IBM is starting up an educational MMO – this time, it’s about environmental issues. In PowerUp, teams of players have to work together to save a planet from ecological apocalypse. NASA is doing it, IBM’s all over it, and the number of people playing MMOs worldwide is soaring. my money is on massively multiplayer gaming […]
Read more "Massively Multiplayer Media"Used to be, journalists were like information sprinkler systems. They pulled information up from unfathomable, inaccessible depths, and spread it out to the waiting masses. Not any more. We all swim in an ocean of data now. And everyone has the ability to broadcast to millions. So journalists have to be pumps and filters – […]
Read more "Careful Dude . . . Citizen Journalists at Work"Earlier I posted a conceptual model for thinking about viral video. The short version is that people link viral video because it makes ’em look cool. So the upshot for vid producers is: give them vids that will make the sender look cool if they ping it out to all their friends. Video (or any […]
Read more "The Internet is About Making Connections"Any of you who are online/wired journalists might find this interesting. Ning.com has a social network just for us newfangled online journo types. Yes, I know – another social network. But it’s specific to theme. Social network speciation, you might call it. The specialization means it’s better at what it’s supposed to do, in this […]
Read more "Ning.com – Give it a Go?"What makes some stuff spread through the internet like a flame through a field of firecrackers, while other stuff sits on YouTube for weeks and gets crap-all attention? And how do you make the good viral meme stuff? Mark wrote about this recently. The trick seems to be in creating unique bespoke content for the […]
Read more "Pass the Ammo"(OK, this is getting heavily theoretical here, but I’ve been thinking about this lately.) An ARG is an interactive narrative experience that involves the audience directly in the action, and whose interface with the audience is not limited by medium. I think this limited-interface thing is really key to ARGs, and part of what makes […]
Read more "What is an ARG?"Alternate reality games. Everybody is into these now. Even the BBC has become infected with ARG fever – Radio 1 did a nice little number with Frozen Indigo Angel this summer. Worked with some real pros. There’s good reason for the infatuation. ARGs have a demonstrated ability to attract huge audiences and generate huge buzz. […]
Read more "Flavour of the Month is . . . ARG"Through some miracle you’ve come to this blog. There’s nothing here at the moment, but if you come back later you might find something interesting about journalism and gaming, challenge structures and other ways to get into people’s heads. See you then . . .
Read more "Everybody else is doing it . . ."
Philip Trippenbach 