** SHORT VERSION: I’M NOW BLOGGING AT WWW.CHRISTYDENA.COM **
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:
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
This is on old one (oct 2006) but I only just discovered it from Vassilen’s site Mobile Aesthetic. The mobile series is distributed in the UK through O2, T-Mobile and 3; and in the US through amp’d mobile. The series of 20×2 minute episodes, directed by Johannes Roberts, will be available as a feature film on DVD soon. I’ll add it to my Mobile Drama Round Up.
Check it out: www.whenevilcalls.tv
Kylie Robertson of Ish Media, the lass behind such interactive dramas Jupiter Green and the website for Joel and Cat Set the Story Straight, has launched her latest offering: Girl Friday. It is available for free via the web and mobile (in Australia). The main website is at www.GirlFriday.tv with videos at YouTube, including this trailer:
[youtube 2-M7KqB2sO4]
Earlier I’ve mentioned the technique of having characters call audiences, now Laura Marriott, President of the Mobile Marketing Association, provides a business argument for using voice in mobile campaigns:
Voice provides an opportunity to hook the consumer and then possibly have them engage in more advanced services via text, video, Web, etc. Voice is easy for the consumer to interact with based on their current experiences with their device, so there is no learning curve. A few agencies I spoke to told me that some of the most successful campaigns to date have been voice campaigns. “The numbers are staggering,” said Keenan.
Check it out
Nokia are about to launch the beta of their foray into the social networking area with Mosh.
A user-generated content platform designed specifically for use with any mobile device. Create, upload, collect and share applications (like games, software mashups, videos, blogs, music and photos) all from your mobile.
The site is password protected by screenshots are already on the web:
source
But the mobile-phone site (http://mosh.nokia.mobi) is available now:
source
Signup for the beta at: http://mosh.nokia.com/
My old list of mobile phone content has been getting some attention of late. At the time when I wrote it there were not many sites that featured mobile phone content (particularly creative stuff). More recently, however, there has been a growing interest in the area. Here are some links (some old, some new) you may find interesting:
A blog about the role mobile technologies play in cross-media. Some great examples of technologies that get networked and non-networked media communicating. There are some great video examples of QR codes etc being used in entertainment and gaming.
Vassilen Iotzov’s research for a diploma thesis at the Berlin University about the emergence of mobile TV aesthetics (mainly german-speaking). Once again, lots of great info and videos for those of us who don’t speak German. Iotzov also emailed me some great additions to my mobile content round-up, which I’ve now added.
Dean Keep’s research blog for his Masters at RMIT on micro-narratives.
This is a fantastic listing of projects covering mobile art and research.
Emily Turrettini’s sites are always a great resource of information about the industry and creative projects
Oh, and here is a great guide I stumbled upon: DotMobi Mobile Web Developer’s Guide.
I’ve just read the proceedings to Gerard Goggin and Larissa Hjorth’s Mobile Media 2007 and there are some interesting papers. In particular I liked:
- Hidden Meanings: Understanding the new social-psychological impact of mobile phone use through storytelling by Kathleen M. Cumiskey
- From Mobile Phones to Mobile Media: Current developments in mobile phone-based cultural consumption by Juan Miguel Aguado and Inmaculada J. Martinez
- Mobile Phones, Networked Selves, Media Ecologies by Marsha Berry
- Games without Borders: Globalisation, gaming and mobility in Venezuela by Thomas H. Apperley
- Domesticating New Media: a discussion on locating mobile media by Larissa Hjorth
- Perspectives on mobiles and PCs: Attitudinal convergence and divergence among small businesses in urban India by Jonathan Donner
That’s it from me on this topic for now. Let me know of any other sites I’ve forgotten or don’t know about.
Emily Turrenttini, the powerhouse behind two blogs on mobile phone technology and content: picturephoning and ringtonia (and textually which aggregates the other two). Emily has now added a blog dedicated to reporting on TV on the Net:
TvSeries Online will be following user generated TV content published online, it’s impact on the Television industry and will explore the new generation of TV series as a writing genre, focusing on their impact on US society and international.
Her reasons for starting the blog:
Because I think it’s huge already (I know so many people who no longer watch TV series on television, but over the Internet – I’m one of them), I’m opening a new blog called TVSeries Online.
It will follow how TV content published online is impacting the Television industry and how the industry is fighting back. It will explore the new generation of TV series as a writing genre, realistic and fast paced – truly a new art form. [ 24', Weeds, Desperate Housewives, Prison Break, Lost, Heroes, nip/tuck, Dr House, Dexter, CSI:, Grey's Anatomy, the 1400, Veronica Mars, Scrubs, The OC, Smallville, The Shield... ]
But also, the crossing of moral bounderies each new season. I’m going to try and pull together research and studies on what this says about our society and how it’s perceived around the world.
Hmmm, I guess her next blog will be one that looks at the relationship between TV on the web, TV on TV and TV on mobiles…
Check out: www.textually.org/tv/
His Awesomeness Leslie Nassar, a good mate, was interviewed by Microsoft Geek Nick Hodge on his Geek Stories. Leslie talks about his work on the ABC producing their podcasts. He also talks about why podcast networks suck — the problem he cites can be solved by networked & non-networked media becoming networked (a solutin for many multi-platform forms). He also talks about the Circles of Hell and mobile content. Once you get over the info exchange at the beginning Nick lets Leslie rip.
Check it out: http://www.on10.net/Blogs/nhodge/the-geek-stories-leslie-nassar-podcasting-at-the-abc/
I completely missed this one when it was happening (my defence is that I was travelling at the time), but you really should know about this if you don’t already. In July last year an audio drama began, Shadow Falls. It is a scary tale with high production standards, nice careful attention to the writing, and anagram clues that are issued in the audio fan forum…and so gathered alot of fans very quickly. The season one finale was in early November and fans were hanging out for more tales. And so, the writer Mark Yoshimoto Nemcoff, got together with some experts of another artform and added something new on the 22nd of November. On that day they launched “The Shadow Falls Experience“.
What they did was create the fictional world of Shadow Falls in the online virtual world Second Life. And then, over the next few weeks, released audio clues in the podcast. The listeners then logged into SL and sought out the information, based on the clues. Just like the ARG I Love Bees, the players had to solve a puzzle and go to a (virtual) place to retrieve an audio component of the story. The players do this, but for those who do not participate in the experience, the total story is podcast at the end. This story is the season two prologue, a podnovel/audio novel. Here is what Mark said about the experience in the “interactive fan forum”, companion #5 podcast (17/11/06) prior to it commencing:
Read the rest of this entry »
Dean Keep, a Masters student at RMIT University, has started a research blog on “micro-narratives”. That term, btw Dean, is not new. 
I personally like nano-narratives too, for the alliteration and how it makes me smile when I say it. But seriously, the study of micro-narratives, and micro-narratives created for the small screen (or for small and others depending on the distribution) is important and interesting. Here is Dean’s description of his site:
“The Poetics of Mobile Media” is the working title for my Masters by Research at RMIT university. The purpose of this page is to publish research, share ideas, and instigate a dialogue on mobile media.
The recent proliferation of mobile devices and wireless technology is driving a rapid interest in the development and production of content for mobile phones.
It is arguable that these “micro-narratives” ( a term I use to describe these projects) have elicited a new set of narratives codes and aesthetics. In a world where viewers have wireless access to content, it is important to look at how these micro-narratives contrast with more conventional modes of storytelling. How does portability of the device affect the user experience? What are the viewer expectations in regards to content, aesthetics and interactivity?
More to the point. Is there a potential audience for narrative driven projects designed specifically for the small screen?
Over the following months and perhaps years, I intend to search for the answers to these and many more questions related to mobile media. I look forward to your feedback.
Dean, do you know or know of Andrew McKenzie who is also doing/was doing a postgrad (PhD) in mobile narratives at RMIT? Andrew is in NZ, however, and his site is currently offline.
I look forward to reading more posts on Dean’s site: Poetics of Mobile Media.
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