Interesting stuff from Korea

At the conferences I attended in Seoul, I came across a number of things that were worth a mention on here that I wanted to do a roundup of.  Sadly, there’s little information available for alot of them in English but they’re still good ideas and hopefully you can get a taste of them from this.

- Minfo: http://wap.minfo.com

Not alot to see here if your device can’t render Chinese and you’re not searching for Chinese content but these guys are big time leaders in the mobile search field, a space where I think we can’t assume any one incumbant company is going to win.  Minfo have a service that can be accessed via browser, text, donwloadable client, and IM and are innovating around the way search-based ads are being delivered in this space.  This is their English-language informational site.

 

- Bicon: http://www.mybicon.com/

This was a cool content-neutral portal for dragging and dropping widgets onto and off of your mobile.  There were a few of these types of thing on show and looked like they could really make for a smoother user-experience for users if they became widespread.

- Fantalog IB: http://fantalog.com/en/pas/pas_02.php?g=02

Internet broswer for mobile that claims to handle ‘full-fat’ web pages more smoothly than others and with a better user interface.  There are quite a few mobile web browsers around (which I find exciting – like the early days of the desktop web!) and I think it will be interesting to see how long it is before they handle ‘mobile web’ and ‘desktop web’ pages in a way that’s seamless and invisible to the users.

- Phonetoshop:

I couldn’t find an English-language site for this software but it was a client that allowed users to do basic video editing right on their phones.  Its probably not ready for primetime yet, but shows that its only a matter of time before people start not only capturing media on the move but also doing more serious production with it.  Interesting to me both from the point of view for using it to allow journalists and professional producers to produce stuff in the field really easily as much as it from a user-generated-content point of view.  I saw users using DVRs on their mobiles to record mobile TV and then send it to their friends so the ability to take video, mash it up, edit it, etc and share it couldn’t be far off.

 

- HOVR – http://www.hovr.com

These guys are using social-networking business models to create a better experience for accessing mobile games – namely that they’re free.

 

- Phone Braver (Keitai Sousakan) 7: http://k-tai7.jp/index2.html

I nearly exploded when I first found out about this – only to find out it wasn’t QUITE as real as I’d initially imagined.  I thought it was a mobile, meets action figure/robot, meets cross-platform content.  From what I could understand this was a mobile that was marketed as a Transformer-like character that had a TV show.  Turns out it was just a toy and not a real mobile, but still a great idea (like so many – if they were real).

The toy:

Clip of the programme:

 

And another with very surreal adult themes/political quotes and a talking cardboard dog – provided purely because it was so wierd:

 

- UFOTown – http://www.ufotown.com/

I wasn’t able to figure out exactly what this was but its designed to be a portal that allows celebrities and fans a means of texting each via a mobile/web portal.  Neat way of using mobile messaging to create hype around talent, if I understand it correctly.

Secret Society Wins at Nordisk Panorama!

The pitching competition for the projects developed at Crossover Nordic was last night and I’m really excited to say that Secret Society has won!  I worked alot with this team and am really proud of them – I hope that prize of SEK 100,000 (10,000 Euro) goes a long way towards making the project a reality.

“Our Secret Society is an interactive game and web-series telling the story of 4 girls as they explore their sexuality. With an aim at 13-16 year old girls with some or none experience of sex we let them try out pre-sexual situations in a safe and fun environment. Playing the free web-based game, involving the 4 characters from the web-series, is a way for young teenager girls to approach sex without the risk of being harmed physically or judged for doing right or wrong.” – Andreas Öhman (team member who did the pitch)

One of the things I really liked about this project is that it aims, in part, to use mobile as a way for teens to consume and experience media in a private environment, which I think is one of the most interesting aspects of mobile media that has yet to be fully exploited.  The crossover with TV that makes the overall experience both something teens can socialise about AND have a private experience with seems like a great combination.

X|Media Lab Korea: Mobile TV

One of the most exciting things about being here in Seoul is that I’m finally able to see mobile TV (DMB) in action.  Hopefully, Mobile TV of some sort will be launching in the UK during the next few years and so the opportunity to see this new opportunity for content distribution in action is great.  Here’s a few pictures (on a rather dashing pink iridescent phone)…

I was surprised that they all had long extendable antennas!  Not sure how that will go down in the UK where we’re used to very slick mobiles without antennas.

I’ve been trying to talk to people here about the programming they watch on it – looking for insights into what’s worked and what doesn’t.  Interstingly, they keep telling me, ‘It’s just TV.  Nothing special.’  And, they don’t seem particularly aware of any interactivity – other than the programme/channel guide – on the platform.  This is, of course, a consumer perspective – I know there’s more going on behind the scenes editorially.

Functionally, two cool features I saw were texting alerts about live programming reminders to friends in your phone contacts and DVR functionality, which one user really raved about liking.

Consumers I’ve been talking to have also been complaining about problems with reception and been telling me that WiPro is a better way of getting video content to their phones.  I need to check the WiPro stuff out but no one I’ve talked to has been able to show it to me on their phone yet.

I’m now at the Mobile Content Awards 2008 and the categories are:

Mobile Games
Mobile Service
Mobile Entertainment and Community
Outstanding Contribution
Innovative Content

… No category for mobile TV (and no broadcast entries in the above categories).  This backs up the attitude that ‘its just TV.’

I hope that’s not the case.  From what I’ve been seeing at work, I think it can offer us new opportunities to create specific content for audiences that are on the move and who have different user and content needs in those situations.

Korea: X|Media Lab: 3D internet, virtual worlds and Mobile

I did two speeches back-to-back earlier today at the X|Media Lab and Mobile Content 2008.  In both, I gave an overview of what the BBC’s been doing on mobile; which is slightly ironic since the Koreans are so far ahead of the UK, technologically.  Hopefully I had alot to share with the audiences about the content side of things.

The theme of this X|Media Lab is “3D Internet: Virtual, Visual and Social.”  I have to admit, I don’t know a hell of alot about the 3D internet other than that it exists and has a huge audience.  Before spending last week at Crossover Nordic, I didn’t realise just what a huge audience it has but when it was put in the context that many of the big worlds like World of Warcraft and Second Life have more inhabitants than many real-world countries, my ears perked up and I realised it was time to pay more attention.  Good thing I’m here.  But what on earth was I going to talk about?

The answer had to be about how mobile and virtual worlds could overlap and complement each other.  Here’s my presentation (.ppt) and I’ll elaborate on it below, because the more I think about it the more excited I get about the possibilities.  Click to Download: X|Media Lab Presentation

So here’s what I suggested could be done:

1) Mobile can provide a persistent and ubiquitous connection the worlds, extending the opportunities for play and connection to the worlds.

Users of these worlds are ‘addicted’ to them and I suspect would welcome any opportunities to be more connected, more immersed and able to constantly participate ‘in world.’  I understand there are some Flash clients being developed for phones that will hopefully create 2D or 3D versions of the worlds.  This seems good, but like a ‘mini-me’ type of approach; and I’m not sure this will work.  Will the screens be big enough and good enough to render something useful?  Will on-the-go users really want to pay this much attention?  Or would they rather a thinner connection when the world is in their pocket at work?

On thing I spend alot of time telling people is that mobile ‘isn’t just a mini version of the web.’  Sure, mobiles access the web, but a mere copy and paste approach doesn’t always ensure success.

I think it might be cool to see if the types of services that help audiences stay in touch with their real world would be popular with helping them stay in touch with their virtual worlds.  SMS alerts sent from the worlds or text messages from or between characters in the world seem like an obvious opportunity. Imagine a guild of players in World of Warcraft texting out of the world to players in another guild to get online and help them in a battle where they need backup/support.  Texts would reach the players and they could rush from the real world back to their PCs to get in world and play.

The Twitter Fountain in Second Life is a start at this as Keren Flavell from SLCN.TV pointed out to me, but its still feels more like novelty and the beginning of something better:

And what types of web apps could provide data from the worlds to thin mobile clients, widgets or even simple mobile web pages?

2) Thinking about this type of connection and play, I wonder how these could be crossed with Alternate Reality Games.  ARGs are doing more out of home and with the crossover between real the real world and mobile and I think that this type of crossover could be replicated into the virtual world – possibly even triangulated between reality, alternate reality and the virtual world.  What a game that could make.  Can you geocache in any virtual worlds (yet)?

3) So how could all this work.  Well, I’m no expert.  But I have an idea that flexible, open web services could sit in the middle of these different ‘worlds’ (aka media) and provide the glue that lets transactions and interactions flow between them.

For example, using the Last.fm API you could (I think) create a situation like this if you built the right connections into the Virtual Worlds, Mobile Web, etc:

- I’m in a physical store and see a CD I want to recommend to a friend;

- I capture the barcode/semacode on the packaging which gives me information about the album from the mobile web on my phone;

- I could then choose someone from a list of virtual friends to recommend the track to;

- They would get notified, in say Second Life, and be able to stream the track for free;

- If the friend likes the song, they could add it to a Last.fm style playlist or even buy the track using real or virtual currencies.

In my presentation, I tried to describe it with this diagram:

To elaborate…  If we’re moving to a world where the ‘Internet of Things’ is becoming a reality, then everything around us will be connected, not just our devices.  This should apply to things in the virtual world as well.  If flexible and open web services can connect to these via mobile devices, strong connections between the real and virtual world can be created.  Behind this a strong system design strategy would be required.  Expanding from the idea that ‘Designing for Accessibility is good design’ (because everyone can use it), you could move to the idea that designing for mobile is (also) good design because everyTHING (in the real and virtual worlds) can access and use the service.

I’m obviously not going to be the only one thinking about this stuff but sitting in a room full of experts on this world has me really excited.  Neil Katz, from IBM, told me about a few examples where you can start to see this stuff coming to life in a very basic way.

The first was an IBM R&D project that echoed/emulated a Virtual World on Treo device.  Video of it here:

He also showed me this motion-aware mobile interface on a Samsung for Virtual Worlds (very cool!):

Also: Click to download my Mobile Content 2008 Presentation (similar to the X|Media Lab presentation but with a little more detail on the specific content the BBC has done)

Korea: A mobile device you NEVER want

So I’m in Seoul, Korea for X|Media Lab and Mobile Content 2008 and upon landing was immediately looking for some examples of the cool mobile/wireless devices and gadgets that Korea is so famous for.

I didn’t expect the first one I saw…

Wireless lost-baggage device: Glad this didn

This badboy is a wireless display that goes around on the luggage conveyer belt at the airport to notify people that their luggage has been lost.  Glad I didn’t see MY name on it, but couldn’t help think it was pretty cool and showed JUST how wired Korea is.

I wonder if I’ll meet these guys (spotted at Schipol Airport in Amsterdam at the weekend) while I’m here…

Seoul Men

Swedish Music Highlights

After a week in Sweden, I thought I should post about two Swedish music acts that I’m loving at the moment.

The first is The Shout Out Louds:

You can’t help but think of The Cure (one of my all time favourites) when you hear the vocals but they’ve got a fresh indie sound that I’m loving.

The second is Anna Ternheim, a great female vocalist:

I’m always amazed by how much great music Sweden produces and how much I enjoy it.  Bands like these are great treats that prove its not all Shlager (which I also love, but admit is pure cheese).

I’m in Korea now… I wonder what type of musical treats I’ll find.  Let me know if you have any suggestions.

Crossover Nordic: Cross-media production process comparison

Earlier in the week the group had a conversation where experts in each of the fields represented here talked about the production process, timelines and resouces required at each stage of taking a concept in their field from a sheet of paper to a finished product.  It helped us all to understand a little bit more about how each other works and how and when we need to talk to each other to make cross-media projects really work well.

Daniel, one of the participants, drew up the work for us like this:

Same document, as a pdf

If you were here, please comment and say what you learned from the conversation, your thoughts, etc…

Crossover Nordic: Day 5: Preparing for the Final Pitch

Well, day four of Crossover Nordic was the day of hard work.  All of the teams spent an intensive day working on their ideas – and boy – did they come a long way.

To re-hash, the teams formed after the Ideas Market on Day 3 and put their heads down to work on pitches for their ideas.  We’re using creating pitches as a way of developing the ideas and giving feedback because its a useful methodology but also because these ideas will be pitched to real commissioners at Nordisk Panorama.  Each group has had three watering holes (described here) with different mentors where they’ve had intensive feedback on both their ideas and their pitches and have been doing tremendous amounts of revision before the next watering hole.

The amount of work that’s gone into each project between has been amazing.  The ideas and pitches have been iterated at break-neck speed and the teams have been incredibly open to all forms of feedback and critique – which isn’t easy; especially when some of them have been working almost all night.  The teams have gone on huge creative journeys and its been thrilling to help mentor them through the process and see them progress.  Each time they’ve presented, the mentors have seen the ideas and presentations progress a huge amount.

This morning I’m sitting and watching the final technical rehearsals for the pitches and they’ve all improved – again.  Great stuff.  Personally, I think that more than one of them has a really strong chance of getting commissioned and I’m really proud of how well the teams have done.

At this lab I’ve been working as a mentor/facilitator but I know I’d be interested in taking these type of projects forward had they been pitched to me in other labs and festivals where I’ve worked as a commissioner.  I’m wishing all of the teams good luck and can’t wait to see the final pitches and see the teams’ reactions to each others work as it will be the first time they see their colleagues ideas since they were just a bit of writing on paper a few days ago.

Sauna time!

Crossover Nordic’s alot of hard work – but there is a little time for fun and inbetween working with teams yesterday I managed to work in a quick bit of traditional swedish fun – a quick session in the sauna and quick dip in the fjord we’re staying on.  Cold but fun!

Crossover Nordic: Last Night’s presentation and party

At the end of Day 3, Frank gave a talk with a number of examples of social media for the groups to use as inspiration.  The presentation was based off of Matt Locke’s Six Spaces of Social Media.

After a long hard day, we had a small celebration with a traditional Swedish Crayfish Festival and here’s some pictures of us celebrating with Crayfish, Shnappes and Princess Cake (for Magnus’s birthday!):