My buddy Ryan Sarver sent me a link to this announcement of an upcoming location based MMO. I’m kind of obsessed with this new game space. So much potential! Can’t wait to give it a try!
“DrugLords is a location-based massively multiplayer online game about drug trafficking. Using GPS inside your iPhone, you become a drug dealer in the criminal underworld, which exists parallel to your everyday life.”
Today’s LA TIMES has a great article about people ditching their expensive cable/satellite packages. Happy to watch their TV/MOVIE content via BROADBAND and NETFLIX. We’ve all seen this trend in our circle of pals. (Javier Grillo Marxuach of MIDDLE MAN fame is all about APPLE TV.) And based on the response to my recent SEESMIC query — this rejection of broadcast/cable/satellite appears to be happening on a global scale. It was only a matter of time before this movement reached critical mass. Nothing like a significant economic downturn to force the issue. Check out the article if you’re so inclined –
HOLLYWOOD MAY NOT BE RECESSION PROOF THIS TIME.
And here’s another article on the same topic in Advertising Age –
I just discovered SEESMIC. It’s an amazing web based community for exchanging ideas. It works very much like a traditional forum — but it’s all done via video clips shot with your webcam. I tried it out for the first time tonight. I’m curious to see if anybody responds to my query –
NBC’S TAMI INDEXAdvertising Age Online has an interesting article regarding the broken broadcast ad model. It focuses on various methods of measuring eyeball value in the transmedia age.
It’s worth a look –
Broadcast ratings are down for HEROES this year. As they are for many shows. But does that mean people aren’t watching these shows? Nope. In fact — it’s the opposite.
More people than ever are watching TV shows. Problem is — they’re not watching them on TV, and they’re not watching them when they’re supposed to. They’re watching them on DVR/TIVO devices, via DVD, official web services like HULU and ITUNES, and of course — Bit Torrent and its ilk. Let’s take DVR (or what I still call TIVO) —
Some shows are getting an almost 70% bump in their ratings via TIVO and DVR. A stat that is reported some three weeks after the airing of the episode.
That’s insane. Three years ago it was around 9%. That kind of audience shift is catastrophic for the traditional ad revenue models the networks and studios depend on to fund their business. With that many people supposedly skimming through commercials, the production budgets of shows that have a low on-air rating — but massive DVD sales, INTERNATIONAL audience, and WEB viewership will be hard to justify.
What’s going to save the TV business? Integrated advertising? Smaller budgets? New accounting practices? New biz dev partnerships between content creators and hardware creators? Probably all of the above.
As that’s getting sorted out, I’ll be watching my shows on HULU. I was a hater who couldn’t imagine that kind of media conglomerate tech enterprise could work. Boy was I wrong. HULU is amazing. The interface. The player. The sharing capabilities. They crushed that thing. It dominates. If you haven’t taken a look…
HULU.
Jane McGonigal is once again reinventing entertainment, interactive narrative, and collaborative problem solving. As if WORLD WITHOUT OIL wasn’t enough. Now we have SUPERSTRUCT. Take a look…
NOW MORE THAN EVER –
The digital revolution has shattered the traditional revenue models of many industries.
In my business. Entertainment. Specifically broadcast television. Our audience has fractured. Multiple channels. Multiple platforms. Consumers are no longer willing to just plop down on the couch and watch three hours of TV a night (Unless they’re watching CBS).
Modern audiences are demanding that content come to them on their schedule, and on whatever platform they have handy: TIVO. Internet. IPOD. Cell Phones. Video Game Platforms. Books. Toys. Manga. ETC.
For content creators to reach this fractured audience — a transmedia approach to storytelling is needed.
At HEROES we have embraced the transmedia approach. We extend our narrative across multiple media platforms simultaneously. Taking the characters, stories, and concepts from our broadcast show and expanding them via every platform we have access to. DVD. Websites. Cell phone games. Comic Books. Manga. Toys. And so on. Every piece of content that we create is designed to be a point of engagement for our audience, both a way for potential fans to discover the franchise, and for loyal fans to immerse themselves in the world of HEROES.
In the past, media companies and creators had looked at this kind of cross platform brand extension as an afterthought. Something ancillary to the core of the franchise. A way for the consumer products group to exploit the franchise and generate revenue without the input and participation of the storytellers. That approach is no longer sustainable and in fact has real drawbacks. The modern media audience is savvy. They know when they are being pandered to. They know when their favorite brand has sold out to an advertiser. And they don’t like it. In this world of transmedia brand exploitation, the chances of damaging a franchise increase with every new platform that franchise inhabits.
In the same way convergence culture has forced media companies to expand beyond their core business, driving broadcast television companies to take their content online, and beyond — so too has it affected the people that create the content.
It is no longer enough for a mass media content creator to understand storytelling for only one medium. For the current, and new generation of creators to survive, and build sustainable work, they must embrace the transmedia approach. They must understand the capabilities of technology to reach a vast audience, and adjust their storytelling to suit the way that audiences parse information differently on each platform.
While traditional entertainment models are collapsing. Transmedia entertainment is expanding. The need for new revenue streams is driving innovation. Character, narrative, and emotion are a proven way to engage consumers and create an audience devoted to both content and platform.
It is a very exciting time to be in the content business.