all the different forms of mediums that have been predetermined.

Indeed, as I’ve mentioned before, Chris Dahlen has spoken about the specific appeal of characters in his blog:

In fact, the characters in these worlds are the thing that interest me the most: we’re flooded with characters nowadays, and the ones that stick start to engage us on many platforms. Where do they come from? Why are we drawn to them? […] But here’s the catch: the characters and worlds we’re talking about aren’t just getting richer and more interactive; we’re also scaling ourselves down to live in them. [from this post]

Good thoughts Jessie and Chris.

This one’s for all of the others who reside in any of the hundreds or thousands of disreputable parallel worlds that our more “reasonable,” brethren and sister-en refer to as the domain of those “tin-foil hat types.” For the uninitiated, I’ll clue you in. No one actually wears those tin foil hats, not even the supposed tin-foil hat types. [CD: Hasn't heard of Who is Benjamin Stove? or Sammeeeees obviously]

[...] What are the ten books that first initiated your journey down the rabbit-hole? Maybe they were the books that sparked your search for the truth about JFK or some other world event, about yourself or about that whole elusive thing called Reality. Perhaps these are the ten books that got you questioning all the received truths fed to you in school, by the media and by the well-meaning and equally deluded folks around you. Or maybe these are the ten books that brought you to that jaw-drop moment. You know, the moment when where your tiny bubble of consciousness exclaimed to itself, to everything and nothing: “Wow…reality is sloppy, messy, poetic, fun, crazy and,generally, a million times more maddening, frightening, beautiful, love-filled and awe-inspiring than the very boring version I’ve been led to believe in!…And I’m part of it!”

Check it out

This is a blog about the media. However, with other blogs on television, film, and the media in general, we wanted to carve out a specific niche. So our blog will focus primarily on the extratextuals that surround the media. By this, we mean everything but the show itself: previews, merchandising, industry buzz, branding, interviews, posters, spatial context, temporal context, related websites, ARGs, spinoffs, spoilers, schedules, bonus materials, transmedia extras, games, YouTube clips, etc. But we’re interested in these things not to be arcane or eccentric; rather, we believe that the extratextuals often make the show what it is. Hence this blog is about the mediation of media.

I want to note Ivan Askwith (with no slight intended to Johnathan or Derek!) is a recent graduate of the Comparative Media Studies programme at MIT, mostly known to readers of this blog through the Convergence Culture Consortium. As I posted before, his thesis online, but he is now lead strategist (coolness) at Big Spaceship (double coolness). Big Spaceship is behind great projects such as The Ultimate Search for Bourne with Google, diegetic websites such as Oceanic-Air for Lost and immersive websites such as those for the films Stranger Than Fiction, Silent Hill, 30 Days of Nights  (that is in the ilk I cover in my article on Filmmakers that Think Outside the Film) and games such as the 30 Days of Night Multiplayer Game.

Askwith posted about a great panel he participated in for the Producers Guild of America:

CREATING BLOCKBUSTER WORLDS: TRANSMEDIA DEVELOPMENT & PRODUCTION

Wednesday, September 26 (6:30PM – 9PM)

As exemplified by TV series such as Lost and Heroes , video games such as Halo and the work of creators such as JJ Abrams, Joss Whedon, Zach Snyder and Kevin Smith, storytelling has made a quantum leap in the 21st century. Development and production of a single rich narrative across multiple media platforms is the next exciting challenge being faced by producers in the digital age. Right now, major studios, advertising agencies, video game publishers and dozens of Fortune 500 companies are incubating concepts and developing intellectual properties capable of both enthralling and interacting with audiences who will enjoy them on their TV sets, computer screens, game consoles, as well as in the form of theatrical films, graphic novels and toys. There are only a handful of producers with extensive experience in the lucrative field of trans-media storytelling and production, and the PGA will be bringing them to you in this exciting seminar.

Producers who attend this seminar will become familiar with the following:

• The definition, history and near-future of trans-media storytelling, development and production
• Success stories and notorious trans-media failures
• Creative and technical elements that form successful trans-media franchises
• What (and who) you need to know to understand the ambition and scope of trans-media production
• The conceptual building blocks for successful trans-media development and implementation
• Facing the challenges of working with large conglomerates
• Rollout strategies
• The role of product placement, sponsors and promotions
• What goes into developing a trans-media deal
• Examples, illustrations and models

Check out: The ExtraTextuals