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Interesting Technology Item of Interest

Warner Bros puts your face in Facebook Web Series.

The future of interactivity is personalized media

Warner Bros puts your face in Facebook Web series http://t.co/oEFDAhcK

Back in the mid 1990’s my email sig line read (for a while) “Dynamic Media Evangelist’ because I was a serious advocate of interactive media of the lean forward, get involved kind. Well, disappointment after disappointment followed and I realized that, for most people, the act of “watching video” was a lean back, turn off act, not an active one.

So, my subsequent thinking was that the interactive technologies that appealed to me could be also used to create personalized media experiences. For example Arcade Fire teamed up with Google to create the Wilderness Downtown HTML 5 demonstration piece that picked up maps and images from the nominated location of your “downtown”.

Warner Bros and  “Charlie’s Angels” director McG teamed up to bring together elements from the viewer’s Facebook profile:

“The show becomes personal,” McG told Reuters. “Music that the characters are listening to comes from your playlist, pictures on the walls, TV screens and picture frames inside the show are from your profile.”

“Aim High,” which will play at http://www.facebook.com/aimhighseries uses computer programs to access a user’s profile from which to draw material.

For instance, as Nick performs his spy duties in his high school’s hallway, he may pass a poster for a class president candidate and the picture on it is you. Or, the end credits might have photos of your friends when listing Nick’s spy accomplices.

This is another example of the way storytelling is moving out of its traditional structures. Of course these are experimental pieces and it will be a long time before a majority of entertainment is personalized, and some may be creeped out by it, but I like the idea.

2 replies on “Warner Bros puts your face in Facebook Web Series.”

Interesting tech, but using it on a fictional show seems misguided and gimmicky.

If Nick is listening to Metallica it should be because that reveals something about the character. Nick listening to Metallica because I like Metallica is boring, IMO. It’s a neat party trick but ultimately it’s boring and a creative cop out as it doesn’t advance the story nor character development.

If it was a story told from a first person perspective where the viewer is the protagonist then the ‘personal touches’ would make more sense.

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