Bristol Media SXSW 2008

The SXSW Bristol/Texan Team

Tue, 18 Mar 2008 06:29:48 -0700

Welcome to the South by South West Interactive Festival scribbles and thoughts of Mike Bennett of Bristol Media, Benjamin Hostler of Beef, Hazel Grian of Licorice Media, Andy Parkhouse of Team Rubber and Clare Reddington of iShed.

Our mission? To head to Austin, Texas and research new business opportunities, spot emerging digital trends and explore what Bristol can learn from one of the biggest international conferences and festivals of the year.

On reflection...

Tue, 18 Mar 2008 06:29:18 -0700

Whilst balancing a cup of tea on my new cheese baby I got to thinking about what we experienced and learnt during our trip.

SXSW truly is a great conference/festival/party. From the spot on organisation, great facility (Austin Conference Centre is really, really, really big) and the varied presentations and keynotes all made this a memorable and inspiring event.

And that’s without mentioning the parties, the swag, the free drinks, the deep fried cheese, Austin, Austinites, people swooning at my British accent… (they were all good).

Whilst I didn’t come back with any concrete new business opportunities per se, I did meet a lot of people and collect a lot of contact details some of which might prove useful others not so much. But I’m not sure if these things are about new business (although I’m sure it happens), I think they’re about sharing ideas and opinion, learning new techniques, feeling part of a global industry and getting inspired.

One of the best things I went to was a small round table discussion on the problems of running a small agency, growing the business, wearing multiple hats and getting the right talent. These are all problems Beef faces almost daily and a chance to discuss these issues and hear about solutions others had found was just great. It reaffirmed my confidence in what we’re doing.

The keynote by Frank Warren of PostSecret was inspiring and slightly bizarre as parts of it bordered on Jerry Springer / TV Evangelism, but it reminded a lot of people (I hope) that the web isn’t just a tech playground, it can be a platform for art and that a great idea is more important than an API.

Although I missed the first half, the PhizzPop design challenge was also a highlight - the ideas on show were one thing (there was some really great stuff in there) but it was more useful (for me) to see some of the biggest agencies in the world actually pitch a concept before a panel (albeit in possibly the wrongest environment, a bar). Lots learnt.

The awards were also a highlight, and it was fantastic that Preloaded took the Best In Show. Well done guys.

There was so much on offer I could waffle on for ages, but I won’t.

So could we do this in Bristol? Yes, I believe we could. Ok, we don’t have a massive conference centre but we do have the Watershed, L-Shed, Arnolfini, Pervasive Media Lab and @Bristol all central and within walking distance of one another. We have bars a-plenty, hotels a-plenty. Everything you need.

But most importantly we have Bristol. Like Austin isn’t NYC or LA, Bristol isn’t London. We’re different. And that’s a good thing.

Bristol needs to kick itself into action and be the home of the European version of SXSW before other localities beat us to it. And Bristol needs to make a mark on next years SXSW.

Who’s up for it?

SXSW rocks

Fri, 14 Mar 2008 18:22:13 -0700

Still suffering from jetlag and an overload of cheese (Texas is not a vegetarian heaven) I thought I would scribble down some points about the Festival.

Dan Taylor sums up it up in nine words: “Wi-Fi, Queue, MacBook, Shiner Bock, Twitter, Walking, Ribs, Lacygate.”

Replace ribs with cheese and I pretty much concur.

Reasons why SXSX rocks:

Festival organisation
From picking up of badges to the non-intrusive badge checkpoints around the huge convention centre, the Festival was well organised, staff were friendly and things just worked. No small feat when you consider the 6000 delegates.

The interactive playpen
Some creative relief in the foyer of the centre - the most lego you have ever seen under one roof. Delegates were invited to make something, photo it and tag it interactiveplaypen for the chance to win prizes. In fact just about everywhere you walked during the festival was a chance to win something (usually an iphone).

Many and varied
From the scale and subject matter of the events to the people attending, this wasn’t just about linux programmers and uber geeks, but featured a wealth of informative and varied sessions and people.

Austin
It’s weird and friendly with great bars. Like Bristol only with sunshine.

Free transport
I didn’t actually use it, but the Festival puts on free buses and our hotel had a shuttle running to the convention centre. This city takes the festival seriously, and so it should, film and interactive alone delivered $16.8 million to the local economy in 2007 and participants’ average daily spending was $264.

Many parties and much swag
From the free LED flashies at the Google party to a tiny card holder from moo, everywhere you went you could fill your boots with free stickers, postcards and magazines. Plus every evening had a jam-packed schedule of parties that went on through the night.

Geo-curiousness and ARGs
The hot topics at the Festival were mobile, creativity, collaboration and ARGs. Which was nice as not only is this where iShed is putting energy, they are also unique strengths of Bristol. Whilst we all learnt a lot, we also realised how ahead of the game we are in many ways. The Festival opens for panel ideas in June, and we will defintely be getting our thinking caps on.

Geek stuff
Use of sched to plan where you wanted to be (vital with so many concurrent events), use of meebo to check whether everyone else in the room was also confused by the crap performance artists, and great free wifi.

Web Awards
Compered by Eugene Mirman with askaninja, the awards took place in a MASSIVE room in the Hilton, were funny, mercifully short and Brits won overall.

Finally…

Silly dancing in a redneck cowboy bar (that was actually only me and Hazel) and first class upgrades: I saw Juno, Lars and the Real girl and Margot at the Wedding, ate much nice food and managed a sleep. Can I ever fly economy again? Thank you continental.

Some things we learnt for a Bristol festival

Fri, 14 Mar 2008 18:19:59 -0700

The city doesn’t have a large convention centre like Austin. Instead we should use the harboursude as a Festival campus, making use of venues in close proximity and outside areas.
Programme lots of parties (rather than just one a night)
Awards make people turn up
Vary the size and format of the sessions,but make clear whether you are attending a keynote or an open space
Provide, free strong wireless and plenty of places to power up and surf
Do away with heavy brochures - put the whole festival online and provide pocket-sized day guides
Mix up the genres and the audiences - provide combined ticket passes and streams
Involve the locals - use them to recomend great local hotels, restaurants etc
It is okay to have registration away from the main venues
Use the Festival to promote Bristol’s USPs

When it didn't (rock)

Fri, 14 Mar 2008 16:25:53 -0700

With the over use of the word rockstar
(Too) many ‘next big social network’ ideas
Too much queueing for parties
Not getting into Moby session coz the room was too small
Missing the facebook showdown that caused much news coverage
Futurologist session replaced by crap performance artists giving a fake eulogy for Dirk Diggler in a ‘hilarious’ end of Festival jape.

10 Tips For Managing a Creative Environment

Fri, 14 Mar 2008 08:56:12 -0700

Managing a creative environment is tough. Creativity can be an intensely personal, time consuming and elusive process. It is made even tougher (sometimes) by clients, budgets and large teams.

The guys from Adaptive Path interviewed organisations where the creativity has to thrive inside a very defined and time sensitive environment where there has to be a well oiled team dynamic else things will fail - these included theatre, professional kitchens, script writing and orchestras.

From the responses they got they found a lot of commonalities, Adaptive Path have tried to integrate these into their own processes to great success (according to them).

1. Cross-train the entire team.

People should have focus and specialisms, but even a basic grounding in all the discplines will help others respect decisions that are made.

2. Rotate Creative Leadership.

Keep team dynamics fresh by changing the hierarchy project to project.

3. Actively Turn Corners.

Free thinking and brain storming time is, of course, important - but cap the amount of time and move on to the next phase. If new ideas come further down the line, document them but don’t allow them into the project as it may lose momentum and focus.

4. Know Your Roles.

Make sure each team member understands their role and it’s part in the bigger picture. And trust each other to deliver.

5. Practice, Practice, Practice.

Once you find processes that work, use them at every opportunity - stressful situations or working under tight timescales will be easier to deal with.

This doesn’t mean that you can’t change the processes, use R&D projects to try out and practice new process ideas until they are second nature.

6. Make your mission explicit.

Ensure all members of the team know and understand the overriding goals of a project.

7. Kill your darlings.

When selecting which ideas and concepts to run with - check all of them against the criteria they must meet. If one doesn’t meet them, then don’t use it - no matter how much you think it would be fun to do, or groundbreaking, or interesting. Save it for ‘phase 2’ or another project.

Be sure that your review process is systemic and respectful.

8. Leadership is a service.

Represent the team. Listen before you talk.

9. Try to generate projects around group interests.

Tricky to do all of the time, but if the team has a vested interest a successful outcome is more likely.

10. Remember the audience.

Always ask yourself ‘are we doing this for us or the client or because the audience needs it?’

They tagged on an eleventh too:

11. Celebrate Failure.

It’s okay. It’s inevitable in the creative process. Learn and move on.

You can’t move forward if you don’t take risks, so embrace the fact that they might fail. It’s no one in particulars fault. So don’t try and place blame.

Growing Pains

Fri, 14 Mar 2008 06:53:04 -0700

I decided to take a look today at a series of business related ‘core conversations’ (a format where 4/5 different panel talks/debates take place in a large room, a bit like “Open Space”). Subjects included “Growing Pains”, ”Start-up Management”, to “Keeping your team motivated, productive and happy and “When to Sell Up”.

So many choices…

Core Conversation - “Growing pains - Your Web Company’s Getting Big” As your web company has grown, do you have a bunch of headaches you never imagined? Let’s talk about problems and find some solutions.

I thought that I could probably contribute more to this one than any of the others and it’s also a topic that I really want Bristol Media to focus on this year as it seems to be one of the subjects that keeps cropping up again and again from speaking to a lot the other Bristol digital agencies.

Two guys chaired the discussion, Allen Mandelsohn who runs a biggish digital design agency called Plank Design http://www.plankdesign.com/en/ and C. Eric Smith who was founder of a rapid growth software house called UnWired Nation.

About 100 of us had gathered around the table, the majority business owners with between 10 – 100 staff so the context of the main conversation was based around ‘you’ as the founding entrepreneur wanting to take your business to the next level and the challenges that you were likely to face!

Here are the edited highlights:

Recruitment – No.1 headache for all businesses – especially in the digital space. You’re growing which mean the teams going to get bigger.

Finding really good people is hard and you’ll probably get it wrong – lots. But when ‘rockstars’ (explanation below) do walk through the door for interview – make sure you hire them. Pay over the odds if they’re really good, it’s better they’re within your company than have them go to your competitors for just £5k more!

Rockstars – definition: the guys you employ that will make your business famous! Designers, developers, producers – whoever. Keep them happy, look after them but don’t let them rule the roost.

Recruiting Managers and Senior Peopel - you probably wont find another ‘you’ – so stop looking! In other words someone who lives, breaths and sleeps the business in the same way you do. Don’t be too disheartened if you can’t find your clone – as they’d be running a business – not working for one! And besides two entrepreneurs with similar characteristics working within the same business will usually end in tears. It’s your vision, you started it and are driving it so find ‘managers’ and senior staff who compliment your skills and can help turn your vision into reality.

Recruit people that are better than you - A start up entrepreneurs aim should be to make him/herself redundant! Controversial – but you have to put the ego to one side and realise that if your ‘baby’ is going to grow you need to surround yourself with good people. People who probably know more about your sector and have deeper industry knowledge than you do. Don’t be threatened by this, embrace it and feel proud that they want to be part of your vision.

Staff and Share Schemes - You’ve launched, your excited and you want people to be part of it all – a word of warning!

Incentivising staff is important in any business but as you grow it can be problematic and actually end up pissing staff off so plan carefully and don’t rush into anything.

Usually when you start a business you offer shares to the founding members. This is a great way to make them feel part of what they’re growing and to take ownership in moving the business forward.

We’re not Google - structure the equity deals very carefully and always manage expectations from day one about the potential exit value. In otherwords make sure staff know that the chances of them walking away with millions in their back pocket is, probably highly unlikely and they can’t ‘cash them in’ until the company is sold. If your in agency land – even when you do sell, chanses are they’ll probably not (after tax) equate to a life changing amounts. So, they’re in it for the long game and if they’re lucky they might pay off a wedge of their mortgage but probably not buy them that ‘house in the Hamptons’ or (local reference) the 7 bedroom pad in Clifton Village.

Get it right from the start because unpicking it later – hurts. Don’t give it away. Offering shares is easy and is usually a way to compensate not being able to pay market salaries/packages at the beginning. After 4 solid years of 16 hour days and weekends when you’ve worked your socks of to build value you’ll might wish you hadn’t given 10% to the guy that ‘hasn’t really done anything’ other than ‘turn up’.

Also beware that if they’re ‘proper shares’ (not phantom schemes) they come with voting rights and minority shareholders can influence the direction of your company which can be dangerous especially if you want to exit and sell, but Mr.2% doesn’t because he thinks that of he holds out he’ll get more in his back pocket.

5 things (well, lots actually) elite designers should stop saying

Fri, 14 Mar 2008 05:24:34 -0700

Core Conversations - James Reffell, Design Director at Yahoo brought a collection of big printouts of designers he’d taken in his studio looking very “designer-y” and had the audience, about 60 people, come up with stereotype phrases like “I am the designer and I said the design is right” and “well it works fine in safari”. James tapped into his LinkedIn contacts to get contributions from his network to inspire his talk and seed the discussion.

It worked well and reminded me of an old creative director we used to employ… ;o)

The top ‘no-no’ quotes were:

“Trust Me”

“I did the best I could - there’s only so much you do with…”

“Is all of this stuff really necessary? If we could just get rid of {insert name of essential feature} the design would work SO much better.”

“Yeah but…I am a creative”

“Just tell me what you want and I’ll make that.”

Well you never told me it was supposed to look REALLY good!”

“That will never work”

“This project doesn’t have enough budget to do what I need to achieve”

“That maybe the case but the he client’s still wrong”

“This isn’t really a ‘creative environment’ for you to get the best out of me/my team”

“Your database doesn’t work with my design”…..

“We need our own department and room to work in with lots of books”

“But you need to understand my brain works in a different way to yours”

“That’s technical and I don’t really need to understand how it works”

You can see our photos at flickr

Fri, 14 Mar 2008 04:43:55 -0700

You can see our photos at flickr

How to create a great design team

Fri, 14 Mar 2008 03:14:24 -0700

Edited highlights:

How measure success?

Happy clients, designers, great output
Your designers sometimes need to make clients nervous (ask hard questions, push them our of their comfort zone)
How often and early clients WANT to bring your team in to discuss ideas, rather then just sending your team a completed brief

Desired skill set?

People who “go all the way” and do what’s necessary, as opposed to just strictly what’s in their job description
People who can handle business and client constraints – but don’t let that stop them
People who can accept feature cutting and changes

How manage to “create” kick ass designers

Direct mentorship and coaching (don’t get too far from them that you can’t give real,honest and regular feedback)
Their not gentle little flowers - so don’t treat them like one!
Design reviews at the end of each projects – highs and lows, strength and weaknesses
Build a community- share best practices, makes sure teams work together
Avoid big personalities taking over or ruling the roost, it;s not healthy

How deal with competing priorities of being tactical and strategic?

Must allocate part of your team to thinking ahead
One strategy is to put junior people on “production team” that deals with fast, less strategic projects that are still learning opportunities
Outsource

How communicate success & value of team to rest of company?

Bottoms up- “google tech talks”, toilet ads, build user-focused culture
Top down- project reviews, feed juniors good questions to ask
Need inspirational leaders
Get client feedback

What behaviors to avoid?

Telling people we “own” the design
Whining/ complaining about other internal teams or the client not understanding
Empire builders, egos and emotions – thesed aren’t natural ‘designer’ characteristics

How attract & keep top talent?

First make sure you hire top designers AND employees, don’t go for second best
Identifying who you want is 50-60% of it
Learn to sell, understand what motivates someone and offer it
Share the glory- big/ good projects
Build a team from great junior people (hire from universities)
Get really good at interviewing- build a great interview team that is well trained at identifying the characteristics you’re looking for (and not looking for) & recruiting
Check references- people are usually quite honest about strengths and weaknesses
Know the behavioral skills you’re after and the one’s you’re not!
Look for passion, intellect and relationship management skills – they’re all important for a kick-ass team!

Games a more effective way to learn stuff

Thu, 13 Mar 2008 06:06:03 -0700

There are currently 30 companies in the UK working in Serious Game development. What are serious games and why should you be using them?

Digital 2.0 is a serious games consultancy. They don’t have in house developers however, they work with the client and manage the project. They support developers by providing the people needed by small developer companies. Digital 2.0 present Serious Games as ‘not for entertainment purposes’, a distinction which I think will be very problematic in enthusing users to play the games. For Digital 2.0, Game-Based Learning, Experiential Learning (role playing), traditional education and E-learning are all brought together in Serious Games. These are played online and run on a lower band width hence the graphics aren’t as fancy as is usual with console games.

Examples of games made by Digital 2.0.

Marketing game ‘The Process Game’

MRSA Prevention - a game to help prevent hospital super-bug.

Oil and Gas - learning the evacuation drill for oil rigs.

Team building game for young people.

Maverick TV have another approach which does consider serious games to be based on entertainment and a revenue model. These are sponsored games which are add-ons to establshed TV formats eg How to Look Good Naked. The TV show format allows for only one audience apricipant for each of teh eight shows. with 10,000 women applying to atke part, Maverick saw an opportunity to include a wider audience by creating an online ‘serious game.’ They believe the game would stand alone without the TV show as they also see it as a commercial outlet. The game has an avatar system and it also makes fashion recommendations with selected brand sponsors ie clothes retailers. This game is commissioned by Channel 4.

“TV can’t exist in isolation anymore, it’s about going out and finding your audience”.

Podcasting as a platform for Serious Games or Informal Learning.

The NTI in Birmingham uses podcasts in serious gaming which they call ‘informal learning’, meaning all the styuff around formal learning. Formal learning isn’t too great at getting information into people’s heads. Podcasting is a good part of the informal learning tool kit: person to person communication really works.

Sorry guys, what you’re saying could be interesting but the panel presentation is verry dull.

How Can Games Be Used For Teaching?

Wed, 12 Mar 2008 16:24:18 -0700

A panel of games designers and academics this morning discuss using ‘serious gaming’ to help people learn. They were referring to ‘video games’ and only mentioned Alternate Reality Games very briefly when one of the makers of World Without Oil asked about it. This showed that there is still very little understanding of ARGs and their potential as a learning tool is still not recognised by the computer games industry.

Having said that, the producers of video games for learning have a lot of useful tips on serious game design:

Aliza Gold http://www.dmc.utexas.edu/ says school isn’t working as well as it could. There’s a 30% drop out rate in the US. how can the engagment that games give be applied to school. abstract ideas without enough context makes it harder to learn - trigonometry is more interesting when you’re building a bridge. College tutors need to be gamers themselves in order to use games as a teaching tool.

Games aren’t so new anymore and we can think about using them for more ‘important’ purposes. What mechanisms are we going to use to make this work? can games teach in the way a good teacher can? not all games are about killing things. ofcourse games can teach, how can this be done?

A teachers role these days is about facilitating learning amongst their students, helping them to ggrow understanding of themselves and the world.

Many serious games are boring, how can they be made more fun? Gold says the mechanics of the game should reflect what the students are going to learn by playing it. you’re learning a process during the game. so the game helps to teach a process. Wikipedia and google can be used as part of the game.

How can an online game be as addictive as say Halo 2 for students? Is just a competive game enough or would it need add ons like itunes for free? The student gamer on the panel says just the fact that its so different would make kids want to try it. Games will give the oppotunity to keep trying and keep learning if you miss certain aspects of the subject or some classes. The game fills in where the teacher doesn’t have time to go back over things with the student. There’s no secret answer how we motivate players. Study of player direction and ramping up of challenges, operating just outside the comfort zone and stretch your skills but sometimes you succeed and the more you succeed the better you get. It’s just beyond your skill but you see how you can get better. Almost winning keeps you going. The problem with larger classrooms is that not everybody learns at the same pace, the only kids that get motivated are a thin slice. Challenge, motivation and direction can be helped by games. Match the level of difficulty with the player.

Aliza Gold on large class sizes and larger online groups of thousands… games have the abiltity to scale. In a massively multi player context the game can be scaled so you interact in small groups, you also get peer mentoring and helping other players out. students can learn from mentoring and they like to do that. how do you know that the students ahve learnt anything? How do we assess the learning? Games assess the players constantly as they play the game. The challenge is to develop assessments of learning through games. The students themsleves might not see the underlying skills they’re learning. They need to be made to see what they’re learning, what they’ve learnt must be fed back to them.

How about budget and time to make these games? Games are very expensive to make eg $1.5 million - so what does it do that a book doesn’t do at much less cost? eg a game for the US Navy called 24 Blue. The job of the game makers is to help them understand where thigns were in teh deck of the ship. can the game replace training? no but it can show you more about what to expect, so the game adds quality to the training. So the money is well spent on such a critical need for good training in life and death sitiuations. What’s the difference between serious games and simulations? Sim City is a game used for teaching, it is a complex system where you learn the processes involved in running a city. As simulation and 3D environments become quicker and easier to make, immersive experiences in simulated worlds will become more and more common for learning all aspects of life.

Engineering happiness

Tue, 11 Mar 2008 22:49:16 -0700

Interactive designers are in the happiness business, designing services and experiences which improve people’s lives.

Today’s keynote is from ARG queen Jane McGonigal. Despite her worry there would be less excitement than previous day’s sessions, she delivered a great talk on how ARGs are helping to define a new type of happiness.

Presenting happiness as the new social capital, she described a near future where wellbeing may be the metric against which we measure all design.

Satisfying work, the experience of being good at something, being part of something and collaborating with people we like, makes people happy. Multi-player games then, are the ultimate happiness creating engines. They are community based, collaborative, come with a clear mission and feedback mechanisms which can make them more rewarding than real life.

How then do we take some of the involved, interactive and collaborative elements of gaming and use them to make real life better?

Signals people are already doing it:

Chore wars - kids earning game points when they do chores.
Seriosity - You want me to read that report/attend that meeting? It will cost you: virtual currency for the workplace.
Citizen logistics - a located game-like way of working, volunteering, finding assistance and having a good time which gives points for making other people’s dreams come true.

Talking through her new research exploring the characteristics of ARGs, she ended with three main points:

We are all in the happiness business, we might just not be fully aware of it yet.
Game designers have a head start because they are used to optimizing experiences.
ARGs are important because they signal a desire in all of us to redesign reality for a better quality of life.

Phizzpop - a digital design showdown

Tue, 11 Mar 2008 16:16:07 -0700

We headed out last night to see the final of Phizzpop - http://phizzpop.visitmix.com/ a digital design challenge that pitches the creative and technical teams of 5 leading digital agencies togther from LA, New York, Austin, Boston, San Francisco and Chicago.

We headed to Maggie Mae’s a huge multi level bar donwtown, to see how each agency would tackle their final 15 minute pitch. It included a team from AKQA so we ordered a beer and pushed our way to the front.

The teams presented their designs and concpets to a panel of 6 judges and a very packed an noisey room. The pitches varied drastically in style and content and some of the poor guys looked totally terrified as they took to the stage and gave a live demonstration of what they’d spent the past 6 months developing.

All agencies were given the same brief - to develop and market a multiplatform system that engaged American voters in the political process, enabling them to debate issues together in realtime and then to develop the functionality that actually allowed them to cast their vote.

It was fascinating seeing the different presentation styles, how each agency had gone about tackling the creative executuion and getting their heads around all the usability issues.

Our favourite, which also turned out to be the overall winner was from an agency called cynergy http://cynergysystems.com. A very sharp and confident user experience chap took to the stage, totally blew away the crowd (and the judges) and presented an fantastic concept that stood head and shoulders above the rest of their fellow competitors. Nice work boys…

Big Market - casual games for girls.

Tue, 11 Mar 2008 14:58:08 -0700

Casual Massively Multiplayer Online gaming is not only a mouthful of words it’s also very, very big business and success is to be measured by the level of engagment experienced by the users and not by large numbers of click throughs.

What constitutes immersiveness with casual MMOs?

Any place where a number of people gather online and there’s some kind of loose game structure and the game itself has shorter ‘compulsion loops’: eg could even be Club Penguin A casual MMO virtual world such as Gaia is built around a community and enagement between the users themselves is very important.

However, virtual worlds where you walk around using an avatar has become incredibly competitive over the last year, its very crowed but there are other opportunities such as Facebook games or Pmog.

Not being 3D has a lot of benefits as it reduces the barrier to entry, you don’t have to download anything. It’s the engagement that matters if these worlds are immersive enough they can be made in html.

Immersive is the right world to focus on, as is engagement eg Puzzle Pirates. Immersion is much deaper than just a tool. 3D experience isn’t everything, the experience and sence of place is important and can be done on html because the experience happens in your mind not in the graphics. Graphics don’t matter, the mind models the situation. Tweens and teens are less graphically sensitive as we get older we demand more graphic details.

Core demographic:

For Gaia on line mid to late teens 15- 20

Mind Candy Moshi Monsters virtual pets 7-12 year olds with secondary of any older age.

Club Penguin 4-7

Habo Hotel tweens teens

Puzzle Pirates is below 13 but officiallly its over 13.

Above 25 is where the most oppotunity for growth is. College kids building their social lives on line, for that age group it becomes more about building their own personal identity that equals a very different type of product for that demographic. Experimenting with identity is tradional for casual MMOs so why be different? Core demo for WoW and Guitar Hero early to mid 20s, taking the demo mainstream and pick up on people who have grown out of Club Penguin.

Moshi Monsters is not as niche as WOW because more mainstream themes will have much bigger user numbers. So things like dancing and pets are a much bigger market even than sci-fi or fantasy.

Successful multiplayer games for females are a very good idea for attracting large user numers. There are many opportunities for girls’ casual MMOs, this is a very big market.

6-10 year olds is a big sector but a tough one to crack. What people are not being served? Having a specific focus is important, bringing needed stuff to a focussed demographic.

Big brand competition -Disney - Tinkerbell, Pirates of the Caribbean online, Barbie online very successful. But it’s unique users that matter and how often they come back. Building on-going engagement is what matters and there is a lot of hope for small start-up companies in this market.

Mind Candy with Moshi monsters creates a rich emotional relationship between audience and their pet and also an educational element - the pet sends you puzzles everyday and the parents and teachers Mindy Candy have spoken to are very keen on this.

How do we make money from this business?

The panel concentrate on virtual goods for sale and subscription, or mixing of the two:

virtual item sales - users expand the kinds of things they can do within the game of gaiaonline.com and what they can do witht heir friends by buying virtual items. Gaia also makes money from trading of virtual goods, virtual cash and evolving items - they start as one thing and turn into something else - Gaia makes a million dollars a month from virtual goods. There’s also a strong opportunity for syndicating virtual goods ie they can be used across different games. Gaia has 5 million users a month.

Subscription rather than micro payements is much more popular with the younger audience because its easier for the child to ask their parent to pay once with their credit card. This is a multi million dollar business and rather than with regular real world retail, web companies can start small and grow rapidly.

Should you charge for all of game play or make game play free and charge only for enhancement elements? Both can work.

Sponsorship:

Gaia - $75K to £200K sponsorships for three months

It’s a fine balance between user engagement and pushing brands too much. try to bring in sponsors who bring in intereesting, cool stuff for the users.

Another idea is having user competition for them to design items themselves.

Tie in how the users engage with the sponsorship, define the success around engagment rather than click throughs and all that.

In next ten years kids who grew up on Habo and Club Penguin will be in the work place. We still make a distinciton between real life and virtual life but as these young people age they won’t have the distinction. They will have the same collector motoivations but they will maintain their lack of distinctions between real and virtual goods to purchase. Teachers giving homework in these worlds is allready happening in Asia and will continue to grow everywhere. Culturally, virtual worlds engagement will grow and grow.

lightspeeddvp.com

freeroplay.biz

conduitlabs.com

moshimonsters.com (Mind Candy)

gaiaonline.com

trackstick - track your location

Tue, 11 Mar 2008 12:53:11 -0700

trackstick - track your location

World's Top ARG Producers Sit Around The Table

Tue, 11 Mar 2008 09:29:22 -0700

So yesterday was my best one yet! I sat at a small round table with some of the coolest and most creative people in the gaming world. A step towards turning Alternative Gaming into an industry distinct from the video gaming industry. The business model? Funding from clients and not subscription.

Amongst those attending our cosy chat were Steve Petersof 42 Entertainment (The Beast etc etc!) Jane McGonigal and Dee Cook (World Without Oil), Dan Hon (Perplex City)…and yours truly…Hazel Grian of Licorice (MeiGeist).

The discussion was chaired by ARG producer Tony Walsh (secretlair.com)

http://sched.org/

Mon, 10 Mar 2008 23:54:34 -0700

http://sched.org/:

Genius web calendar app being used for SXSW. This year’s twittr apparently.

postsecret

Mon, 10 Mar 2008 22:51:09 -0700

Post Secret is a simple concept that invites people to share secrets anonymously by snail mail. The results are shared on a blog, and published in books. It’s a great idea, a great project. Part of the discussion around it touched on how free web tools make this possible. This publishing power is amazing, and amazing tools support it. One thought that stayed with me after the event was that this service – and others like it - just doesn’t a revenue model. It’s a labour of love, an art project driven by one committed individual that has spawned a community and a few hundred thousand meaningful events. Things like that don’t need anyone to get paid. The costs are trivial and will only get lower; the people behind such projects (maybe) don’t need to get paid. No-one’s mortgage rides on this. I run a commercial business, so I’m always asking where’s the money; other people’s mortgages really do ride on decisions I make. Post Secrets convinces me that some things really do want to be free.

"Dude, where’s your revenue model?"

Mon, 10 Mar 2008 22:48:43 -0700

“Dude, where’s your revenue model?”

- Phrase of the day