interactive storytelling Versu is a new interactive storytelling platform Richard Evans and I have been working on at Linden Lab. Some of you may have seen lead-up presentations about it at GDC (possibly long enough ago that it was still called Cotillion). Today, the first four Versu stories are available for iPad. Clients for Kindle and Google Play will follow, as well as stories in other genres and by other authors, and both character- and episode-authoring tools will be made available to the general public in the future. Versu focuses on character interaction as its primary form of play. Versu uses an AI engine designed by Richard Evans, the lead AI designer for Sims 3, which allows each character in a story (and in some cases a drama manager AI) to act autonomously or be played by a human player. Because there’s a strong social model at work in Versu, it’s possible to form relationships with characters that the story author did not explicitly create. Versu offers moments of narrative emergence.
Visualization as Process, Not Output - Jer Thorp by Jer Thorp | 8:00 AM April 3, 2013 “Please make me a visualization.” I get a lot of emails that say this or some variation of it. They tend to make me think of other requests that could be made in the same form, like: “Please make me a roast beef sandwich.” Or: “Please make me a scale model of the Eiffel Tower.” Roast beef sandwiches and scale models of the Eiffel Tower, in these sentences, are common nouns. “Please visualize our data.” The nice thing about this sentence is that it may result in many things. In 2009, I was asked by Jake Barton to design an algorithm that would place the nearly 3,000 names of victims on the 9/11 memorial in Manhattan in specific places, so that certain names could be near each other, per the wishes of their next-of-kin. The first step, then, was to get some idea of the scale and peculiarities of this particular problem. A visualization of the victim names and requested adjacencies for the 9/11 Memorial. None of these is meant for public consumption.
Why are Digital Story-Tellers Still Thinking in Terms of Paper? I was discussing infographics with Joe Chernov at Eloqua for an upcoming post he was working on and wanted to bring that conversation here. What makes a good infographic? A good infographic starts with a good "why" question. Even if you're trying to prove a theory, it's important to keep an open mind to the data you find. And please do keep in mind where you're going with the answer. Looking into an issue credibly means using data sets and information from reliable sources and expressing the resulting point of view in a compelling visual story that carries the meaning to its intended audience. The aim should be to make the complex easy to access and digest, and answer a question -- not just throw a bunch of random numbers on a graphic. Because in that case, what you have is the cousin of a bad PowerPoint deck. There is also another kid of opportunity digital storytellers are missing when they're still thinking in terms of paper. Have you seen any great infographics lately?
2013 Visual Thinking & Literacy Conference | Saturday, April 13, 2013 in Birmingham, Michigan What is Transmedia Storytelling? | Transmedia Journalism Jump to: Previous Page “Contexts” Next Page: Transmedia Principles © Kevin Moloney “Once a thing is put in writing, the composition, whatever it may be, drifts all over the place, getting into the hands not only of those who understand it, but equally of those who have no business with it.” — Socrates Origin Stories “Transmedia storytelling” is not a new phenomenon, and is perhaps the oldest technique we have for spreading information. The one-way, exclusive media channels of the 20th century were a creation of economics. The many-to-many form media has taken due to the reduced cost of publishing has also caused conflicts over copyright, visions of what culture should be. But Lessig is looking only at economics when determining that read-write culture became dormant. essig implies that technology makes cultural remix possible, and that remix is a deadly challenge to legacy mass media companies. That play and the imagination of fans did lead to stories. Next Page: Transmedia Principles
IFVP Community Social Media and Storytelling Part 1: Why Storytelling? The following is the first of five blog posts adapted from a speech by Cameron Uganec , HootSuite’s Director of Marketing, given at the Marketo’s 2013 Summit Conference in San Francisco. The session, entitled “Social Media + Storytelling = Awesomesauce,” included Michael Brito of Edelman Digital and can be watched in full here . The game has changed. We no longer live in a broadcast era where marketers can simply buy people’s attention with a TV campaign. There are different rules now and we need to earn the attention of our audience. We have a connected consumer revolution. And there are bigger things at work as well. From a marketer’s perspective, that means that we’re moving towards pull versus push approach, sometimes referred to as inbound marketing . All of these trends are turning the traditional media model on its head, and brands are evolving into media properties. Red Bull’s video summary of Felix Baumgartner’s freefall from 128k feet Just getting started with social media?
Using Social Media to Teach Visual Literacy in the 21st Century Classroom Increasingly, educators are acknowledging and welcoming the relative advantages of social media into the teaching and learning process. From creating school Facebook pages to connecting students with experts via Twitter, social media has taken root as a legitimate classroom learning and communication tool. The highly linguistic nature of social media allows us to create and consume ideas and information unlike ever before. Much attention has been given to composing an articulate blog post and condensing our messages to 140 characters or less. However, effective use of this 21st century technology requires that we not only become proficient in textual communication, but also in our ability to express ourselves and interpret others' ideas through visual literacy. Why Visual Literacy Matters Visual literacy is the ability to: Process and make meaning of information presented in an image. So, what does visual literacy in the classroom look like? 3 Modes of Visual Communication
Amazon launches Storyteller to turn scripts into storyboards — automagically NOTE: GrowthBeat -- VentureBeat's provocative new marketing-tech event -- is a week away! We've gathered the best and brightest to explore the data, apps, and science of successful marketing. Get the full scoop here, and grab your tickets while they last. Upload your script, choose some backgrounds, and magically create a professional-looking storyboard of your movie. Or the graphic novel version of your text-based anything. Amazon Studios released Storyteller today to allow writers and filmmakers to quickly, easily, and cheaply storyboard their scripts. And it can be used for much, much more than just scripts. “We’ve found that many writers want to see their story up on its feet in visual form but find it harder than it should be to create a storyboard,” Roy Price, Amazon’s director of Studios said in a statement. You start by uploading a script to Amazon Studios — or by playing with one that’s already there. Above: You can choose shot framing Image Credit: John Koetsier