So I’m trying out the new Digg site. I got an invite and I’m playing with it now. They even have a nifty auto submit feature which is why there is a random set of letters and numbers on the next line. Let’s see if the changes are enough to save it from fatal collapse  under its own user base…

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EAVB_GKBBEKOAFD

Related posts:

1. Is Digg Completely Irrelevant to Gen Y?

Hey everyone, I’ll be attending #BCNIPhilly tomorrow to talk, listen and learn about the future of news. It looks like it’ll be a lot of fun and I’m considering presenting onMason.

If you want to follow my usual rapid fire live tweets, they’ll almost all be going up on the account I’ve turned on for live tweeting – @AramZS.

No related posts.

This April 1 two separate mainstream websites launched a prank that mapped adventure game-type controls to their website. This got me thinking, is it time to revisit how we build and play Interactive Fiction?

Both XKCD and Woot applied game elements to their website on Thursday. Woot’s appears to be  static HTML and more ‘choose your own adventure’ than IF. However XKCD’s interface (based off Wordpress theme CLI), though limited, was clearly in the spirit of IF. It required text commands, had the standard navigation, included the use of an item, and (of course) involved a grue.

From what I can tell, XKCD’s interface is implemented mostly with jQuery and involves a lot of pre-programing using the standard type of code you’d find in Javascript.

A while ago, I made my own forey into the world of IF, studying a number of games for a class and going so far as to attempt to build my own. I taught myself TADS3 which is, from what I can tell, the easiest IF programming language out there. I used it to build part of a game. The entire time, I was trying to figure out why it was so difficult. It seemed to me that the amount of code that should be required for a working IF story should be minimal. XKCD’s little IF has made me think about it again. How difficult could it be to create IF using standard XML and Javascript, as opposed to some of the more obscure tools out there?

Now, I know that IF is a field that sort of relishes its obscurity, however, I think that a properly put together IF in an interface that didn’t require the installation of strange and unusual programs, might meet with more success and would certainly appeal to a wider audience.

I’m thinking that an entire IF could be laid out within an XML database and standardized Javascript could be used to transform it into a working game. I admit, I’m no expert in either language, but does this seem possible to you?

Related posts:

1. ELC Interactive Fiction Reviews [Assignment]
2. Interactive Fiction
3. The Fire High – My Hello to the World of IF [Assignment]

How can we use order and placement within a multimedia package or interactive story to enrich the narrative?

I’ve been reading through Scott McCloud’s Understanding Comics on and off these last few months and it strikes me just how important this book is to anyone dealing with multimedia, not just comic artists or aficionados. When you think about it, in many ways comics were multimedia before anyone else was. They took an unusual step in completely combining images and words to create unique narratives that spoke in both media with one voice.

In comics, you can’t take any media out and still have a complete story. A comic without the words or without the artwork is not really a comic and may not even be a story. Even without words, there is still a narrative drawing everything together. The same can’t be said for most implementations of multimedia now. Many people who create narratives online do so with separate media in separate places, or create text with audio or video that doesn’t add to the narrative or does so in a way unassociated with the space it is in.

All this is confused even more by the web, with hypertexts and social media it would be relatively easy to have someone destroy the intended sequence for a user.

The question is, in what way can we use sequence to imbue our linked multimedia with narrative, instead of sitting along side it.

Get rid of sidebars?

Sidebars have been a standard practice in print media for a long time and in many sites it seems that the practice has carried over. The sidebar holds related but not integrated content for a narrative. Sometimes it may hold a summery for bored readers. But this practice ignores the possibilities of the web.

• Content can be embedded inside of text with tooltips.
• Rolling over text can reveal hidden elements.
• Separate sequences of text and imagery can be integrated to enrich narrative. But go beyond slideshows, show the sequence, push interaction.

Image via Wikipedia

Match beats

There are often different multimedia sequences which share beats with other media related to the narrative. By beats, I mean places where moments in the narrative line up between two media, for example photo and sound. This is why Soundslides is so attractive, it allows you to tell richer stories by combining photos and audio then you would be able to do with those two media sitting separate on the same page.

‘Here sequence is ridiculously important, the sequence of audio clips and photos can be matched up to create a rich story. One that is easy to digest and quite attractive.

• Narrating video with voiceovers
• Put navigation elements next to related content (tagging).
• Integrate related social searches (like Twitter) inline with an article.

Move beyond the paragraph

Image via Wikipedia

With the advent of easy typography on the web, considering how your text looks within the body of a website is key. The paragraph itself is a form of punctuation. However, we need to think beyond just the two+ sentence paragraph and into methods that take advantage of all the ways we can manipulate type today. The form and accepted format of the paragraph is something that comes from how we write by hand and is further formalized by the technology behind the printing press. However, the popularity of something like Twitter shows that this is not always the way we think anymore.

Placement of paragraphs, sentences or words can have a unique effect as well, imagine spreading out elements of a story in a way that shows emotion or meaning. We could deform letters or display them one at a time. We can even use words as playing cards. Why should we limit our storytelling to paragraph format?

• Spread and sequence sentences or paragraphs. Many people work on screens that are far wider than a book page. Why not spread out you sentences on one line or consider other formats?
• Place standard text within non-standard places. You can use floating divs or JavaScript to write on top of pictures or even on top of videos. With JavaScript or perhaps HTML5, you’d be able to animate it. Gives a new meaning to ‘voice’ over, huh?
• What about a cloud format? Letting concepts float up and hover around?

Consider left to right, than break it

McCloud notes how we read from left to right and how that changes how we read, what blanks our mind fills in, and where our eyes go next. (I wonder how things change where the society’s primary language goes in the opposite direction.)

What does this mean for web design? Should we throw out the concept of right-side sidebars or the sidebar-content-sidebar format? I’m not sure. I’d love to see some statistics on that if you have them. But what it does mean is that we have an opportunity to direct navigation in an order, not just as the presentation of options. It also means that we can reward users at the right side of a page by presenting them with something a little unusual, a new kind of punctuation.

But if we understand that the eye works this way, we can play with it, exploit it. With subtle strokes we could force it along a path. We could even defy the standard format and give multiple options. Instead of a buffet of every single area on a website, what about a limited menu, or a path that implies a narrative through the design.

• Can website navigation tell a story?
• Create a set of paths through your story or website using links or anchors. What if the selection of one path results in the exclusion of some options, what sort of narrowing down can be done?
• Embed artifacts in your site. Things that enrich the narrative of a site through consumption.

What’s next?

There is a lot to consider here. This doesn’t even get into real interactive options and the idea of narrative web design is something that has been banging away in my head for a while and I feel needs some serious expanding in the future.

However, It is important to start thinking right now about how sequences of events, media or even color can change how an online narrative is consumed.

No related posts.

A few thoughts on Sunday at the College Media Advisors Spring 2010 National Convention. A lot more multimedia stuff this time around, a few great folks, but are we changing?

I’ve only done the CMA National Convention once before, about two years ago. At that CMA, it was mostly old-school sessions, very little relevant multimedia, a whole bunch of professors and professionals moaning about the way it used to be. There was one stand out session then, Sean Blanda’s presentation on WordPress. It wasn’t apparent at the time, but as I look back and after listening to some of the folks from CoPress, it has become apparent that this was a game-changer. His session inspired a wave of student media adoption of WordPress and other open platforms.

This year, the overall feel of the conference is much better. In the sessions I’ve been attending, there’s been a sea change from my last CMA convention, most people are really really excited to move forward into the online and new media world. I’ve been pleasantly surprised by just how much the presenters are excited about online journalism and that is great. I’ve learned some stuff as well, which is always appreciated.

Image via Wikipedia
Unlike this statue, the newspaper industry is not set in stone.

Of course, not everyone is perfect, some of the sessions I thought would be the most dynamic turned out to be the most disappointing. A session on “Advice on working in new media” was delivered by Men’s Life’s Girl Next Door Carolyn Kylstra in what was practically a monotone. The Washington Post was set to do a presentation on merging online and print news desks, but they were more talking about what they had done, and not much that was practically useful to college media outlets without their huge resources.

There’s also the continual lack of internet. I’ve brought my phone and charger with me this time, so I can get continual internet via Verizon, but to have this many sessions about software and online content and not have free wi-fi is ridiculous.

While the tone and feel of the convention thus far has been much better than my last experience, I can’t help but feel that we’re still lagging behind. I heard from students without websites for their papers and people who have no idea how to even start adopting social media. I think that, as great as some of the advisors are who are running workshops, we should see more speakers and panels with students talking about how other students can succeed.

Some of the best presentations by college media folks were about what their students or other students were doing and I can’t help but think it would have been much better to have just heard from the students themselves. It seems to me that college media online is led by students who are innovating and experimenting with support from their advisors (case in point: #collegejourn). The conference should reflect this. I don’t think we are going to get a revolution from professors and advisors, if we want to move college media forward (and we desperately need to), the students are the ones who will be doing it.

Also, I need to put this out there, the CMA really needs a new website. It’s cool that you’re using Drupal and all, but the 90s are over, ok? I’m pretty sure you just used “mad skills” without irony.

Join me at the Tweetup and check out the hashtag archive up on the UPIU blog.

EDIT: All this is not to say that #cmanyc10 is bad, I think it’s great. It just could be better.

No related posts.

I’ve written a great post for the UPIU Blog on my methodology for managing the social media presence of both UPIU and the Office of Student Media.

Glittering promises to transform you into a social media powerhouse overnight are scams. Focusing on a long-term method to grow your social media presence, though, is a good idea.

Many groups, including college journalism outlets, are strategizing on the best ways to use social media to expand their brands. I have my own strategy for increasing followers, finding people, increasing hits and helping others, which I use daily at my job as Technology Manager for George Mason University’s Office of Student Media. I’ve made an acrostic for the strategy: MEGA.

MEGA Social Media:

1. Monitor related topics
2. Engage the audience
3. Grow your coverage
4. Be Active

A surprising number of folks fail to do all of these things. So I figure a bit of expansion might be helpful.

Read more at UPIU’s Building the J-Future.

Related posts:

1. How One University Uses Social Media to Help Make Student Votes Count.
2. Old vs New Media – Creative Commons, Wikipeidia and Post Scraping – What is Grand Theft Content?
3. Online Distribution for New Media

With Wordpress.com’s latest announcement, Google has now achieved dominance in real-time RSS. It’s PubSubHubbub for the win.

This Wednesday, the official Wordpress.com blog announced that their huge blogging network would now universally be implementing Google’s PubSubHubbub protocol alongside Wordpress’s competing plugin rssCloud.

There’s been a bit of a race to determine the web-standard in real-time RSS feeds. Moving RSS to a push service has been a story of parallel development. A lot of folks realized that sending RSS updates to a reader, instead of waiting for the reader to pick them up, was the future. For a while though, no one knew how. There were a bunch of work-arounds out there, but not a full solution.

However, the two leaders in RSS production came out with competing real-time RSS APIs around the same time. Wordpress released the rssCloud plugin on Wordpress.com, pushing towards their vision of real-time RSS. Around the same time, Google announced that it would unleash the awkwardly named PubSubHubbub as the push-RSS for Blogger.com and Google Reader. Of course, there was some confusion among developers. Part of this was that the protocolls were being implemented on the two largest blogging sites and though gReader was going PubSubHubbub, rssCloud was developed by the father of RSS.

It was an uphill battle for Wordpress when it seemed like no one was adopting their protocol. While the thousands of Wordpress.com blogs might be pushing out real-time feeds, the only folks set to catch them were Dave Winer’s own software and Lazyfeed. On the other hand, not only had the biggest reader gone for PubSubHubbub, so had many of the web’s largest blogs.

With this latest announcement that Wordpress.com intends to make their feeds PubSubHubbub compatible, it’s clear that the search monolith has overpowered the alternatives. While in this case Google has quickly resolved the confusion of real-time RSS for the better, I can’t feel comfortable with how quickly and completely they were able to outweigh the competition.

Do you think this has all turned out for the best?

Related posts:

1. A Few Good Wordpress Toys [List]
2. MSM Hasn’t Just Missed the Boat on Mobile Adoption, They Bombed it.

Image by Getty Images via Daylife

I am immensely excited about the upcoming TRON movie for many many reasons.

As it turns out, the trailer has just gone live, along with some sort of ARG-looking thing. I’ll be following this more closely later, but it is late, so I’m just going to post the links.

New TRON Legacy Trailer – http://www.program-glitch-esc.net/

#FlynnLives – http://www.flynnlives.com/

Check it out!

Related posts:

1. Live: Listening to Rob Curley

Taking a look at popular posts among my peer group (college students, aged 17-25) shows that few of them share the same type of popularity on Digg that they do on other networks. Likely because these students have little interest in using Digg, even for a quick upvote.

To put it simply, Digg has voted itself out of the social ecosystem. The proof is right there on many of the stories I’ve been looking at lately.

Just look at Huffington Post’s first headline news story in their college section. The article is on student debt, perhaps the one topic universally important to the college-age market segment.

“Share Your Story — Majoring in Debt” was immensely popular, with 579 Facebook shares and 1,389 Tweets. The comment section on the site received 4,316 replies. But how many Diggs are there? 16.

This is clearly not a question of interest in the content. If all the people who had Facebooked and Tweeted the article had bothered to log on to Digg and vote, it would have blown up. But they didn’t. The reason is that Gen Y just doesn’t care about Digg.

The Digg community has recognizably been gamed by those with large networks and caters to a very niche user base, interested mostly in tech topics and anything that can amuse them. The irritating Digg bar doesn’t help either.

The perception (right or wrong) of the Digg community as clique-ish doesn’t sit well with college-age students who are aiming to build their own brands. I know very few of my fellow students who are fans of Digg. Those who are fall into that niche category of tech-addicted ultra-geeks.

In the meantime, the ever-growing community of regular students jumping onto social media have little interest in the mysteries of Digg mastery, instead following content where they live, on Facebook or Twitter.

The population growing up with the internet has no interest in Digg.

While a huge number of upvotes may be beneficial for an article, it is no longer representative of popularity. Instead, the shares of stories through the tools people use every day are what matter.

I, for one, wave a happy goodbye to an antiquated tool.

Related posts:

1. Wait, So Facebook Dictates Reality?
2. Trying out the new Digg

If you read my blog back in its RWV days, you may recall my post about the need for player characters to speak and how a failure to do so, as in BioShock, was detrimental to the game.

It seems that I am not the only person to think so. I just stumbled upon a great story through Kotaku on the same subject.

I consider it audacious and unreasonable to think that video game story telling is so different that suddenly players will be unwilling to empathize with their character unless that character takes on their personality. I appreciate the potential of this new medium, but my experience has been that for now, the more we stick with good old fashioned story telling the better off everyone will be.

It is, overall, an excellent article on the topic. I recommend you read it.

Identification, Please.

Related posts:

1. No Gods, No Kings… No Men? The Player Character in BioShock
2. Character Portability and the USA Channel
3. Decompressed Storytelling and Sandbox Games