The Crossmedialab social media album Top 50 2012

I love charts and yearlists. This passion started in my childhood. As a child I made lists of almost everything: how long it took to brush my teeth and put on my pajamas (with a all time record of 10 seconds), lists of the time the planes flew over our house to Maastricht Airport, and also of all the licenseplates of the cars in our neighbourhood. When I think about it, I’m surprised that my parents never thought I was autistic.

Tagged with: chart, social media, music, interaction,

Heavy Rain

Heavy rain is a strange game, or isn't it? I mean is it a game? Sure it is, I've got a controller in my hands and I am pushing buttons to make things happen. But if you instantly switch from current popular games such as Modern Warfare 2, Bayonetta or Dante's Inferno to Heavy Rain, it feels like nothing less than a cold turkey: involvement is still key, but not based on over the top actions but on characters and plot. Still it is recognizable as a game: game mechanics are there (press a certain order of buttons to win a fight: anyone played God of War?), there are save points, and the characters move like they are still attached to a stick. But at the same time film techniques are prominent: framing, music, and character introduction is far less in your face and more appealing to emotions. There is a delicate pace and the flow is extremely tuned. It does remind me of a game like Ico, totally different in realism but also all about emotional player involvement. It is still one of my favourite games.

Tagged with: hypertext, games, interaction,

International, interactive, integrated communication

Many of my students are writing their thesis now – or they just finished it. Some of them are about international communication. Striking: ‘’international’’ in most cases also means that is about applying interactive media! One research- and advice-project was for an international culture network. A Dutch theatre offers its stage to artists from Africa, Asia and Latin America. This resulted in a successful network maintained mainly by email and Facebook. My student’s task was to expand this network to more stages throughout Europe. She distributed a Google Docs questionnaire. I received drafts of her report by email and I commented them with the ‘’comment’’ function in Word. The international paperless office in practice. Strange that eventually she had to hand in a hardcopy! Her advice was to reduce the focus on Facebook as internet is not as omnipresent in Africa, Asia and Latin America as it is in Europe (hey, this is international communication, media-use varies across cultures!), furthermore she suggests to improve the application of the good old website and to expand the network within Europe by networking during a designated fair. Yes, physically meet people and talk with them, maybe exchange a business-card and a leaflet! This is an example of international, interactive, integrated communication: communication across borders and cultures, using a mix of digital and analogue media plus events – and there is interaction, online and offline.

Tagged with: international, interaction,