Doing the rounds on the interwebs: thisman.org. The site shows a man ‘hundreds of people’ see in their dreams. This is gold, this is the kind of stuff people want to hear about, want to believe and a lot of them even WILL.

But it’s a viral. How do we know? Actually a pretty basic thing gave it away: the domain is registered by Italian marketing agency Guerriglia Marketing. What frustrates me is that this is against some basic stuff. It even sounds too trivial to even be worth mentioning:

don’t register a domain that will be the base of mystery with your agency’s email.

A lot of people will argue with me, will say most people won’t take the effort. Well, sorry but you’re wrong: someone is bound to check this and, trust me, even A LOT will. By putting something like this together, you’re approaching a species that lives and breathes on the net. They will find out and they’ll start spreading the news (they know how to). This will take away all the magic you are creating, the story will lose it’s mystery and doubt and will become worthless for a big part of an important part of your audience: the ambassadors that will be spreading the word.

This isn’t about this being a viral, people don’t mind that. People love a good story and this specific case is the seed of a brilliant one. This is exactly what people are looking for. But if you take away the thrill of the hunt by doing this, what is left?

One thing I will agree on: some people will look until they find out, no matter how much effort you’re putting into keeping it hidden. And I agree, it’s pretty hard to do something like that on the internet without someone finding out eventually. But the key word here is ‘eventually’. When people are already into the story, it won’t matter that much when it comes out during the ride. Because they’re already participating, you’ve got their attention and the willingness to experience what you have in store. But not from step 1, that’s suicide for this kind of project.

A place where people can tell the story about their first love. Whether it’s in audio, video or just plain text, everyone’s invited to share it with the world.

Rather than allowing people to comment on the stories, the creators choose to put up a system where you can express the feeling it invoked. The “best loves” section hence contains a list of stories the people behind the project think worth a spot. Of course, filters are in place to get the ones you want. You can send in your own story here.

This project is produced by a group of student journalists in an interactive design class at the Medill School of Journalism.

Tell a story.

(picture by carf)

Alice announced on her fantastic Wonderland blog the start of a new project Channel 4 Education did together with Welcome Trust and Oil Productions.
Today, dear students, we’ll be learning about DNA and genome, the fun way. By playing Routes.

The 8-week during game will contain a lot of platforms as players play mini-games (obviously), solve puzzles and watch comedian Katherine Ryan as she discovers what exactly defines who she is. Is it our genes, or does our environment play a bigger role there?

They kick off with a first mini-game where you get an organism. When breeding with other players, your organism evolves, creating a lineage you can look back upon.  You can show off your organism by using widgets like the one below:

Feel free to breed, but please, be gentle ;)

For those looking for a bit more challenge, the real game starts on monday and there will be prizes ;)

I can’t tell you how excited I am about this. Using games to educate people is a strategy not explored enough and hugely underestimated. On the other hand, I can imagine projects like these don’t come cheap so my hat of to Channel 4 for seeing the value of this.

The British Red Cross

The game tells the story of Joseph. War in Northern Uganda has pulled him from his family. Finding the Red Cross is the only way to know whether his mother is dead or alive.

The game launched with the following video:

Register at the game’s site and wait for a mail from Joseph. A little tip: watch your spamfilter, mine took it.

More info on the how and why of the game can be found at (the by the way very interesting) Eliane’s Future-Making Serious Games. And, as usual, unforums are on the game!

The year is 2019. Human kind is facing extinction by 2042 if we don’t act now.

That is what the new game by IFTF (The Institute Of The Future), Superstruct, is all about.

They like to describe it as follows:

Superstruct is the world’s first massively multiplayer forecasting game. By playing the game, you’ll help us chronicle the world of 2019–and imagine how we might solve the problems we’ll face. Because this is about more than just envisioning the future. It’s about making the future, inventing new ways to organize the human race and augment our collective human potential.

Join up and create yourself in the future, as you see yourself in 2019. This future you will have to focus on the superthreaths to mankind: Ravenous, Quarantine, Outlaw, Planet, Power Struggle and Generation Exile. After checking out the introduction movie for each superthreat it’s time to act.

For explaining how the game is played, I once again turn to the FAQ:

Superstruct is played on forums, blogs, videos, wikis, and other familiar online spaces. We show you the world as it might look in 2019. You show us what it’s like to live there. Bring what you know and who you know, and we’ll all figure out how to make 2019 a world we want to live in.

Sounds like a very interesting project of what collaborative storytelling could bring. Those interested in playing the game should start over here. Better hurry up though, the game started the 6th of October and ends the 17th of November. At the end of the game, people over at IFTF (under the name of The Ten Year Forecast team) will start gathering everything the players generated and prepare an official Superstruct Report.

Can’t wait to see that one! But let’s play first, shall we ;)

• The album, as should happen for every big one, was leaked on the internet more than a week in advance of the release.
• Days before the release, you could listen to the entire album on last.fm. The tracks feature some comments by band members.
• They gave a lot of interviews to newspapers and magazines, but all interviewers were forced to sign a contract stating no interview should be published before the 15th of April. This was broken by 2 newspapers (De Morgen and Le Soir) and caused a lot of extra attention.
• The band will be performing the album live from their new recording studio (which is also called Vantage Point) this sunday. You can watch and listen at StuBru.

A lot of people are arguing on how the marketing surrounding this album is being handled, but one thing can not be denied: it’s working. You can judge by the smile on the faces of band members when you see them at the King Kong bar in Antwerp.

Oh, and the album? Very good.

Penguin Books teamed up with the ARG-wizards from Six To Start to build a 6-week trip to digital and modern storytelling under the name "We Tell Stories". This is about as good as it can get if you ask me :D

They asked six authors to create a story by using new technology. As an example, the first story is made entirely by using Google Maps. The next one, running as you read this, is using blogs and twitter to bring a story in real-time. The site will bring a new story like that every week for six weeks in total.

But there’s more. And I’m not only talking about the weekly prizedraw (UK only) or the competition. No, there is a 7th story. A story about a girl you know that is known for getting lost. I think you know who they’re talking about. To get you started on this one, check the main page and look for something, or rather someone to follow. Someone she followed as well, back in the day.

I got a mail via Flickr about my Song Charts. Someone is starting a blog to collect them and asked to use mine. I replied, and then I saw this:

Yes, the plugin was registering this as something it could follow. So I did. And guess what!

That’s right, all your FlickrMail are belong to us. If you have a Flickr account, and have sent mails to other people on Flickr via this service, your message is in there.