Building cross-medial grammar

By Wendy van der Steen on 5 June 2009

This school year is almost finished. This is the time to look into which subjects will have to be reviewed. I am now working on the subject of web content. Traditionally a very text focused subject, in which the students have to write articles for an e-zine We are now aiming to broaden the subject to include other forms of content. I then started wondering if there is something like cross-medial writing. The Amsterdam college offers a module with such a name. It is, however, focused on writing a cross-medial concept, instead producing one. Do you need to be taught to produce cross-medial content? Do you need separate rules? Wouldn’t you agree that every media has got its own rules? What is so special about cross-media? Has it got its own ‘grammar’? I do not have a ready-made answer. But I think we should start to look at the theory about (digital) storytelling. In cross-media it also all about the story. Searching You Tube of found these movies by Ira Glass, host and producer of the well known radio and television show This American Life.

tagged with: cross-medial, storytelling, grammar

Experience? Yes, with milk and sugar please

By Jelke de Boer on 28 May 2009

Product experience is hot. Experience is what makes the difference; nobody wants just another piece of soap when we can have an experience of a fresh sensation every morning instead. We’re moving from a product economy towards an experience economy. Take a look at this statement from Nivea when introducing new (European) products on the American market:

tagged with: starbucks, nivea, experience

The future of the television set

By Rogier Brussee on 20 May 2009

This post is an exercise in futurology. Anyone who has been in the CELL lab (especially the old lab) notices the large TV screen. Indeed the development of HD TV is one of the focus areas of the Cross media lectorate, see for example Harry’s convergence and the future is now posts.  Some of my colleagues at Novay  in particular Christian Hesselman, are also deeply involved in next generation TV through the iNEM4U project. And of course Harry and I have in long gone days both been involved in the Giga Port Next generation TV project, which came up with a model for TV that is not all that different from what I will propose here.

tagged with: itv, apple, prediction, future, television

Youth congress: H2O and acronyms but no crossmedia

By Kees Winkel on 18 May 2009

I visited the congress on trends in youth marketing (www.kidsenjongeren.nl) last week in Nemo, Amsterdam. Quit interesting. The congress took two days but I only visited the second day because the topic of the second day, youngsters (teens), has my interest, more so than the very young kids. As usual, a score of presentations and workshops overloaded the day. So, what have I learned? Well, again like almost always, if you are critical, not that much. The topics dealt with during the day were ‘as usual’ and not a word was spoken about crossmedia, apart from the numerous citations that teens are multi-tasking. And again, generation Einstein was not just mentioned as the capturing of our crossmedia savvy younger generations, it still seems to be a sort of religion for youth marketers. Hmmm.

tagged with: congress, young people, youngsters, branding, levi's, crossmedia, Marketing

This is not a rabbithole!

By Matthijs Rotte on 11 May 2009

Alternate reality gaming is a very interesting crossmedial concept. There are to this day some successes and some failures. There has yet to be found what the success factors are to make a successful ARG. Stef Wouters and Filip Fastenaekels were brought in to shed some light on the world of ARG. They are, amongst others, responsible for a very successful ARG for the Flemish Public television regarding the Flemish tv-soap “Emma”. Their findings on how to create an ARG were very insightful and inspiring.

tagged with: alternate reality, crossmedia, games

Social Media Monitor

By Harry van Vliet on 8 May 2009

Got my hands on the first edition of the social media monitor. And to say it upfront: disappointing. For some reason I was excited to read this, maybe because social media is also a major topic in our own research program. Knowing how hard it is to define and model social media in order to deduce some relevant research questions, I expected new insights and some help to bring our own research one step closer to the Holy Grail. Alas!

tagged with: paper, research, social media

Looking Back at the Museums and the Web 2009 Conference

By Erik Hekman on 4 May 2009

I had the pleasure to attend the Museums and the Web conference 2009 in Indianapolis. It were four full packed days of keynote speakers, panels, demonstrations and workshops all on the topic Museums and the Internet. As mentioned in an earlier post I was allowed to demonstrate the application ‘I Know What This Is’ during the demonstration rounds on Saturday. The application is part of the PACE project.

tagged with: cultural heritage, web 2.0, pace, social media

Reverse Engineering Business Models on Mobile Television

By Maurits Denie on 28 April 2009

Two months ago I started my graduate research for CrossmediaLab on business models. My main focus will be the STOF-method as it was developed in the Freeband program. In March 2008 a book was published concerning the STOF method: “Mobile Service Innovation and Business Models”, which is more or less my reference source for the coming months.

tagged with: business models, mobile, television, research

Learning about social networks through Twitter.

By Kees Winkel on 24 April 2009

Since I started twittering again last week (after about a year of silence), some 17 emails landed in my mailbox telling me that somebody was now following me. Not a bad score, considering the fact that I have done nothing whatsoever to promote my microblog and considering the fact that 12 these followers are complete strangers to me. But to all who follow me, I say: welcome!

tagged with: twitter, social media

Online communities and event experience

By Joshua Hazelaar on 21 April 2009

As a graduate student working at the CrossmediaLab the focus of my research project lies on the influence a community might have on the experience of an event. We are trying to find out if participation on a community website, regarding an upcoming event, makes the experience of the actual event and the memories of it in any way different. This would be in comparison to the experience of visitors who did not participate in the online community. The actual research question is formulated as such: “Does participation in a online community contribute to the experience of an offline event.” This research is part of the Crossmedia Atelier project.

tagged with: highlands, research, experience