Studio IMC blog

The Web is Flat - New Studio IMC Whitepaper

2008-10-05T12:55:00.000-07:00

Email us for a copy of Studio IMC's new whitepaper:

The Web is Flat
How the WWW Will Merge With Public Spaces, Promote Free Speech, and Map New Frontiers

Thesis
Social media in public spaces such as interactive displays, mobile devices, and social software can greatly enhance communication and strengthen urban communities. Though these technologies currently utilize billboards, projections, and plasma displays, the emerging ‘OuterNet’ or ‘Next Net’ will eventually seamlessly infuse the capabilities of the Web within the very fabric of urban architecture and daily life, creating an “interactive network” filled with diverse and creative installations ranging from advertising to maps of the city and art works. This interactive network will inspire a sense of magic, promoting innovative info-mapping techniques, new business opportunities, and new art forms that will completely transform our experience of the city. In this paper, we discuss the history and future of these new technological techniques, art forms, and business opportunities.

Keywords/Tags
The Outnernet or Next Net
Mapping/Cartography
Public spaces & free speech
Technology, art, & advertising
Urban screens, mobile technologies, and social software
Video games and virtual worlds
The ancient art of memory- mapping knowledge/info
The Semantic Web- IBM, 2L, XML etc.
IMCtv, IMCmobile, IMCspace
Mapcidy

IMCtv & IMCmobile in Minute Maid Park for Houston Astros

2008-05-10T09:23:00.000-07:00

IMCtv is used by the Houston Astros on their jumbotron in Minute Maid Park. The audience can send pictures, text messages, and votes to screens all over the stadium.

From Fluxus to Media Art

2008-05-10T09:07:00.000-07:00

March 6 - May 24, 2008

Maya Stendhal Gallery is pleased to present From Fluxus to Media Art, a special selection of artists working in a range of media including film, video, sculpture, conceptual performance, and digital technologies. On view will be work by Jonas Mekas, George Maciunas, Fluxus, George Brecht, Andy Warhol, Nam June Paik, Shigeko Kubota, and Studio IMC.

http://www.mayastendhalgallery.com/fluxus_to_media-page.html

Introducing IMCmobile

2007-10-21T14:21:00.001-07:00

Over the years, Studio IMC has developed a range of mobile applications from voting and mobile video download services to text2screen applications that promote free speech. Clients have included Absolut, NJ Nets, National Amusements, NBC/Universal, and many others.

These mobile applications are now being brought under one easy-to-manage application suite called IMCmobile.

Introducing, the IMCmobile management system.
With our system, mobile marketing campaign management becomes easy. Using a secure website (pics to be posted soon), you can create new keywords tied to our shortcode or to your own.

Here are just a few of the features offered by IMCmobile:

Management of Three Types of Keywords
1. Premium Keywords
Used for contests and voting that requires payment. The carriers collect payment.
Example. Vote for your favorite Rodeo act…. $.99 per entry

2. Standard (Vanity) Keywords
They can be used for any kind of campaign and are usually meaningful names or words.
Example. Text to receive $500 off a 2007 Mustang…

3. Value Keywords
Used for bounce back information. It can’t be used for contesting, voting, couponing, etc.
Example. Place a Keyword on a particular home being sold. The response is only for that home and returns only information about the home.

Integration with Billboards & other Digital Screens
IMCmobile integrates seamlessly with IMCtv through features like Text2screen , Pix2screen, and voting. Add-on mobile gaming also available with IMCtv and IMCmobile for real-time control over screens from user cell phones.

Special Keyword Features
1. Clients can enter some information into a link to the text message and a bounce back is created that is specific to the information entered. (assumption is that all data will be provided by client) Example. Enter your zip code for your closest. Alternatively this could be hit reply with your zip code.

2. Standard API to link to third party systems to pull dynamic data (i.e. zip code filters, special price takedowns etc)

3. Call Back feature - Divert the return message to a third number for immediate response. Example. Text YES back if you would like someone to contact you and show you this home today.

Contesting
Random Code Generation with link to Website.
Instant Winner (based on nth criteria – i.e. nth = 10th person or every 10th person)
Delayed Instant Winners…one an hour
Single Winner Drawings
(subject to carriers local laws and restrictions

Welcome Message
An option to turn on/off a customizable welcome message to all first time texters of an advertisers campaign. This is sent in addition the reply text.

Return Messages
Timing of the return messages is flexible. From an immediate bounce back to five hours later and even the next day.

Sorting of Database
Keyword/All of part of the keyword
Timing of Opt-in
Type of Campaign
Sub-Groups—back office sorting for each keyword that is not obvious to consumers.
Example. Keyword BMW…internal sort…premium product

Alerts
Alerts are sent to one keyword or a group of keywords. Sort the groups when you set up the keywords so you can send alerts by sub-groups.

Detailed Reporting
A 24/7 report feature that shows number of texts received or texter responses to a keyword, alerts sent to keyword group so we can track for billing purposes. Also has additional features including – time of day concentration, day of week concentration and top area codes. Graphs for visual reporting are also built-in.

Custom Skins
Some clients prefer to have their mobile application management portal with a custom look and feel that associates with their brand. For this reason, IMCmobile has customizable skins as an optional add-on feature.

More IMCspace 3D/2D Visual Search Maps

2007-10-14T20:36:00.000-07:00

3D You Tube User Search Map
Yet another IMCspace 3D search map. This map (requires a VRML viewer) shows a cluster of You Tube user's videos in comparison to their friends video clusters. The longer the video cube the more views it has gotten. This is a very easy way to search and compare large numbers of videos and users in a single visual map.

2D You Tube Keyword Search Map
This is another IMCspace video search maps. This one is 2D but has the added benefit of zoom and floating info when the mouse rolls over a video. It's a basic idea that is being used more and more on the Web. But compared to traditional YouTube search results in list format, this "dynamic grid" search map approach is clearly a more efficient and fluid method of exploring a large pools of video search results.

The following passage from the book, Mapping Cyberspace, by Martin Dodge & Rob Kitchin, makes the important distinction between several key modes of information browsing where search maps can be useful.
"Browsing strategies: scanning (covering a large area without depth), browsing (following a path until a goal is achieved), searching (explicit goal search), exploring (finding the extent of information), and wandering (unstructured search) (Canter et al. 1985, cited in Kim and Kirtle 1995)."

Much of Studio IMC's research on immersive spaces (IMCtv, CINE) and visual search maps (IMCspace) is rooted in our belief that there is a definite need for new visual strategies in mapping information on the Web (and in physical spaces). These new strategies will reach beyond Google's text/list-based search strategy. Modes of experiencing information such as scanning and wandering are made much easier with birds-eye-view visual/image-based maps of large amounts of information. New relationships can be formed and shown in these visual search maps. 2D and 3D graphics as well as dynamic interactive animations, virtual physics, and immersive environments that mix virtual/real can inspire higher levels of understanding for every-growing datasets. These new search methods can provide us with a spatial/mental maps and a more active way of experiencing info space than Google's list search results.

IMCspace - You Tube User Solar System

2007-10-13T15:09:00.000-07:00

http://www.movvom.com/rotator9.php?user=lonelygirl15

This is an experimental 3D user map showing a You Tube user's uploaded videos.

Enter a You Tube user name and press submit to see a 3D universe of the user's recent videos. The videos with wider orbits have more views. Move your mouse to navigate the videos. Click on a video to view the video. User stats are made available as is a direct link to the user's personal 3D universe.

This example is powered by IMCspace as well as various open source and creative commons software tools like jquery and the work of Will Jessup's Solar System.

Studio IMC at CMMA Eastern Region Meeting

2007-07-30T17:03:00.000-07:00

CMMA Eastern Region Meeting

McKinsey & Company conference center, 55 East 52nd Street, New York - between Fifth and Madison.

Thursday, July 31, 2007
11:30AM to 3:00PM

Eastern Region Director
Frank Ball
Goldman Sachs

YouTube^©, MySpace^©, Podcasting, Second Life^©, Digital Signage - new technologies are creating new challenges for media managers. What are the implications and how managers can make effective use of these technologies to reach targeted audiences will be the subjectc of a panel discussion at the Communications Media Management Association (CMMA) Eastern Region meeting.

The Program
11:30 – 12:00: Arrival and networking

12:00 – 1:00: Lunch courtesy of CMMA partners Crews Control and Team People.

1:00 – 2:30: Evolving Communications Technologies Panel

Christopher King, Associate Director, RD Multimedia and Creative Media Services, Reader’s Digest Association

CMMA member, Chris King will describe the Reader’s Digest Association’s recent podcasting experiences and share lessons learned.

Boris Kizelshteyn - Managing Partner, combinedstory

combinedstory is a media firm specializing in representing business, brand or artwork in the virtual world. The company's principles have over 20 years of combined experience in the interactive media industry creating campaigns focused on virtual experiences. They are actively working in avatar interface based interactive worlds such as SecondLife^©, Kaneva^©, Entropia^© and There.^© (www.combinedstory.com).

James Tunick - Founder and President, Studio IMC

Studio IMC (Interactive Multimedia Culture) is a new media agency comprised of an international team of artists and software engineers focused on innovation. Studio IMC produces a tradeshow called the IMCexpo with the aim of spurring innovation and showcasing its artists. Studio IMC main products are IMCtv, an interactive media player for digital screens, and IMCvote, mobile software that integrates with IMCtv screens & web. (www.StudioIMC.com)

2:30 – 3:30: Technical and Management Issues Topic Go ‘Round. This popular CMMA open forum gives attendees the chance to ask questions or raise issues for discussion. A great opportunity to share in the collective experience of the group.

Where: McKinsey & Company conference center, 55 East 52nd Street, New York - between Fifth and Madison.

Our Host: CMMA member Steve Lackey, Managing Producer, McKinsey & Company

Click here to register. There is no cost to attend.

Parallel Cityscapes

2007-06-01T22:25:00.000-07:00

Parallel Cityscapes (PC)
By Jaanis Garancs and James Tunick

Installation part of the show, StereoVision
USF Museum of Contemporary Art
June 15th-August 4th, 2007
4202 E. Fowler Ave. Tampa, Florida

View video walk-through of the show
View images from the show
Download Press Release or view museum website

Parallel Cityscapes (PC) is an interactive audiovisual environment that imagines the future of the personal computing while revealing the "hidden" spaces and relationships between memories. PC depicts the parallels between modern cities and future memory spaces, representing an archive of millions of user-generated photographs, video sequences, drawings and computer graphics from the Web, from mobile devices, and from public spaces. Each scene is a dynamic, algorithmically generated, stereoscopic, urban landscape with multidimensional hyperlinks that offer gateways to "parallel" scenes. This mind-bending journey is a breathtaking visual paradox between real and virtual, imagining a future in which 3D browsers and media spaces merge with real cities and encourage more advanced forms of collaboration.

Parallel Cityscapes is an interdisciplinary project that blends media and genres to create new art forms. Our goal in this project is to research the expanding frontier of the WWW, creating new ways to visualize the huge amount of data that is amassing on websites like You Tube. Our art work pushes this information to cell phones, web browsers, and immersive environments, truly defying classification as a certain type of art. By blending mobile devices, web, and physical spaces, we hope to show how people will one day create, share, and search for content on multiple platforms and in multiple dimensions.

Theories on 3D Video Search

2007-02-26T17:52:00.000-08:00

Problem
Video search is in its infancy and current models for video search are extremely inefficient. Most search tools do not yet allow “birds-eye-views” of vast numbers of videos. As the amount of videos and other media assets such as essays, research, and user generated music continues to grow, traditional search tools will not be enough.

Scenario
What if you are not browsing for a single video with a known title, but rather, you are browsing to see the “universe of videos” with the tag, "Second Life". Using current traditional search techniques such as Google or You Tube, a keyword search for “Second Life” would take you hours, days or even years to sort through the 4076+ results on You Tube or the daunting 474,000,000 results on Google. And even once you have done so, it might be hard to see the relationships of the videos to each other much less remember where the videos were located.

Due to the way our brain is built and the fact that we live in a 3D world, our ability to remember 3D spaces and navigate 3D spaces is highly advanced. As a result, 3D search can be more efficient than 2D search in certain situations such as browsing large datasets.

Free Speech & the Environment

2007-01-22T22:26:00.001-08:00

Imagine a new type of ubiquitous communications medium
that builds community and encourages creativity by making
culture visible in public spaces.

Envision a city that is constantly interacting with and aware
of its natural environment using buildings and networked
objects that are built with green materials and that
display key info about the environment that they inhabit.

Cities will one day become smart spaces with embedded
technologies that promote free speech and green thinking.

...

More info here

Best Blogs of 06

2006-10-15T20:57:00.000-07:00

Blog Links

Innovation, Collaboration & The Next Net

2006-06-20T22:53:00.000-07:00

Download the full paper here

INNOVATION, COLLABORATION, & THE NEXT NET
A Paper by James Tunick, Studio IMC

Abstract:
Creativity and innovation are currently stifled by antiquated interface design, strict intellectual property law, and cultural traditions. Yet immersive environments, mobile tools, and social media are seeing tremendous growth and have the power to encourage unprecedented innovation. This paper explores the forces that are shaping the next evolution of the Internet. The Next Net will be a hybrid platform combining technologies that blend virtual/real and encourage free speech in public places as well as the home. We propose that by sustaining collaborative communities and promoting creative engagement, emerging tools such as immersive environments, mobile tools, and social media have the ability to become more than the sum of their parts, sparking a new Renaissance of “user-generated” creativity, on the Web as well as in physical spaces like city streets and parks.

IMCvote Used by Sci-Fi Channel/NBC Universal & Museum of TV & Radio

2006-06-14T11:46:00.000-07:00

In a recent event at the Museum of TV & Radio, The Sci-Fi Channel and Battlestar Gallactica (Owned by NBC Universal) used IMCvote as a fun way to poll audience opinion.

This interactive marketing program allowed viewers to send a text-message to vote on their favorite character on the TV show. Viewers then receive a response sending them to the Battlestar Gallactica and museum websites.

Real-time voting results were also displayed on the Web, on mobile phones, and in the theater at the museum.

The New World of Interactive

2006-04-30T18:22:00.000-07:00

The article below was mostly adapted from an article by Dody Tsiantar in Time Magazine, April 10th, 2006. A2. All direct quotes, research, and images are to her credit.

"The New World of Interactive"

In the SoHo district in New York York City, “Star Lenny Kravitz peers down from a 60-ft.-wide billboard for Absolut vodka… at the bottom of the sign, Absolut invite passersby to send a text message… to download a free 4-min MP3 track where they’re standing.”

According to a recent Time Magazine article, last year, U.S. marketers spent $6.3 billion on out-of-home advertising campaigns. In fact, outdoor is the second fastest-growing ad medium after the Internet. And soon, thanks to many of the technologies developed Studio IMC, the two mediums will be nearly indistinguishable, consumers will be empowered, and marketers will be more savvy.

This growing trend toward interactive advertising is something native to the net, but new to digital signage and cell phones. The movement is in large-part the result of consumers becoming “increasingly mobile and increasingly overloaded with information.” Technologies like cell phones and digital billboards are driving the rebirth of digital advertising. These technologies also empower users with new choices and new creative tools.

“Marketers love the interaction with consumers… [and] it is easy to see why. Due to the fact that the results of ads are immediate and measurable.” In other words, there is an immediate ROI and a level of accountability not possible with non-interactive ads.

One advertising Executive even says about interactive media, “For the advertiser, it really turns out-of-home [campaigns] into a direct-response mechanism”. This mechanism includes interactive media in public spaces such as billboards with cell phone interaction and window displays that respond to people’s movements.

As aptly put in the Time Magazine article, “It’s easier to generate buzz when what you’re going is genuinely cool. Consumers can now download music, play video games, watch movie trailers or custom-design a pair of sneakers and purchase them- all by interacting with outdoor ads. Signs can send a digital coupon to our cell phones, and soon they may even start addressing us by name as they did in Steven Spielberg’s 2002 futuristic film Minority Report.” Stephen Freitas of the Outdoor Advertising Association of America, claims “outdoor advertising is evolving to a world of two-way advertising very, very fast.” The sign at left in Times Square allowed viewers to send pictures from their cell phone.

As for cell phone interactivity, Coldplay had 20,000 people download their video clips and sample tracks within two weeks directly from posters in London’s main rail terminals to their cell phones. And 500,000 bus-riders in Britain voted for who would win in the movie Alien vs. Predator by pushing a button on the signs. Other success stories include digital signage and cell phone campaigns used by JCDecaux, Lancome, Proctor & Gamble, Ford, Nike, Vodafone.

And the market for interactive advertising will just keep growing. Pricewaterhouse Cooper projects that $8 billion will be spent on outdoor advertising by 2009. According to Executives quoted in the Time article, interactive media “tends to be big companies who want to do exciting above-the-line promotions… Advertisers can change their messages almost instantaneously… this is truly the next revolution in out-of-home advertising”.

It is clear that there is a growing demand for innovations that engage viewers while greatly increasing ROI and accountability. These technologies just begin to expose what the new world of interactive will one day mean.

The Super Soap Box

2006-04-17T18:13:00.000-07:00

View the ebook here. Download the full ebook here.

"Art and technology in public spaces can spark innovation and build stronger communities.

Art, technology, and space can thus become much more than the sum of their parts. They can be used to democratize expression, inviting open creativity, and providing collaboration tools. With the support of sponsors and city governments, interactive art works in public spaces have the ability to inspire, empower, and mobilize a new generation of innovators while strengthening communities and sparking healthy debate.

Imagine a type of virtual city commons or location specific P2P platform: a Napster, MySpace, or Wikipedia for a public space like Central Park where users could find info, meet, collaborate, archive, and trade content, yet do so while being physically present in the Park. This type of situated social media will be the wave of the future, connecting people to each other and to their surroundings using vehicles like cutting-edge lighting technologies, interactive displays, wireless applications, smart architecture, and art."

This passage is from an ebook titled "The Super Soap Box" by James Tunick.

The Park of the Future

2006-04-17T18:03:00.000-07:00

"The fast pace of change in today's city centers demands that we re-imagine the role of the urban park. The current cultural climate requires that we invent new definitions of civic spaces: definitions that are more inclusive, more useful, and more democratic in nature. This will especially be true in big cities where people rarely feel as if they have a voice or the ability to affect change in their community.

Studio IMC proposes a design for The Park of the Future: a civic space in downtown LA for relaxation, entertainment, and open creativity. The Park of the Future is a place where people can make their mark.

The Park of the Future will be an information commons and cultural hub with gardens, pavilions, sports courts, playgrounds, a public theater, and a space for free speech and political debate. The Park will promote civic participation through an overall design that integrates new media innovations such as “green” technologies, Wi-Fi, mobile device networks, a light sculpture, an interactive fountain, and hybrid spaces that blend the virtual and the real."

From Grand Avenue Intervention proposal by Carrie Elston, Brad Leinhardt, Tony Rizzaro, and James Tunick, 2005.

Website, proposal, & LA Times Coverage

Welcome to the Studio IMC blog!

2006-04-17T17:47:00.000-07:00

This is the Studio IMC blog where James Tunick, Tony Rizzaro, and other Studio IMC designers will post essays, research, and thoughts about the art, technology, and business of interactive multimedia culture.