This is one of Plato’s stories:

It is about a ship in the middle of the ocean. On this ship was a gruff burly captain who was rather shortsighted and slightly deaf. He and his crew followed the principles of majority rule on decisions about navigational direction. They had a very skilled navigator who knew how to read the stars on the ship but the navigator was not very popular and rather introverted. In the panic of being lost, the captain and crew made a decision to follow the most charismatic, eloquent and persuasive of the crewmembers. They ignored and ridiculed the navigator’s suggestions, stayed lost and ultimately starved to death at sea.

While the navigator tries to read the signs and suggest there is a need to change directions,  most people do not like to change directions at all. It makes them feel uncertain about the road ahead. They feel agile, uptight and warry. Why do they need to change? Live is comfortable and I don’t want to think about something new and risky! And then they look at the navigator and actually find him an incredible pain in the butt!

In order to see the bottom of the ocean,  the storm has to lie down, so the water is calm again. In order to navigate we need to trust upon the skies. But here’s the story of today: The storm is not about to lie down soon. And the sky is full of diamonds. Some are false and some are true. It’s not easy to find your way these days. But maybe it’s a good idea not to blame the navigator, this time.

So what is happening?

The development of the realtime web is putting ever more pressure on the release dates of properties. After airing any new film or series, within the hour you are able to get it from a torrent. This has resulted in the habit of people to not wait untill they are “officialy” able to see the film in their region, but instead going for instant satisfaction and grabbing the material.

So, the publishers are seeing their windows collapsing, especially a (still) profitable DVD window. But facing reality means there is actually only one first window, and that is a global release moment. Instead of getting into a fight with the publishers, agile young film makers are  looking for smart new release models; using social media to gather public and fans and planning exclusive screenings in film art houses as a festival tour of films. They understand that the social experience of watching a movie with friends is what they need to support (in their own interests)

Now curiously enough there is an advantage to seeing Alice in the cinema. As this makes it possible to engage in the 3D experience of the film, where as a DVD will not grant you that experience in your home  (…yet, for 3D television is in fast development as well).

So cinema’s seem to feel robbed of their last chance to attract audiences on the bases of a superior film experience. This is a fight that was bound to happen and Disney (as one of the big publishers) has chosen to take the lead..

Moving from stories to legends..

This is part of my 10 years old quote:

….Some people think we are made of flesh and blood..

Scientist say we are made of atoms.

But actually I believe we are made of stories!…

& here is what I was thinking of recently..

Now we have come to a time where we have the chance to change our relationships with the stories in our lives.

Once as an audience we where separated from our stories by impermeable walls, forced into being mere spectators.

But now these fourth walls are becoming liquid.

And the real is merging with the imaginary.

We have come to a time where our lives are materialising in digital traces.

Where we continuously flow between parallel presences, real and digital, actual and imaginary.

Where we have the chance to go from just telling stories to

Building legends.

A Legend is a living story

That creates meaningful ritual relations with others

Legends build and grow as we go

We can invite others to get involved, to crossover from one form of connection to the story, from presence in one medium onto the next one. Moving from the real to the imaginary and from the imaginary back into the real.

The stories of our lives are mingling, through our conversations and the real time sharing of our live experiences. Meanwhile weaving wonderful tapestries out of the digital traces of our lives.

When hero’s journey they have to overcome many obstacles and face life changing challenges. Going these paths transforms them. In our lives we too face many quests, choices and doubts. And that is what makes us relate to our heroes. We too are continuously transforming on our paths of life. The motivations to connect get involved and move through living stories together, lies in the power of those stories to touch upon our lives and transform us.

I therefore believe the most meaningful story relations are ritual relations. The ones where we progress through paths and go through transformations be that either personally or as a shared experience. And that is why we need to move from just telling stories to building legends, creating meaningful ritual relations with our stories. May these stories be our own, sharing that of our friends or the ones that become manifest in imaginary worlds.

We will be the first generation where the stories of our lives become manifest and ordinary people become extra ordinary legends. Where we can go from ordinary acts and together build extra ordinary events that will remain to transcend the times of our lives. And leave us with a truly inspiring digital heritance for those that come after us.

For we are made of stories and if we die, this is what remains, the legends of our lives, and the monuments we have build together, may they have originated from the real or the imaginary.

Yesterday we had a kick-off of what we call “dondersteendag”. We plan to do special stuff for our clients and relations on Thursday. It’s a quick thought up word joke; as in our company name ‘Dondersteen Media’ associates with “donderdag” the Dutch word for Thursday.. Together with CMBO, knowledge organization for digital media, Syntens, subsidiary of Economic Affairs in the Netherlands and the MA Factory, the Amsterdam Media Academy, we could off a free-of-charge game workshop.

Ward Geene from Dondersteen Media has two big passions in life.  One of them is gaming. He has probably gamed “all of his life” (since he happens to be in his fine young twenties, that is quit normal behavior as we will see in this article). Besides working for Dondersteen Media he also writes for Power Unlimited, the biggest game-title in the Netherlands. For our kick-off of Dondersteendag he gave this presentation about video-games, discussing:

• Who is the gamer?
• What is a game (which is actually quit a profound philosophical question..)
• Why are games important from a crossmedia-transmedia perspective?
• And what can other entertainment industry learn from the great successes that games have in the digital entertainment field?

It was quit a special day. So many beautiful people have supported us. First of all, the people from CMBO, Syntens and the MA Factory. They made it possible for the workshop to be free of charge. But I want to most specially mention my friend Steven Kruijswijk (@kruithoph on twitter) who made our day by taking care of the live U-stream we could broadcast from the presentation, so that people could hook in through the web!

You can watch the embedded stream (it’s regular web quality

Since it is Dutch let me also give you a recap of the presentation in text here.

The gamer:

First there is a bias towards ‘the gamer’. For starters according to TNS-NIPO who did research in 2006, 73% of the Dutch game. That is a very large figure, because it incorporates casual as well as hardcore gamers. The bias of “the gamer” is towards male, aged 19 to 35, hardcore gamers. What you see from the figures is that people in their teens and twenties practically ALL game. When they grow older, they spend less time on games and it gets up in time again at around 50 years. But considering this 10-20 generation has really grown up with games, compared to the 30-to-50 aged group, who did not, one could conclude that time spent on gaming when the younger group gets older will probably not get less. Since gaming is more a part of their natural entertainment habits.

The game:

Game philosophers are still debating what exactly is a game? In the opinion of Ward a game is about the present, about the NOW. Since if there is no player, there is no game and the game unfolds in the here and now. Gaming is a process, more than a linear route. The process of going through the game can be different every time. What you do as you game is you learn, by continuously exploring the “what if..” Gaming takes a lot of time. There may be other and more efficient ways to deliver a message.

Games and crossmedia-transmedia:

Looking from a crossmedia-transmedia perspective, what is interesting is that games are able to ‘move people’. If you want your public or community to move towards a next ‘step” you need to reward them for their actions. That is basically a very important design implication. Furthermore the game communities that are being developed right now by Microsoft and Sony for example give you a profile that you can share with other gamers, going beyond single play gaming. The gamers’ profile however is bound to the platform, making a lock-in for next generations, since you do not want to loose your build up achievements. Disadvantage is you cannot play a game together cross-platform. Microsoft as well as Sony anticipates on a probable opening up of their walled gardens by supplying very rewarding community features.

Why do I have to put in a link? Because I cannot embed the video anymore!!

How illustrative!  This is the way traditional media parties are dealing with social media reality!

While Simon Cowell and Fremantle smartly directed there little but Oh soo precious treasure very carefully into the spotlight (the Boyle performance was already taped in January of this year) they completely “forgot” to set up a strategy that would enable and monetize on the moment in our today social media reality!

Jenkins has a very informative post on Boyle. He calls this kind of swarming of media content “spread” with which he points out there needs to be a motif for fans to want to post, link and twitter about the Susan Boyle moment

I cannot agree more, a good crossmedia design needs to motivate people to start acting upon. His post is very interesting and his arguments for people to start ’spreading’ are understandable: People having a ’sense of discovery’ with the video, or ‘the uplifting nature of the moment to give to others’. He points out that ‘the meaning rests in the conversations that Susan Boyle enables us to have with each other’. Jenkins asserts everybody may have different motives to start spreading the Boyle video, because the arguments they give friends and relatives to watch may differ depending on who you are sending messages to.

That may very well be so, but his arguments do not explain the unifying reason why this particular moment is spreading.. So what I find an even more interesting question is: What IS the binding nature of the Susan Boyle moment that makes all these different people want to start spreading?

I think the magic lies in the old metaphor of Cinderella, sleeping beauty, the princess awakening. That coupled with seeing this very everyday woman, “deprived” of any good luck, that finally did get her break-through DESPITE being too old and not in line with “beauty-prescripts”. Now imagine how many people feel mirrored in that image? And I assure you; they will not tell you out loud.

Exactly this contrast makes her a dream to any producer and Simon Cowell knew exactly what a precious gem he was holding. There was only one-way to launch her and that was trough a format like “Britain’s got talent”.

Take away all prejudice in one shot.!! Marvellous, brilliant from a classical television and music producers’ perspective.

But what an incredible loss in creating social media advantage!

Let me sum up the losses here:

I am not able to “own” the moment as a fan anymore (since I am not allowed to embed)

I am not able to make my own fan blog, helping to spread the word about who is Susan Boyle..

Can you do this in a better way?

Recently I have been working on a social media player for Dutch public broadcasting to be able to DO capture these moments and support and enable them as much as possible in today’s social media reality.

Where the BBC i-player is much credited for being innovative, this player is designed to take things leaping even more forward. Being able to grab the content and even pick up your own fragments and off course embed them everywhere.

I was wondering what would have happened if the Susan Boyle moment was accessible to the public from such a player.

Mind you, this player accounts for all views, inside the website as well as embedded anywhere else. Besides probable load balancing problems there would also be You Tube to air the moment as well (that’s what You Tube is for).

But what if the quality of the “official” player will be HD. What if you can do as much and even more with it whatever you want?

I think there really may be a substantial part of the audience choosing for the official player then.

Now let’s look at the potential commercial losses (most painfully as always ;-))

Right after the program is aired:

1. Have an embeddable player (counting streams) available on your official website. Remember: Here YOU control every layer, all the cross-branding, pre-roll/mid-roll/post-rolls. On the web still the commercial rules are different from the television rules (which in this case. Britain’s got talent is a non-commercial television environment)

2. Right after the program, enable the moment to be captured on You Tube (just place it), with an i-tunes overlay offering the whole performance (from the moment she gets on stage to the moment she hears she’s got the vote)

3. Have available all kinds of little widgets containing snippets of that moment.. (Sponsored by.) That I can take away on my mobile phone.

Off course the Susan Boyle moment is staged extremely carefully (Oh. I’m sorry if you really thought this was spontaneous.) But it illustrates very strongly how traditional media just do not capture the power of the social media reality yet. And how the Susan Boyle moment forms a marker for how television has already changed profoundly.

And there is a good reason to belief they will, for it will only expand their user knowledge even more. Which in turn is off course very interesting information for advertisers in the long haul. Who is watching what and sharing it with whom,.. and what are the comments on the programmes content that are shared between friends.. As I have argued before, we need a whole new manner of looking at and valueing media-effects then as we do now. What facebook connect is doing, this use of the social graph, expanding it to other domains, is beginning to sketch a more clear picture of what the “search and find by friend” of social video will look like.. Eventually, when television will merge with the web even more, imagine how the new positions will be in this landscape… Social networks could very well be the new broadcasting networks of the future. I honestly think, that is not such an unlikely picture of the future of television and one to be reckoned with. It is certain powers will shift.

But what is very interesting in my opinion, is that we can use elements of this large body of work to generate interactive story elements and events, that for instance can scale over large audiences, simultaneously. That is making diverse interactive story levels possible on a mass media scale, playing out different story branches that can be emerging simultaneously. Main problem was, is and will be coherence in the story lines as they branche out and start “living” an (artificial) life of their own.

Recent work at the Artificial Intelligence side is into story-generating mechanisms. The issue here is to postpone the creation of story (world, events, motives, goals and elements) as much as possible until it is needed through the interactive story emergence that takes place between the system and the user; this is called ‘delayed authoring’ and it forms the Greenfield in interactive storytelling systems.

Shortly said, the aim is to have a system that can adjust on the fly as much as possible to the course of the emerging (interactive) story. What do you need in the storyworld (elements), as prop attributes to the characters (be it either NPC or players) or the input of goals (and maybe motives) to foster progress during the generation of the interactive story?
At the time you need to fill in ‘the gap’ during the emergence of the interactive story, the system generates what is required on the fly..

So what fields is interactive digital storytelling tested in? Well, for me,.. here is the good news, although the work starts out from different platforms…:
- Augmented Reality (mobile urban drama)
- Alternated Reality (Second Life as testbed)
- Gameworlds (singular or MMOPG; -mods-)
- Interactive television
- The use of new techniques for immersion in film (stereoscopic vision and 3Dsound)
- Webbased interfaces

There, fortunately, is not a lot of debate about which media platform is “the best” for interactive digital storytelling (as can be encountered in industry environments so often), because off course all of them are in some way, more or less depending on the context of the user. The focus is more on matching user/performer/player expectations with what is evolving in the interactive story.

The need for finding solutions for this is shared ACROSS platforms. Main fields of interest are:

- How to generate an intelligent, coherent, fascinating story through the use of (AI) systems (playing out to several platforms if applicable)?

- What is the need of the user entering a story world (or maybe even prior to that, in a user wanting to (co)-create a story world)?

- How to immerse the user into the experience? What can we do to create interest from the user? Using flashbacks, foreshadowing; making stories player specific; creating believable story characters (NPC’s), the use of stereoscopic vision and 3D audio, and what are first results of the tests?

The good news is that by now the two formerly divided fields of storytellers and computer scientists are trying to come together to foster more progress. Maybe the next innovative ‘thing’ (as in next big thing) will not be a game, but an interactive story? Because the game industry has become very conservative; to much money, to much risk, playing it safe, re-doing the same format over and over again.. Game companies become “moguls” and the risk aversion is setting in which, as always leaves little room for innovation.

So.. Let’s see..