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

Multi-platform story-telling requires story-teller’s to think on multiple levels and in multiple dimensions. The audience is no longer in one place and no longer on a single device for a scheduled period of time.  These additional layers and moving parts require quite a bit of effort on the story-teller’s part.  The story-teller is no longer just a writer.  She is a writer, a producer, an architect, a metadata specialist, a marketing exec, a business person, and a user experience professional.

Hey, now that sounds good. But then Tejpaul answers a question about whether formats will change with multiplatform delivery (”‘delivery?” I ask myself and then read on):

New forms of delivery alone won’t change story format. A new creative process that exploits end user devices and is in line with consumer behavior will eventually create new innovative story structures. For example, if you put “Lost” on an iPod or on a website, the delivery is very different from the delivery to television. The format however is exactly the same, only with a much poorer user experience. If, on the other hand, “Lost” were created with the understanding that aspects of the show will appear on a two-inch screen or on a highly interactive website, the format might start to evolve. Also, if producers and creators understand that if a user gets “Lost” on an iPod, they are probably on the go or if a user watches “Lost” online, they might be in the office, then creators might make different choices based on the consumer’s viewing context.

Oh, I see. Tejpaul is talking about multi-platform delivery, and is calling it storytelling. Right, well, I have a few things to say about that. Firstly, I agree with Tejpaul that creating with a multi-platform delivery consciousness is a different literacy. People are trying to create content that will work well on any platform (the COPE model: create-once-publish-everywhere). But due to the different affordances of each media platform (different screen sizes, graphic quality, sound etc) there is really only one artform that I think can actually achieve this: animation. Animation seems to work well on just about any platform. There are concessions that need to be made still, to address the requirements of the most demanding platform (eg: closeups for mini screens). Second, there is also the multi-platform delivery consciousness that informs creating content that can be easily altered for each platform (edited into minisodes for example).  Now, to my final point. It seems Tejpaul is arguing that multi-platform storytelling is about creating content that is aware of the platform it will be experienced in, not necessarily extending content across paltforms. To check this, I an article he wrote for StreamingMedia.com in Nov 2006: The Art of Storytelling:

My prediction is that the next big opportunity in entertainment can be found in the emergence of multiplatform storytelling.

A multiplatform story is a story that is created and designed to be told across television, PCs, and mobile devices. This is not the simple porting of television content to alternative distribution platforms, nor is it the use of those alternative platforms to market television shows. An end user can experience a multiplatform story on all of his or her entertainment devices. The glue that adheres the devices together and links the user to each platform is the story itself. The world of the story can be revealed on each platform in a way that exploits the platform to the fullest: linear TV, interactive TV with web applications, gaming, polling, user input, and whatever else the creator can think up.

The creator of the story world has to understand the nature of the person receiving the story and the nature of the multiple devices that the person uses to interact with entertainment. The story, like its distribution, is multi-dimensional and can offer a different experience to each user depending on that user’s entertainment consumption behavior patterns.

[...]

The way to get around this market fragmentation in interactive television is to use the power of the web to reach the masses and drive them back to their televisions so they can experience television in a new way (assuming they are on a cable or satellite system that offers the interactive application). The problem with this solution is how to link stories on the web to stories on television and keep the user engaged. Since the likelihood of someone jumping directly from the web to her television screen is slim, the challenge is to keep the story fresh in the user’s mind for days after she is first exposed to it. If this is accomplished, the next time the user sits in front of a TV, she will want to interact with the story she first interacted with on the web. Accomplishing this is no easy feat, and it again leads back to the quality and the form of the storytelling.

Have you noticed that people can’t wait to watch the next episode of Lost or 24? Have you noticed that despite the fact that people complain about how little time they have, they still find time to watch 13-hour DVDs of these shows? The stories are so compelling that people can’t wait to watch and talk about the stories with their friends. That is the “link” that needs to be tapped into.

[...]

[W]e don’t have to change user behavior in terms of how entertainment is consumed for multiplatform stories to work. We do have to find a way, however, to create cohesive experiences across all those entertainment devices.

[...]

Since we aren’t simply trying to change how stories are delivered but are instead trying to change the way stories are told, multiplatform storytelling is in essence setting out to become a new art form. And with any new art form—whether it is theater, film, dramatic television, or interpretive dance—it takes several iterations before a working format emerges. In other words, the next big thing in entertainment is not a new hit movie or a new killer delivery technology. The next big thing is a new focus on creating story worlds that are in tune with the new generation of consumers and the new interfaces through which they will interact with new stories.

The first multiplatform story will most likely not be a “hit.” The next step will be several generations of trial and error with creative experimentation to learn what consumers want and what they are attracted to. It is time for a whole new generation of Spielbergs and Scorseses to hit the market. Creative thinkers can now create imaginary worlds that are as complex and intricate as the creators’ own imaginations.

Okay, so it seems that Tejpaul does touch on a “cohesive experience”. He does oscillate, though, between describing adaptation and extension across media but I think the core sentiment is there. I haven’t seen any of his projects so I don’t know just what he is doing. I’m not clear on what he is doing, but I’m interested.

Describing the difference between stories being extended across media and stories being adapted across media is so important. I spend most of my days doing it. There really is a mono-story and mono-medium consciousness out there. That is why i have changed the terms I use on this blog to describe it. As soon as a term becomes saturated with other meanings, it becomes ineffective. ‘Convergence’ and ‘cross-media’ both suffer from this problem. People employ both of them to mean a range of conflicting ideas. Lately, I’ve been using ‘cross-media’ to describe the whole range of options available (including repurposing and adaptation) and trying to keep ‘transmedia’ as referring to extensions. I use multi-platform alot because it is accessible to many people too. That is why I get irritated pretty quickly when I see terms being adulterated again. It is a losing battle in some ways…until some key works come out that really cement the form. Anyway, check out Tejpaul’s links:

Interview at SISOMO: http://www.sisomo.com/sisomo/article/tejpaul_bhatia_multiplatform_storytelling/

Article in StreamingMedia: http://www.streamingmedia.com/article.asp?id=9465

Tej Media Networks: http://www.tejmedia.com/

Tejpaul’s blog: http://tejpaul.blogspot.com/

In this class, we will explore the form and function of narrative. Using a variety of methodological frameworks gathered from fields as diverse as folklore, cultural studies, literature, computer science, film studies, media studies, and creative writing, we will immerse ourselves in both the production and consumption of narratives in a critical fashion. Using a combined approach of narrative analysis, critique, and creation, we will learn to appreciate stories – expressed across a variety of media – as rich encapsulations of human experience and as valuable vehicles for artistic and intellectual expression.

I’ve had some quick contact with Rudy and the course is an excellent mix of analysis (employing a fine range of fields) and practice. The course focuses, however, on the adaptation of a story in different media, rather than the expansion of narrative in different media. Both are important, because you cannot understand the second without the first. This missing element of expansion despite the course being called ‘transmedia story creation’ is completely understandable though. There is very little knowledge about this expansive phenomena in narratology (I plan to change that!), and the term ‘transmedia’ is not field-agnostic. Media theorist Henry Jenkins’s term ‘transmedia storytelling’ is different to the narratological meaning of transmedial narrative. Jenkins employs the term transmedia to describe expansion across media, narratologists employ transmedia to describe the study of media-specific narrative traits. There is a clash of semantics here. I thoroughly enjoy this diversity of meaning however. It helps me gain a greater understanding of the area and just proves that we really are in an age of diversity.

I am so thrilled to see the course that Rudy is running. It is quite a well-designed exercise in the theoretical and practical exploration of narrative and media. I’m even more thrilled that we all know about each other now, so the conversation (and expansion of ideas) can continue.

Check out: Transmedia Story Creation blog

[N.B.: Just saw the latest assignment and it does include a transmedia story exercise! Wohoo!]

In the Internet as well as in the digital era, cross-media production and distribution represent key developments and innovations that are fostered by emergent technologies to ensure better value for money while optimising productivity and market coverage. AXMEDIS2007 aims to explore all subjects and topics related to cross-media and digital-media content production, processing, management, standards, representation, sharing, protection and rights management interoperability, to address the latest developments and future trends of the technologies and their applications, its impact and exploitation. We are particularly interested in exchanging concepts, requirements, prototypes, research ideas, and findings which could contribute to academic research or could be beneficial to business and industrial communities.

Areas they cite that are of interest to me:

• * Formats and models for multi-channel content distribution and interoperability
• * Web services for content distribution
• * Semantic Web for multimedia production and distribution
• * Collaborative models and tools
• * Context Awareness
• * Synchronisation technologies and solutions
• * Systems and approaches for content production/distribution on demand
• * Content adaptation
• * Accessibility and multimodal user interfaces
• * Novel applications and case-studies of relevant technologies

The CFP has been extended to the 27th April.

Thankyou Monique for the heads up.

Example 1: Virtual and Print Books

As I’ve mentioned here before, in August last year I purchased a copy Julian Dibbell’s book: Play Money. It is a book about living of money earned from working in virtual worlds. Well, to really spin your head around, the book is for sale at Amazon but also in the online virtual world: Second Life. What you can do in Second Life, however, is purchase a virtual copy of the book (which means you have a virtual book you can actually read inworld) AND a hardcopy (real life) version of the book for one fee. That was fun. Not only did I purchase it inside of a virtual world, with virtual world currency, and receive a virtual book, but I received a hardcopy one too in the mail. A good example of appropriate bundling. Pic from New World Notes.

See Sandra’s post at Hitwise

Cross-Media Research

Anja Bechmann Petersen presented her talk ‘Internet and Cross Media Productions: Case Studies in Two Major Danish Media Organizations’. Petersen spoke about her research into the cross media production processes for two services: coverage of a premier league soccer match by Nordjyske Medier and a weekly youth entertainment production called SPAM by the Danish Broadcasting Corporation. Petersen analyses ‘cross media communication’ (a term first introduced by Monique de Haas) according to two perspectives: what she terms the outward and inner. The outward pespective involves movement towards the users, like storytelling and cross-promotion. The inner perspective is the movement within an organization, which includes strategies for having departments work together. Although it was no surprise that Petersen’s study found the companies undertook versioning (or repurposing) of the content in each platform, the study did uncover the company strategy behind that versioning. They did it to increase their audiences (reach) and take advantage of targeting those audinces in advertising. They did not want the audience to move between platforms and so did not use any strategies (like providing unique content) to facilitate that. Petersen’s sophisticated writing style and rigorous methodology provides a valuable addition to cross media research. Luckily for you, the paper is available freely on the web at the Australian Journal of Emerging Technologies and Society [pdf].

Oscar Westlund from the Department of Journalism and Mass Communication at Gothenburg University, Sweden, gave his talk ‘Beyond time and Space: the Use of Internet and Mobile Internet Services in Sweden’. Westlund researches attitudes towards news in print, online and mobile phones and shared his studies on the latter in his talk. Besides giving a helpful overview of the state of mobile phone use in Sweden he told us some interesting things about use of the news on different platforms. For instance: white collar 15-29 year olds are the early adopters of news on mobile phones; most news is read on the Net; people read newspapers in the morning, then the Net during the day and mobiles whilst out and about. I look forward to sharing more research with Oscar about content and mobile phones.

Dr Rebecca Coyle, Course Coordinator for the Media Studies program at Southern Cross University, Australia, presented her talk ‘Online Listeners: Radio Convergence and Internet Options’. Coyle provided a thorough analysis of radio and podcasting. She compared the qualities of talk back, radio and podcasts. One thing she mentioned which I was surprised about was a radio station that has started doing a video podcast: 2GB. Radio with pictures! Looking at their website it appears they have three video podcasts: Macquarie National News; Continuous Call Team – Exclusive Look and Rugby League Player Interviews. It is clear here that the radio station is becoming its own TV broadcaster of sorts, which is very interesting. [Note too: jtv in Australia also does 'vodcasts' with videos of radio interviews.]

Professor Alexis Weedon, the Director of the Research Institute in Media, Art and Design, University of Luton, UK, presented her talk ‘Convergent Behaviours in Bookshop Browsing’. She gave a great talk about how people browse for books both in stores and online. Weedon draws on alot of theorists I employ and is actually researching cross media, including its historical background. I was very excited to meet her and look forward to having more discussions about cross-media with her in the future.

Professor Arne Krokan, from the Institute of Sociology and Political Science in Norway, presented his talk ‘Blurring the Borders: Effects of Convergence in the Scandinavian Media Sector’. This talk provided an excellent overview of cross media concerns. For instance, Krokan outlined the driving forces behind convergence: globalization, deregulation, derritorialization, digital economy, chaging user behaviours, new technologies and convergent technologies.

Ted Coopman from the Department of Comunication, University of Washington, presented his talk ‘Dumping Dichotomies: Embracing the Pervasive Communication Environment’. He presented a PCE model that addresses the issue of the range of platforms and how they can be used. It was uncannily like my Mono-Polymorphism model but with one specific difference. This difference helped me to reconceptualise my theories. I realised after much brain crunching that I need to unpack my theories again and give each element a unique model rather than have them all represented with a single one. One day next year you’ll see what I’m talking about! But this thought process also opened me up to a great find in a bookstore: Keith Critchlow’s ‘Order in Space’. I bought this and am now revising my visualisations on my theories too. Yummy.

And I should mention myself. I presented my talk ‘How the Internet is the Center of Conjured Universes’ — the only talk that deals with the aesthetics of cross-media. I spoke about the techniques used by ARG players to aggregate real time game information with Guides and Trails; how fans conduct what I call Anachrony Audits (reordering texts into the order of events occur in the fictional World); and the tactics ARG players use to decipher official and unofficial production. I was asked to submit the paper to a journal and so I won’t be putting it online until then.

Other Research

There were lots of other talks that I found fascinating and well presented. Of note was Adrian Miles‘ talk which was straight after mine. he spoke about the affordances of vlogs and how people need to start working with the current state of technology rather than complain and wait for improvements. His and my approaches complimented each other. Kevin interviewed him about his talk and it is now online here. Kevin Lim presented his rigorous system for measuring social capital in his talk ‘Building Social Captial for Online Youths: A Singapore Case Study’. Lim also took lots of pics and did video interviews at AOIR so check out his website. Lim and I had some really good chats and I look forward to continuing contact with him. Darren Sharp, from Queensland Univeristy of Technology, Australia, presented his talk on ‘Hacking the ‘Internet of Things’ which was a great discussion about ubiquitous computing (ubicomp). He provided a lucid overview of approaches in the area.

John Banks presented his talk ‘Reconfiguring Project Ecologies in the Video Games Industry’. Banks spoke about his experience working in industry with Auran (off which you’ll find a few papers online) and his role as a community liaison. Auran actively encouraged fan-produced content, paid the fans and put the content into the software. Banks noted that the fans complained of labour exploitation when Auran did not act or do things to their liking. Otherwise they were quite eager to share their content.

I’ve seen the same situation with Second Life and I think the biggest cultural shift has been the attitude of subscribers of worlds like second Life. Subscribers do not view themselves as paying to access Linden’s software or world but see Linden as being paid by them to keep it going. Linden is in service to the residents. So, Linden sees SL as their property and the residents see it as theirs. Personally, because Linden have created a world in which the content is created by the residents and not Linden i do see them as being in service to us.

Banks also went on to talk about the employment of “popular” by academics. He cited Meaghan Morris’ 1988 ‘The Banality of Cultural Studies’ and questioned the habit of researching things that are popular. Banks finds it worrying when academics and industry use the same terms.

I found Banks’ comments refreshingly frank. I have struggled with the idea of using the same terminology for industry and academia. At first this is what I tried to do but found that it just cannot work that way (in most cases). Terms in academia are there to communicate very specific information whereas terms in industry are there to communicate a general idea. Indeed, I realised that the more terms the better as each one is representative of a whole set of ideas, a unique perspective. To have less terms is to impede diversity and complexity and thwart original thought.

Another point related to this notion of the “popular” is the propencity for listing sites and services. After being very dissappointed with industry talks that are just an overview of sites and services with no guidance or interpretation I was surprised to see this in academia as well…especially at a gathering of Internet researchers. We don’t need a listing of cool new things on the Net because we already know about them and a careless listing is something ANYONE can do. Academics should be providing analysis and likewise, industry should be providing guidance. Rant over.

I also enjoyed spending time with, chatting with and meeting Tama Leaver, Nancy Baym, Jason Nelson, Elaine Lally, Sal Humphries and Paul Teusner. I missed Adam Muir’s talk on Internet Ecologies but he has thankfully put it online. I was also very inspired by the philosophy talks.

Those who read my previous post will know, I wasn’t able to go over to Amsterdam to Picnic 06 for the launch on the IGDA ARG SIG Whitepaper. ARGN has a good write-up of it.

As a last personal note, I had a great time catching up with mates whilst away and making new ones. I also developed my theories further which I’m keen to get down to writing up. I also loved seeing new sites, new insects, cats and cultural habits. One sign that I saw repeatedly in Queensland that I found particularly hilarious was this:

“Bags without people don’t make sense”

It is post-terrorism response in Australia where good citizens are encouraged to report packages and baggages left in streets or trains. Poor bags.

aoir2006

http://www.technorati.com/tag/aoir2006

* Whoops, Gary just informed me that the BBC have been using “360 content” since 1996! It is the first time I’ve heard it though and think it a nice way to describe the cross-media experience: it is 360 degrees.

• Quicktime for Mac users
• Flash Video for Windows PC users
• Sony Playstation Portable version
• Apple Video iPod version
• 3GP for video-capable cellphones
• Microsoft Windows Media
• Audio only MP3 version

Luminaries include Andrew Lilley, Sophie Walpole (BBC), Noah Falstein, Brian Seth-Hurst and our own LAMP director Gary Hayes. There is some interesting conversations to watch/listen to.

Let me know of any terms and usages you know and where I explained things incorrectly!