Mark Iddon - A Multiplatform Monkey

Firstly let me give you a definition of what a Swede is. Actually hold that thought, I’m going to let this one explain itself through the below Youtube videos.

I love how the movie ‘Be Kind Rewind’ which launched this onslaught of sweded movies, has achieved a great level of multiplatform involvement of online users.

So that is the movie that kicked this whole trail of Swede films on Youtube. They even Swede their own movie trailer.

Here is a lesson in How To Swede

And here are some of the best Sweded movies I have found.

Or for the ultimate TRON Swede click here.

Jay Is Games is always my first stop for casual gaming goodness. It’s like gaming crack for those spare 5 mins I try and find at points throughout my day.

I wanted to flag the 5th Casual Gameplay Design Competition open for voting at the moment. Not only are there some fantastic games to play over there, but I’m loving the website itself. Great interface which allows for immediate access to the games without having to launch pop up windows or be taken off to other websites. Top job.

(Direct Link to Competition entries)

Now, get voting. My personal vote goes for Robert Plank.

*UPDATE* It seems I’m not the only one questioning Fred & Shazza. The Museum Of Hoaxes have written about it too: linky

Hello all, sorry for my disgusting lack of updates on this blog. I once again realise that this seems to be somewhat of a trend of mine, in fact I think I will always start my blog posts with an apology of some kind… You know… Just to be on the safe side.

I’m really interested in a collection of Youtube videos by a user called ‘FredSpencerpu’. Now somebody linked me to one of their videos, which then turned out to be on the top ten video viral chart. It’s doing huge numbers and immediately sparked my interest.

At this point it’s worth me saying that I haven’t gotten to the bottom of whether this is a clever, clever piece of comedy Youtube material, or for real. Either way, for me, this is some brilliant online content that I am enjoying by the bucket load.

Somehow I can imagine a comedy drama series coming off of the back of this, but I’m pretty sure I’m wrong.

What do you guys think? Anybody know anymore?

I’ve followed this story for a while now and for once in a LONG time I have found something American genuinely funny

These two Youtube videos have come from Jimmy Kimmels US TV Talk show ‘Jimmy Kimmel Live‘ on the ABC network.

A quick bit of background is that Sarah Silverman in the first video is Jimmy’s girlfriend and also a pretty funny stand up comedian.

This is a pretty big viral success with the second video only being online for a couple of days and already having hit 1 Million hits (on just one of the versions on Youtube). Jimmy Kimmel is a bit of an unknown over here so it will be interesting to see what this does for his profile in the UK & the rest of the world.

So let me introduce to you: I’m Fu**ing Matt Damon & I’m Fu**ing Ben Affleck… Enjoy.

*UPDATE* Looks like Kevin Smith, Seth Rogan and the cast of Zack and Miri Make a Porno wanted to get in on the action. Enjoy.

How great is this?! I’ve always been intrigued to see how music can be expressed in all shapes and forms. Multiplatform music collaboration is something I have kept a keen eye on over the years and as a musician myself I love the idea that via the internet I could one day jam with my brother over 100 miles away without any real latency issues.

That dream is of course pretty much here. Below are a few links that show that the issues that have held collaboration back are being resolved at a rapid pace.

What I really want to know is, how long before I could potentially win the chance to perform with a musical legend from the comfort of my living room, whilst simultaneously broadcast live on TV?! I want to be able to perform live with musicians all over the world for Live Aid 2009!

eJamming - This is collaborative software that lets you jam and record a song with somebody anywhere in the world at the same time. Here is a blurb from Techcrunch:

“…allows musicians located anywhere to get together for jam sessions. Your drummer’s in New York, lead guitar is in India, your bass player is somewhere else, and you’re on keyboard. No problem. eJamming lets you jam anyway. And you can talk to the other musicians via a VOIP feature.”

Riffworks - This a audio recording tool with some great collaboration abilities.

“RiffLink Online Jamming
Record and collaborate with musicians from all over the world using the RiffLink interface integrated into RiffWorks. Any musician can join your session and work with you at the same time on the same song. There’s even a built-in chat client.

Thanks to loop recording, RiffWorks has no latency or distance problems like some other online music collaboration programs. Each RiffWorks layer is instantly streamed to other current users as well as saved on the server for users who wish to contribute later. There’s nothing like it!”

Ninjam - It’s probably best to read this post in regards to what Ninjam is. In a nutshell it is an online real time collaborative music software that has a unique way of dealing with the latency issue.

“Ninjam has come up with a unique solution to circumvent this issue.
Ninjam leverages the problem itself to turn it to its own favor.
By making latency much longer than it really is, NINJAM creates the opportunity to create something that would have appeared otherwise impossible.

The latency in Ninjam is measured in measures, and the Ninjam client records and streams synchronized intervals of music between participants.
Just as the interval finishes recording, it begins playing on everyone else’s client. So when you play through an interval, you’re playing along with the previous interval of everybody else, and they’re playing along with your previous interval.

If this sounds pretty bizarre, it sort of is, until you get used to it, then it becomes pretty natural.”

Myonlineband.com - A collaborative community for making, collaborating and sharing music. This isn’t a realtime jamming platform, but a place to create and collaborate on a track by track basis.

Kompoz - Here is another community where you can upload, share and then collaborate on music you have created.

So GDC 2008 has come to an end in San Francisco (which once again I didn’t attend?!). Not strictly multiplatform news, but hey, it’s good to know what’s up and coming on the gaming front anyway! Having recently integrated a PS3 into my world (alongside the Xbox, DS, PSP and Macbook!!) I’m feeling all kinds of love for using it as a media centre where I’m watching movies, Youtube (it gives me web access dontcha know) and killin’ loud mouthed American kids in games of Warhawk!

With IP TV becoming a powerful force on the horizon, Microsoft getting into bed with British Telecom (in the UK) to deliver IPTV via it’s Xbox 360 and PS3 deploying its Play TV set up; gaming and the hardware used to play these games is going to become an important part of the multiplatform landscape, more important than in the past.

Anyway, here are a couple of great sites with some fantastic coverage of this years GDC.

Eurogamer, as always, has great editorial coverage of GDC with links to photo and video content.

Gametrailers.com also has extensive video coverage of the event including game demos and interviews, worth a look about if you are wanting to get a quick fix of up and coming games.

Things that have impressed me have been some of the technology demos of up and coming gaming engines (see Far Cry 2 below), I’m also excited by Microsofts XNA platform, which without getting too geeky is a new way for users to create games that then become available to play on the Xbox 360 via download. This is great news and could mean there is an easy and cost effective way for people and small development teams to get their games onto a major gaming platform.

There is all sorts of other great stuff, some of which I’ll link to below.

Far Cry 2 has a mind blowing demo of how the game will handle weather effects and even details such as vegetation growth?? Worth a look anyway.

XNA. This is a seemingly boring little interview, but the repercussions from this are going to be great for gaming. Also worth checking out some early games created for this new platform here.

Also you can’t talk about GDC 2008 without mentioning Gears Of War 2. Gears Of War was a massive game released for the Xbox 360 last year, there are rumblings that a movie is in works for this too and the second game in the series is looking to ramp up the narrative aspects of this game beyond guns, killin’, big muscles, more guns and testosterone… Yeah, good luck with that one!

I hate clowns. I really really do. They freak me out to the extent that I spent last night having night terrors after watching the shitty Stephen King movie IT. Now I know I’m not alone in my freakish fear of the red nosed  evil performers, but I’m amazed that there isn’t more of a scary clown presence in the media world. Seriously, where is the Dr Who episode where David Tennant gets attacked by a mental zombie clown?? Or even worse, how about Midget clowns? I shudder at the thought.

So I therefore challenge the multiplatform world…

Bring on the scary clowns.

Those people at Lonelygirl15 and KateModern are very good at product placement aren’t they?!

Their most recent movement has seen them colliding with the movie ‘Jumper’ and bringing in characters that literally Jump into the series. I remember Jamie Bell turning up in KateModern when he was making Hallam Foe, but that was out of character, this is ‘in character’… very cool.

Sites to check out are Watchyourjack (a youtube channel) this seems to be where the story is playing out. There is also information at whatweird.com and also in this forum from LG15. In the below video the character from Watchyourjack mentions ‘Paladins’ which are the baddies in the Movie ‘Jumper’. It’s a cool crossover and a more interesting way to integrate publicity into a narrative form.

Morning all, I just wanted to do a blog post about something that has peaked my interest as it has rolled out across the internet and spilled out into the real world. I’m sure many of you have seen the ‘Anonymous’ video posted on Youtube in which a group calling themselves ‘Anonymous’ put forward their plan to dismantle the Church Of Scientology via calling on the people of the internet to unite and rally against them.

The first video has over 2 million views and has spawned quite a reaction to the ideas set forward. The Youtube video feels like a viral campaign for a movie, which is why I have kept my eye on it, thinking that maybe… just maybe this was all going to be uncovered as some clever marketing campaign. It’s all very multiplatform you see, using Youtube, crossing over onto the television news (as you can see below) and turning into real world events. Even using masks that resemble the film V for Vendetta gives the whole thing a cultish/theatricality to it that I think has sparked people’s imagination and possibly got them interested even if they don’t really have a strong opinion about Scientology at all.

Since the first video there have been 3 more official ones. The second video set up protest on 10^th Feb.

The third video set forth a code of conduct.

The fourth has been a press release trying to explain further what this is all about.

The results have been really interesting, like watching an episode of Kate Modern, with people turning up outside Scientology Churches all over the world all because the internet told them to… Actually if you listen to the voice of anonymous it seems extremely similar to Steven Hawkins. Hmm, interesting.

I’m not doing so well with this whole blog thing am I? I mean, I set out to actually write interesting articles on the great things I’d find on the web and so far I’m posting giant link dumps… Anyway, I’ve tried to add content between the links so that it’s not like I have just cut and pasted my bookmark folder… Honest.

Stage6 · Cult Movie Theater · Videos
WOW!!!! This is to blame for not getting to sleep until 4:00am for the past 3 days. I’m obsessed with these blatantly shit films. Enjoy!

Free family tree - Genealogy
This is basically a free Genealogy website that does what most of the pay sites have been doing for a while. Nice and easy to set up it does what it sets out to do.

We Feel Fine / by Jonathan Harris and Sep Kamvar
Searches internet blogs etc for posts that mention peoples feelings. It then visualizes these ‘feelings’ and you can click and read through these emotions. It’s a bit hippy, but cool at the same time.

Qtrax
Soon to be released website for downloading music legally without DRM (Digital Rights Management). Looks nice and should have a lot of music to choose from. Could this be an itunes beater?! Uses P2P for downloading as well.

Musicovery : interactive webRadio
Another great site for listening to music and find out what other music you may like. Works like Amazons ‘If you like this you may also like’…

Anywhere.FM
I’m not sure how this is legal, but, it seems to be quite brilliant. You can upload your music to this website as a virtual ‘locker’ and then play it from anywhere. You can also listen to other peoples music as a radio station.

QWERTY Warriors
Great game, would probably teach kids to type faster than other methods, but slightly immoral too!

Samorost 1
Still my favourite game ever. Gobsmacking. If The Mighty Boosh ever made a game, this would be it.

Mouse Party
Nice little educational flash experience on the effects of drug taking.

Escape Game [ VISION ]
Another interesting point and click game from the makers of Sphere. Hours of frustrating adventures guaranteed!

WALL-E - Pixar movies new trailer
Damn it this looks fantastic. I predict that I’ll get something in my eye during many moments of this film… <– I am a big girl.

Spherical Images Virtual Tours specialists and experts in Object RotationsThis is a very beautifully made virtual 3D tour website. It all works within the browser so no need for pluggins etc. The quality of the images is fantastic and uses High Dynamic Range images so really stand out. It’s very slick and a joy to use.

Kongregate: Play free games online
Games website, nice. I’m addicted to Jay Is Games, so now I have ANOTHER games site to distract me when I should be doing something else!!

Webware: Cool Web 2.0 apps for everyone
This does what it says on the tin!

Pentrix - Tricks
This must be mastered!!!!! Thanks to my boss for giving me something else to be obsessed by???? Like I don’t already have a problem with shit like this!!

Cloverfield: Third-Person Shooter
An interesting post that mirrors my feeling that Cloverfield is the closest thing to a live action video game I have ever seen. It really felt like I was immersed in a video game due to the familiar tricks used in gaming and the scripted events playing out at regular moments in the film.

Multiplayer Online Games Directory
Another good resource for MMO information.

Second Skin Trailer
Interesting documentary (trailer) about virtual worlds and the lives of people affected by them. Very similar to a BBC documentary within the Wonderland series.

The Agency
Sounds very interesting, definitely one to bookmark for when it is released. I think this could be the game that brings the casual action gamers into the MMO world. Could be a huge hit.

2008 Animated Shorts Oscar Nominees
I remember back in the day when I’d have to buy up video tapes of the animated nominees for the Oscars. It was a military operation to track down and find copies of films I had heard about or got snippets of from the Oscar TV programme… Now Youtube has them!

PMOG | The Passively Multiplayer Online Game
An MMO for your web browser.

Play A Multiplayer Online Game While Surfing The Web: PMOG
Interesting, kind of like Stumbleupon but you can create missions for people to do whilst browsing the internet. Haven’t had a chance to try it out yet

YouTube: (De)Coding Culture Online (2 of 2) & Youtube: (De) Coding Culture Online (1 of 2)
Eleanor Baird from MIT has been looking at the sort of content that is succesful on Youtube.

Organizing Uselessness: Tweetmeme
Damn, I knew this day would come. Someone will actually try to organize Twitter into something coherent. Pah, it will never happen!!

London Evening Standard headline generator
Scarily accurate!

GAME LAUNCH: Conspiracy Asylum
Fundi Games are back at it again with Conspiracy Asylum File Zero. A chance to get in on a game early doors.

BBC NEWS | Technology | Nasa investigates virtual space
Greetings Starfighter!
NASA are going to use virtual 3D games to recruit future Astronauts. It worked for the US army who used a FPS (First Person Shooter) called America’s Army to recruit their future soldiers so why not NASA?