The Lost Experience

The creators of Lost are launching a game that involves:

-- web sites
-- telephone messages
-- billboards
-- email
-- TV

Hmmm... does this concept seem familiar to us? They are leveraging the world that they've created to develop new experiences. This will be interesting to check out! And it's not essentially a marketing tool (though of course, to some effect it is), in that the show creator's are behind it (and not the ABC promotion dept.)

New York Times article
E-Online article

Reading period meeting

A reminder that we will be meeting tomorrow morning at 8:00 in 303 to run through final projects in anticipation of next Thursday.

I'm "illing" a bit (I'm hip with the kids' lingo), so don't know how long I'll last, but I was thinking we could run through from 8 until 10, with everyone doing about a 20 minute presentation (with Kristin leading off!)

Jain out!

04/13 class

It's Donut Day (ie. last class).

Post your donut wishes, else get a plain jane donut in the a.m.

On hand for tomorrow:

1. Fill out teacher evaluation forms (no connection to the donuts, I assure).

2. I'll do a full-semester recap -- I'd like to touch upon some of the themes that we first explored in the first few weeks and restate what our goal/definition of the "Convergence of Media" and the challenges (and opportunities) for creating content that spans across media/distribution.

3. Final Project Presentation Plan discussion (still thinking Tuesday, 4/25 at 5 pm)

MIT Convergence Culture Consortium

I've added the MIT Convergence Culture Consortium blog to our sidebar -- some engaging posts with links/references to projects that tap into some of the issues we've discussed during the semester.

Pulse Point Wish-list

Hot on the heels of our gabfest/noshfest with DC Denison last week, I throw out the question to all of you:

What would you like to see in a Pulse Point if we could set one up on Campus?

What ideas do you have about content?

links for 04/06 class

Some links for customizing blogger templates:

-- Google Groups: Blogger Help Group
-- Blogger for Dummies
-- Blogger Help Pages
-- Paul Stamatiou's How To Make A Blog Header Graphic

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QuickTime Tutorials
We'll be looking at using Text Tracks in QuickTime Pro (to add chapters and URLs)

DIY classcast 04/06

Okay kids, here's your chance to create a "live classcast" experience. Follow these easy steps:

1. Put on some funky ambient music
2. Fade music after 5-10 seconds
3. Say, "This is the Special Topics in Multimedia Classcast for April 6th"
4. Fade up music for short blast then fade way, way down.
5. Say, "It's all about final projects from now on. We'll go through some demonstrations that can help you with your final projects: a look at how you can customize your blog templates and some more things we can do in QuickTime Pro and TextEdit to add chapters and/or URL links to your video files. After that we'll have lab time and I can answer any questions you may have. Remember we should have 'an arm' done by now!"
6. Slowly fade music back up.
7. Say, "We'll see you tomorrow... Jain out!"
8. Fade down music.

03/30 Class -- Field Trip

We're closing out March in high fashion with a Newbury Street field trip for tomorrow's class.

We'll be meeting with the Boston Globe's technology writer DC Denison at Trident Cafe to talk about the Pulse Point project at 9:00 a.m.

Please bring laptops, if you have -- and I'd like someone to sign out the class camera to bring. We'll get the lay of the Pulse Point land from DC and then create some content to post.

We'll wrap up class at 11 to give people time to get back to campus.

In light of the 75% absence rate of last class, I need everyone to confirm attendance by commenting on this post. DC's taking time out of his schedule to meet with us and I've assured him of full attendance!

Update
Clarification -- We will meet at 9 am at the Trident Cafe.

Classcast?

Was the classcast *just* a first half phenomenon?! No ClassCast today kids!

Get your paper walk throughs together for tomorrow's class. We'll also talk about digging into blogger templates to customize your blog. And we'll discuss Pulse Points which will lead us into a field trip next week (March 30th).

Oh -- and if you have laptops, bring them tomorrow please!