Story2.OH - Blog

News from Crossover Summit

2009-11-09T20:22:00Z

As part of the Sheffield Doc Festival, the Crossover Summit raised asked how we make money from digital innovations in the entertainment world. This is the first of several videos of the event.

Docfest 09 - Crossover from Jan-Paul Bednarz on Vimeo.

I Go Chop Your Dollar

2009-11-08T16:40:00Z

I Go Chop Your Dollar is about running the Nigerian scam written and performed by Nkem Owoh, a Nigerian singer and actor. The lyrics are below.

Verse 1

I don suffer, no be small

Upon say I get sense

Poverty no good at all, no

Na him make I join this business

419 no be thief, it's just a game

Everybody dey play am

If anybody fall mugu,

Ha, my brother I go chop am

Chorus

National Airport na me get am

National Stadium na me build am

President na my sister brother

You be the mugu, I be the master

Oyinbo man I go chop your dollar

I go take your money and disappear

419 is just a game

You are the loser, I am the winner

The refinery na me get am

The contract, na you I go give am

But you go pay me small money make I bring am

You be the mugu, I be the master

Na me be the master oh

Verse 2

When Oyinbo play wayo

Dem go say na new style

When country man do him own

Them go dey shout

Bring am, kill am, die!

But Oyinbo people greedy (dem greedy)

I say them greedy (dem greedy)

I don't see them tire

That's why when they fall into my trap o

I dey show them fire

Mugu is a scammers term for a victim; big fool.

419 is of course the Nigerian or advanced-fee scam.</p.

New Twitter Virus: iq quiz

2009-11-05T16:30:00Z

I just got a DM that read: "u should take this iq quiz http://quiz6545.info". Hmmm. Seemed a tad odd so I asked Google.

I found this on :

I'm throwing up a search widget to track the Tweets about this. The search term is "iq quiz":

UPDATE

More on the spate of phishing schemes on Twitter from Scott Stratten of UnMarketing. He gives this advice if you think you've been phished:

1. Change your password. No one got access to your account because you used your pet’s name as your password (you do don’t you??). It doesn’t matter how crafty you’ve made it, if you hand them your login info, it’s like they’re psychic like John Edward, except they actually know stuff

2. Check who has access to your account by going here. It shows who you have authorized to use your account. Now don’t crap the bed if there are companies listed there. I have 18 apps that have access to my account for various reasons. But if you don’t recognize one and want to yank them out, just click “revoke access”.

3. Stop giving your info out! You should never give your info to any site that asks for it unless you are wanting them to. It’s your reputation/business here. Giving out your login to anyone is like wearing your bank card PIN on your t shirt and wandering the back streets of Vegas at 3am. Not saying I’ve done that…. ummm…

Sports Go Scripted

2009-11-05T15:52:00Z

ESPN has a scripted web series called NFL Writers Room.

Lying Down

2009-11-05T03:07:00Z

I get a lot of traffic on this blog from the search string "lying down game". In case, you're not here on that search, lying down game involves taking a picture of yourself lying down... okay, lying down in unusual places I blogged about this internet meme in July as part of a post on generating user content and eliciting participation. Since then, I get a handful of hits every day from people looking for this subject.

I'm not quite sure what these visitors are looking for. Just an explanation of a wacky web phenom? Instructions on how to play? Pictures of people lying down? If you're here on that search, would you mind dropping me a comment to tell me your interest in the topic?

I can only imagine what the traffic is like on lyingdowngame.net, the "official" site of the game. Here you can read about the creators of the game (oh your mothers must be so proud), Gary Clarkson and Christian Langdon. There is also a map that shows locations where a "lie down was done." (I believe that's official terminology.) What I love about this map is that it appears that many of the lie downs were done in mid-Atlantic Oceans and the only Canadian lie down was done by someone named Chad about 150 km west of Kapuskasing.

The Lying Down community is actually way more active on Facebook than on the stand alone site. The fan page has over 75,000 members and 16,000 photos... of people lying down. Some are more interesting than others. Quite a few are taken on railroad tracks, roads and bridges.

What's the attraction? Why are so many people participating in what seems like a pointless activity? To be part of something, I believe. The community of lier downers is massive and a lot of people want to be part of that.

The bar to entry is set extremely low. Not everyone can think of a funny lolspeak caption to put on a picture of a cat, but pretty much anyone can lie down and get a mate to snap a picture of it. It's also an excellent activity for when to pursue you're drunk.

(I didn't really mean that about lolspeak, of course everyone can do it which is why the lolcat site is incredibly popular. I only wrote that because I thought it sounded good and sometimes a turn of phrase is more important that accuracy and truth.)

It's funny. I can imagine people killing themselves laughing while they're lying down... especially if they're drunk. And the pictures definitely make other people laugh judging by how frequently hahaha, lol and lmfao appear in the comments.

I think a couple of other factors may be at play as well.

There's nothing cynical to the lying down game. No one's profiting, no one's pushing product, it isn't intended to build anyone's brand.
There's a creativity to it. You have to think of some place unusual to lie down in order to make your lie down worth documenting.
Everyone wants to be a star and here's a great way to get other people to look at you.
There's a competitive factor to it. Maybe my lying down picture will be the coolest ever, the definitive lying down picture. Perhaps that's why it's called the lying down game.

One lesson is clear. The days of passive media are gone. People want to participate. Give them a way to participate that's easy, funny and has room for creativity, they are there in vast numbers.

The more I write and think about this, the more I want to take a lying down picture of my own. Actually I don't want to take the picture, I want someone else to take a picture of me -- lying down. Watch this space. When I think of a good spot to lie, I'll post the pic. ;D

Love Letter to Flash

2009-11-02T01:01:00Z

Watch the video, then read the love letters.

How to Engage An Audience

2009-11-01T12:14:00Z

The master shows us. Way back in 2006, Ze Frank practically invented user engagement and community with his web series the show. In this episode, he asked his fans to help create an earth sandwich by placing slices of bread at opposite coordinates on the earth's surface. He even provided a tool for finding your exact coordinates.

Find the opposite tool

Why does this work so well? Why did so many people respond to Ze's call for action?

First, because Ze had an engaged community. He'd been at it a while, collecting an audience with lots of regularly released content. And he was responsive to his audience, he'd share his stage and web space with them, posting their, commenting on and including their contributions. By participating in one of Ze's challenges, you could feel even more like a member of the community.

Second, the request was funny, simple and incredibly imaginative. On the simple front, it compares nicely with successful memes like the Lying Down game. All you have to do to get into the fun is snap a picture of a piece of bread.

Finally, there's room for creativity. if you're clever enough, the slice of bread photo you upload might be the best one!

If you ask... Here are just a few of the many photos Ze received:

Halloween Online Fun

2009-10-31T15:07:00Z

Tweet #treat.

Tweet #trick.

...wait and then more zombies populate your home page.

Today's Google logo:

Click on it:

Click again:

And again:

One more time:

Halloween Online Fun

2009-10-31T11:07:00Z

Tweet #treat.

Tweet #trick.

...wait and then more zombies populate your home page.

Today's Google logo:

Click on it:

Click again:

And again:

One more time:

Prius iPhone Stunt

2009-10-30T00:02:00Z

Toyota developed an iPhone app that lets you interact with the features of a new car they are selling. The app also has a sketching feature which was part of promo to get people to download the app. Users could put their iPhone sketches up on a Times Square Billboard. Pretty cool.

The billboard is live again tomorrow - October 30, 2009.

Illeana Douglas Talks Brand and Web Series

2009-10-29T01:55:00Z

Six Reasons for Digital Funding

2009-10-29T00:39:00Z

Sustainable
Potentially profitable
It’s a growing industry, not a dying one
Jobs
Culture meets business
Potential to reach a global audience

Funding Please

2009-10-27T17:09:00Z

In early 2008, I launched my first webdrama. It was small experimental and massively fun.

I have devoted many months since to figuring out a business model for creating web drama, a thorny problem especially for someone who has spent her life on the creative side of things. I would have preferred to spend the last couple of years experimenting with the medium, creating drama on the web, building an audience, but it’s hard to find even the small amounts of money I need for creating web drama.

There are various funding agencies who hand out money to producers of TV or film and even to help create cross platform components for old media productions. But finding money to kickstart stand alone digital is much harder.

I fear Canada is getting left behind. Other countries are turning out cool stuff hand over fist. We who were poised to lead the revolution just a year or two ago are just standing around watching the massive explosion of original digital entertainment getting made outside our country.

Every day I hear about new projects that are ready to go but for the financing. We’re not talking a lot of dough here. The average development budget for a TV series would produce a full cycle of a cutting edge digital drama with the potential to reach a global audience.

That global audience is one of the reasons the funding agencies should jump in here. In TV, our reach has been limited. With digital production, our potential audience is massive.

When I ran boymeetsgrrl, the first drama I created under the Story2.OH banner, within days, I had active participants from Indonesia, England, China, Israel, Australia. In a single week, my story spread far and wide. I didn’t have a distributor, a broadcaster, a funding agency, anyone helping with promotion or even very much content, but I was able to reach thousands of people on four continents. Imagine what I could do if I had some money and the resources it would buy me.

I was in the audience at NextMedia in the fall of 2007 when an executive of one of the ISPs argued against giving artists subsidies comparing it to getting them hooked on crack. I think an influx of government money will have exactly the opposite effect. We’re hooked on crack now. Television isn’t a sustainable industry, the Canadian audience isn’t large enough. On the other hand, a digital entertainment industry could be very profitable. It will help to turn art into business and make artists self-sustaining. If we can get into this marketplace while it’s still young, we can build a successful self-financing industry.

Without an early injection of cash though, we’ll have to continue working in the old media which will continue to cling to the funding life support systems.

With digital we have a real chance of building an industry driven by market forces. If we can reach 100 thousand… a million… 30 million of the 2 billion people currently connected to the web, we can make money, hire workers, pay taxes and entertain the world.

We just need a little seed money to get started.

The price of entry is still low, but it’s rising daily. Now is the time for government investment in digital at three levels: development, production and promotion.

We don’t want the digital boat to sail without Canadians on board.

Rogers Invests in Vuguru

2009-10-26T14:51:00Z

According to Tubefilter:

In a multimillion dollar deal announced today, Michael Eisner’s three year-old web studio Vuguru just landed a major investor and distribution partner in Canadian-owned Rogers Media. For Rogers, it means a multi-year exclusive on Canadian rights to Vuguru properties on all platforms including web, TV and mobile.

The report in Tubefilter has quite a few quotes from the Vuguru side but no word from Rogers on the reasons underlying their investment in a content production company. But it sounds like a vote for content creation as a viable digital industry from where I sit.

Where's the Money? In the Container

2009-10-24T20:55:00Z

Nina Paley is my new hero. She made a film called Sita Sings the Blues and distributed it for free on the Internet. She makes her money from selling dvds and merchandise. Her first distribution report is available for you to read, but basically she made about $40 000 in the first two months.

Definitely check out her essay Understanding Free Content on the QuestionCopyright site. Here are some excerpts:

Content is an unlimited resource. People can now make perfect copies of digital content for free. That's why they expect content to be free — because it is in fact free. That is GOOD.

Think of "content" — culture — as water. Where water flows, life flourishes.

Containers — objects like books, DVDs, hard drives, apparel, action figures, and prints — are not free. They are a limited resource. No one expects these objects to be free, and people voluntarily pay good money for them.

Continuing this metaphor: copyright monopolies are an attempt to dam up and control all the rivers, reducing them to a trickle. When Big Media succeeds locking up culture, it's like in closing off water: they get a stagnant pool that turns to poison. Fish die and mosquitoes swarm, because the water has no source to flow from nor destination to flow to.

Go read the rest of the piece. It's inspiring.