GENERATION 247 - Web TV, Internet Streaming and Online Entertainment by Kevin Foong

Revolution or evolution?

More to come from GEN247

My good people at GEN247 tackled the world's fastest growing criminal activity, identity theft, with the Webby Award winning interactive web thriller, DELETED: THE GAME.  The web show told half the story and the interactive game story told the other half.  Personally, I think the balance was a little off making the web show a little hard to follow watching it on its own without playing the game.  The team will address this in the sequel which is coming very soon ;-)

Also, look to them to tackle the second fastest growing criminal activity, human trafficking, with a collaborative work working titled Matchbook.  I'm particularly moved by this project and its the kind of work I'd like to do more off.  I know some of you would be interested to get involved, the team is in sponsorship raising mode so this would be the most helpful kind of input at this stage.  Watch out for details of how else to contribute down the road.

Finally, the team plans to tackle the third fastest growing criminal activity, counterfeiting, with a tongue-in-cheek interactive docu-drama with a working title named Full Price.  It explores the demand side of the equation and I'm sure you'll agree will provide excellent grounds for character study.

HERE'S A RECAP OF DELETED: SEASON ONE

Top insider tip ... new ARG title coming out soon

Teaser - kewego
Teaser for Confession: The Game

Keywords: teaser game

Video from confessiontg

Be the re-editor for The Tracey Fragments starring Ellen Paige

I just learnt of this admirable move by Canadian filmmaker Bruce McDonald, he's made his latest film The Tracey Fragments available for download and launched an open-source re-editing experiment called Tracey: Re-Fragmented. All the footage from the film is available for users to download, re-edit and make their own related creations - music videos, trailers, or their own version of the entire film. This is also a Creative Commons licensed initiative which makes available the score of the movie by Indie Collective Broken Social Scene.

This re-editing initiative is also a contest (for Canadians only). McDonald and his editors will select their favorite edition and include it in the DVD release of The Tracey Fragments, plus an Apple Final Cut Pro prize pack.

Learn more.

An original web TV show DELETED: THE GAME with an integrated online game?

I am delighted to share that the web TV / online game production I've been funding has released a trailer for public viewing. You can check it out at www.youtube.com/deletedthegame and/or www.myspace.com/deletedthegame, you'll learn a lot about the project from on their website but the team still has lots of tricks up their sleeves - one of which is a launch in autumn in six languages (English, Mandarin, Korean, Japanese, Russian, Spanish), you heard it first here.  The team is trying to decide if they want to commit to playing the game out on YouTube or MySpace ... let me know what you think.

There's a wonderful and sublimely talented group of people behind this, here's a shout out: Andreas Hager, Carmine Picarello, Charlie Miller, David Rudd, Elia Monte-Brown, Joshua Davis, Josie Torres Barth, Matt Gielen, Ning Zhou, Ryan Gielen, Shawn Parsons, Thomas Jacob and last but not least Tom Cryan. It's a nice mix of skills, some internet TV veterans, actors, filmmakers, viral marketers and info technologists.

Cracking the code on social media marketing

Igor Beuker at Viralblog pointed out a study by TNS Media Intelligence which polled more than 60 marketers in North America, France and the U.K. to gauge how they are faring navigating the world of social media. It asked them for feedback on their agencies’ abilities to help. TNS found, in its words, "Agencies don't get it." 

 Clients complained that their agencies — creative, media, public relations, design and others — typically treat social channels like blogs as traditional media. In other cases, their ideas are not backed up by practical skills in the area. What’s more, one client pointed out that his agencies have little of their own personal experience using social networks or video-sharing sites.

The increase in social media has led other analysts to highlight the dearth of skills at agencies to help clients navigate the social landscape. Forrester Research, for instance, published a report last month that found agencies are poorly structured to help clients leverage opportunities with communities of shared interests. Nearly 50 percent of marketers said social media efforts needed to be handled at an executive level with “significant” resources. Another 30 percent agreed social media is a "revolutionary opportunity".

The perceived lack of social media competence at agencies will present opportunities for new providers, TNS predicted, as too many agencies stick narrowly to their niche, whether it’s media, creative or PR.

Igor himself feels it’s true, "traditional agencies indeed don't get the social media puzzle at all. Mostly they base their opinions on their own personal social network experiences and lots of assumptions."  It seems a little chicken-and-the-egg here because I often hear the agency side of this story, complaints that marketers don’t get it and aren't ready to change their media mixes. Frankly, it's not clear to me that anyone has cracked the code on social media marketing from my anecdotal evidence.