Jul
22

Links of the Week: July 22, 2011 Edition

‘Wired’ Magazine Forecasts the Death of the Printed Monthly Comic

Damn decent analysis from Comics Alliance on the evolving debate over printed versus digital comics. CA’s Doug Wolk guest posts for Wired and puts a comprehensive evaluation on all sides of the issue, favoring the coming doom of the $4 monthly printed comic. I’ve been saying this ever since the iPad debuted, but DC Comics‘ recent announcement that all of its future titles will be released digitally the same day as print is a game changer. Moreover, digital comics provider Comixology recently sold Warren Ellis’ entire epic Planetary for a mere $25, a quarter of the price of DC’s Absolute Edition and on par with trade paperback pricing. It’s bold publication decisions like this that will continue to hammer away at the frayed, yellow pages of print comics, badgering the aging black shirted slobs of yore into submission and inviting new audiences to experience these AWESOME comics. Had they thrown in the Planetary specials that weren’t included in the Absolute collections, I may have forked over the cash.

Why Can’t We Preorder Digital Comics?

With more proof that Comics Alliance is becoming my go-to source for coverage on the digital comics debate, David Brothers offers a compelling argument for comics publishers who are trying to figure out to make money off digital offerings in this early stage. While the numbers on digital purchases are not so enticing to comics publishers today, they are trending upward (and will probably explode by the end of the year with DC’s “Great Experiment”). Brothers argues for setting up a preordering program for digital comics similar to how customers can preorder comics from their local comic book store. This could be a good way of tracking trends on digital offerings as well as marketing to the supposed “new audience” DC has cited is circling well outside physical comics stores. I think this isn’t a bad idea but ultimately for this to work, you have to bring the costs down on digital comics. I would pay a year’s subscription for almost any title if you could get each issue under $0.75. What’s more, publishers could also make some serious bank by preordering digital bundles of classic comics stories. I like where the thinking’s going; we just need to keep moving the football down the field.

Warren Ellis at the 2010 Comic Con in San Diego

Warren Ellis. He braingasm you. Image via Wikipedia

 

A Collection Of Rambling On The Subject Of Digital Comics

Warren Ellis, writer extraordinaire and Mad Space Bastard, weighs in on the digital comics debate. A negative tongue from Saint Warren is a likely kiss of death for your product, so Graphic.ly better be paying attention to his UX concerns on their iPad app. Ellis counters comics publishers’ digital strategies with the simple yet elegant solution he devised for his web serial Freakangels: serialize a page a week online then collect finished stories into print editions for on-demand sales. To an extent, he plays to the Old Print Wankers more than those of us at the edge of the digital evolution, which I found odd, but then again, he’s seen the receipts come back on his own digital work.

Anonymous vs. NATO: Get your popcorn ready

So, remember when NATO was all like, “Donchu DARE come all up on mah porch!” and Anonymous was all like, “Bitch, PLEEZ!” and then the internet exploded??? Yeah. This was a topic of great interest at IO Europe a couple weeks ago mainly because no one knew how to deal with it. Purported “cyber-experts” were more in favor of getting their systems completely OFF the internet instead of figuring out creative ways of defending against attacks like LULZsec and responding appropriately. A large part of this fear, I believe, comes from simple inequity in information assurance professionals these days– they don’t know their Googles from their Farmvilles. So ignorant posturing of the kind seen in this article will just antagonize online attack groups like Anonymous. They don’t have to get an operation approved by 10 echelons of command like we do.

New 3D Looney Tunes Announced, Archive Mel Blanc Recordings To Feature

I’ve been fairly disappointed in Warner Bros’ revamped-for-the-21st-century Looney Tunes Show, which has earfucked me with simpering, inane impersonations of the Mel Blanc’s original character voices and insanely horrible musical numbers. So to discover that a creative animation director built new Looney Tunes shorts around archival recordings of Blanc has me giddy as shit. Hopefully, this provides the impetus for more AWESOME GENIUSES like this director to cut up and reinterpret existing Blanc recordings into new takes on his classic characters. I gotta believe the technology is getting close, right?

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Jun
13

Friday from the Cheap Seats at Comic Book Resources: Reposting More DC Comics Relaunch Commentary

Here’s a really thoughtful analysis of DC’s relaunch plans now that all 52 titles and creative teams have been revealed. The 5th thought is particularly well reasoned: I appreciate the fact that this comics journalist is looking outside the bounds of the traditional comics community where DC Entertainment is obviously hunting new readers.

Kudos to Comic Book Resources for the solid, objective analysis.

Friday from the Cheap Seats

June 3, 2011 @ 01:00 PM

So, have we all calmed down a little bit about DC now?

I keep having thoughts and reactions to the whole hullaballoo, and I have jotted a few of them down. Some speculation and spitballing and kibitzing from the sidelines. In no particular order.

First thought:This sounds eerily familiar. Then I realized it was because I pretty much dared them to do it in this column from 2007.

Second thought wasn’t mine, it was from sometime CBR writer Beau Yarborough. But I loved it so much I’m putting it up here: “Now we’ll get to see what Crisis on Infinite Earths would have looked like with the internet.”

Third thought: Can we please not do origins again?


Seriously. Please let’s not.

Fourth thought: All the online chatter is about the books, costume changes, Grant Morrison. Seems like the digital app is the bigger story here, but even USA Today was geeking out over costume changes.

But the digital thing seems like the more important piece. By rolling out digital comics on the same day as print, DC is effectively undercutting the retailer network they depend on. Of course, with piracy and torrenting such a part of online culture, to not put the digital books out the same day as the print versions would invite any guy with a scanner and a willingness to share the goods to undercut the new digital line.

So DC is betting that the hardcore fans are such creatures of habit that it won’t hurt retailers too badly to do simultaneous release of print and digital — at least, not as badly as it would hurt DC themselves in the digital market to give print retailers a day or two of advance sales room. Is that a good gamble? Is DC so sure of the 60,000 Wednesday faithful that this seems like a good move to them? Guess so.

Fifth thought: I’m seeing a truly amazing amount of criticism about “DC abandoning loyal fans.” Stop a minute and let’s break that down.

I’m Diane Nelson, or whoever, a DC/Time-Warner publishing bigwig. Here are the puzzle pieces I have to work with:

* I have control over the intellectual property rights to some of the most recognizable and beloved fictional characters on the planet Earth.

* Despite the first item, my line of publications I have telling stories about those characters is foundering. Sales continue to drop and a significant number of folks out in the public at large don’t even know those publications still exist.

* My cash flow is dependent on roughly 60,000 or so hardcore hobbyists and collectors buying my books from a relatively low number of specialty retailers who order those books three months in advance based on what my distributor tells them I’m going to be doing. I have some other income from bookstores for collections of previously-published material but my day-to-day choices have, of necessity, been largely governed by catering to this specialty market.

* My staff and creative talent, for the most part, is drawn from this same narrowly-defined demographic, the hobbyist pool. They are fans-turned-pro and this is all they know.

* No matter what I do, that specialty market continues to get smaller. Year after year, long-term, I lose more readers than I gain. I know that I’ve put all my eggs in a steadily-shrinking basket but I had no choice at the time, and now it’s too late.

* Paper and production costs continue to go up. I have tried raising prices but I seem to have hit a ceiling of what people will pay for one of my regular monthly magazines at $2.99. This means that, again, no matter what I do my comics magazines will cease to turn a profit at that $2.99 price, probably within five years. I price my books higher than $2.99 and I lose readers in droves. It’s a no-win.

* Creator rates also are going up, and worse, a rock-star hierarchy has evolved where both myself and my rivals are forced to try to lock up proven talent with expensive “exclusive” contracts. This is more money in overhead that I have to somehow get back by selling stories to the specialty hobbyist market of readers… that is shrinking, that won’t pay more than $2.99 for a comic, that eventually go away no matter what.

* Meanwhile, while I struggle to get someone besides obsessed hobbyists to even read my books, I see movies about my characters and their equivalents from competing publishers make millions of dollars in revenue all over the world. Moreover, I can see from bookstores that there are genre-fiction publication series with continuing characters that have a staggeringly huge readership compared to mine.

If I’m DC I have to be thinking…’While I’m killing myself publishing for hobbyists, these other continuing character genre franchises are making money hand over fist. How do I get a slice of that??’

The San Diego Comic-Con has become a cultural phenomenon. The hunger for the kind of fiction I publish has clearly never been greater. Yet despite this, not to mention a name familiarity with my characters that is planet-wide, somehow I can’t ever seem to shift any of those millions of fantasy-craving readers over to what I actually publish. My entire house of cards is dependent on the steadily-shrinking number of hardcore fans. The last decade of my publication history has been a series of increasingly desperate attempts to keep them hooked on my comics.

All right? That’s what Diane Nelson-slash-DC-bigwig sees when she looks at her balance sheet. You tell me any way she has to try and turn the ship around and bring reader numbers up without abandoning the fan market in favor of opening up new ones. If I’m Diane Nelson I am going to be looking actively for ways to shift my focus away from those fans and try to somehow get my cash flow coming from some other income stream…ideally more than one. But I have to try to do it in such a way that doesn’t completely alienate and piss off those hardcore-fan readers that currently finance my publishing house while I’m trying.

You look at it that way and what comes out?

* A major ‘event story,’ something the fans seem to want every year, but this one is designed to wrap up the specialty-style of telling stories and replace it with a line of accessible comics for the general public. Letting the fans down easy, in a way that invites them along for the next phase.

* A new way of delivering those new, replacement comics to a mass audience.

Is digital the best option for this new delivery system? Probably not — I think successful digital comics will be formatted differently than print ones, so just selling print scans is probably not the best way to do it. (Imagine trying to read something like JSA All-Stars with its color-coded captions and scratchy art on an iPhone.) But on the other hand, it’s insane to start a new line of digital-only books with no ties to the print ones, it would be a whole second publishing operation. If I’m DC, I’m thinking it’s best to somehow repurpose my print line for digital distribution.

In other words, DC is trying desperately for mass distribution of some kind. I imagine the reasoning is that someone’s going to crack the digital market and why not them? Digital may not be the best choice overall but it seems like it’s the only one left to reach a mass audience.

So really, what should DC do differently? I may quibble with the execution or the personnel involved but the plan seems sound. Print distribution options and publishing overhead are such that this plan is the only choice left, really.

Therefore, if it’s a new market they are going after and not crabby old guys like me, DC needs a new line of stuff to offer them.

I want to aim my culturally-well-known characters at a mass audience. Do I do a new chapter in the old story or do I just start fresh? What choice USUALLY works with a young audience?

Think about it. In practical terms DC has the resources to publish one line of superhero comics. (Remember, looking at the record, we have many, many examples of failed attempts to publish multiple lines…. starting with the New Universe on up to Minx and Marvel’s Ultimate line.) Who would you go after? The “loyal fans”? Or all those other potential readers out there? I don’t see any way where the fans don’t take a back seat to a general readership.

Oh, yeah… which reminds me…this is how it works in virtually every other form of popular fiction. Only in superhero comics do we have things the other way around, where hardcore fans are the majority of consumers. Generally, in popular fiction, you toss a couple of bones to your fans when you reboot, but it’s the general audience you go after hard.

Is anyone going to tell me these genre series reboots would have done better at the box office by dismissing the general audience and writing strictly for the hardcore fans instead?

And honestly, if we still want DC and Marvel superhero comics ten years from now, I think it’s going to have to switch back to general-audience-first for the approach to creating those comics as well. Sorry, loyal fans, but those are the hard facts. We need the mass audience if we want the books to stay alive.

Sixth thought: The last time DC tried this was in 1985 and 1986, the early “post-Crisis” years if you like. Those were amazing times for DC. The whole line seemed energized with possibility.


To all those complaining that this is just the 1980s all over again, I reply: FINE WITH ME.

It wasn’t just Crisis on Infinite Earths itself. It was the corollary that now it was permissible to try new things at DC with the old characters. Yeah, sure, for continuity-minded fans it was a nightmare to try and figure out what ‘counted’ and what didn’t, it often seemed like the different editors weren’t ever checking with one another, it was a mess if you were looking for a consistent history of the DC universe.

But the vast majority of us didn’t care because we were having a great time. It wasn’t just that DC was suddenly doing things like Dark Knight and Watchmen. It was that we also were getting amazing stuff just on the monthly books. Green Lantern Corps and the new Wally West Flash and Justice League International and Suicide Squad and The Question and…. criminy, I could go on and on. It was a renaissance.

If nothing else, this new initiative looks promising to me simply because of that same vibe, the idea that DC is looking to really take some chances in a good way. There’s an intangible morale-building factor in there for creators who’ve been given permission to genuinely try new stuff without worrying about offending longtime readers. That alone, the “Really! A genuine fresh start!” feeling that goes with doing something like this that you don’t get with just a “One Year Later” or “Brand New Day” or whatever, could lift this effort up considerably. We might see some extraordinary work from creators who we’ve previously dismissed as merely dependable second-tier journeyman writers and artists.

Seventh thought: Props to longtime CSBG commenter T., who predicted that Flashpoint was DC’s way to get back to the “Big 7″ Justice League (or the “real” Justice League as some of us think of them.) Good call there, T.

I’ll see his prediction and raise it by saying that this is going to be DC’s way to walk back everything that is inconvenient after decades of continuity. Probably we’ve also seen the last of movie-unfriendly ideas like the Lois and Clark marriage, and anyone other than Bruce Wayne being Batman, and quite possibly even the multiple Flashes. If you’re going to have yet another Crisis, even if you’re calling it “Flashpoint,” use it to do all your housecleaning.

Eighth Thought: If DC is serious about its digital initiative being the new way to get a general readership, they better get their editorial heads around the idea that this will mean hitting deadlines no matter what late-running prima donna rock star creators they have on the books.

Seriously, digital audiences want their updated content on time. Look at what Brian goes through just to make sure we have fresh content here all the time. A stable of five or six regular writers, a Month of this, a Year of that, all sorts of rotating regular features just to make sure we’ve got new stuff up here every day.

DC better realize that the first time they miss a week with all these hot new titles, they’re in trouble. The days of letting the genius take an extra three months on the fourth chapter of the epic are over.

And one Final Thought: Conceptually, all the new titles announced so far sound very promising.

However– there’s always a “however”–

–I’m not at all sure these particular creators have the chops to pull off another 1986-style DC renaissance.

We are talking about THESE guys, after all. Are they the best choice to usher in a new general-audience-friendly DC renaissance?

Especially looking at the record of the various skeevy arrested-adolescent ultraviolence and misogyny-driven misfires we’ve seen at DC in the last five years. I’m still optimistic, but I’m cautiously optimistic.

I certainly hope that along with titles and delivery systems and formats and character histories, some DC editorial policies are going to change too, or this is going to tank harder and faster than Marvel’s New Universe. Imagine what that late 1980s comics event would have been like with the internet.

Can you imagine a fumble this big today? It would create a comics-internet-snark HOLOCAUST.

All that being said…. I’ll always have a special place in my heart for DC and their stable of characters. I grew up with them. I wish them well. I am hoping for the best.

So after all that back-and-forth it still comes down to, “Let’s wait and see.” I wish it was something more profound than that, but it is what it is. Sometimes that’s all you’ve got.

See you next week.

via goodcomics.comicbookresources.com

 

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Jun
10

Links of the Week: June 10, 2011 Edition

Been a while since I’ve stunk up your linkses. Lots popping in the world of AWESOME. Let’s see what’s up.

Welcome to the Glee Lantern Corps

I hate Glee. I love Green Lantern. Makes for an interesting mix.

10 innovative digital books you should know about

I haven’t audited every one of the digital books Peter Meyers lists here, but there are some fairly AWESOME looking concepts. I really think tablets are the future of transmedia storytelling and that the book experience needs to be redefined for them. There’s an incredible app listed here from the New York Public Library that’s downloadable for the iPad: every photo and article they have from the 1939 World’s Fair, which is an AMAZING experience on the iPad.

U.N. Report Declares Internet Access a Human Right

I don’t think people realize how huge the implications for this are. The U.N. is basically saying a human’s access to the unrestricted information on the Internet is equal to that same human’s right to be free. In the wake of the Arab Spring, this sets up immense shifts in the ubiquity of the global Internet, perhaps even paving the road for the persistent integration of web connectivity to human biology. This is a big moment that will appear on historical timelines decades from now.

ComicsAlliance Recaps The ‘Smallville’ Series Finale

I make no secrets about my loathing of Smallville, a television show that could have presented a thoughtful yet entertaining mainstream exploration of Clark Kent’s pre-Superman life to a wholly new audience. Instead, the show featured cheesy “re-imaginings” of classic Superman comic book stories, horrible dialogue and characters, and outright disrespect of everything that makes Superman special. And yet, it ran for ten fucking years. What insipid assholes actually thought this was a good show??? In any case, Smallville’s series finale retained the degree of silly ridiculosity established in the 10 years prior with everything from killer planets to Tom Welling never actually putting on the Superman suit. Chris Sims and David Uzumeri at Comics Alliance continue their horrified deconstruction of this television travesty in the wit-filled mockfest that any Smallville review deserves. Definitely one for laughs.

There’s Something Happening Here…

Futurist Venessa Miemis tipped me off to this dark, dark vision of the future, where the optimism of our modern social and technological advances is crushed by the realities of today’s economic and political downfalls. Dave Pollard, writer of the blog How to Save the World, presents an extremely well-researched and sourced assessment of the current state of the world and how he thinks we are all on an inevitable downslide into hopelessness and decay. Pollard notes several observations of evidence for this assessment that make a lot of sense despite my own personal hopes for a better world in the future. It’s a frightening punch to the gut that everyone should check out and comment on. This is our world we’re trying to save here, people.

Bleeding Cool’s Coverage of DC Comics’ Relaunch Announcements

Last week, I wrote about DC Comics’ ballsy move of relaunching its entire line of comics with new #1 issues and publishing them digitally on the same day they see print. This week, DC has slowly rolled out announcements of new creative teams and directions for their 52 new titles in September. The content is not as impressive as originally thought. Initially, this was presented as an opportunity to recast its universe into a more modern, future-looking and diverse playground for new audiences to discover. Unfortunately, the selection of creative teams for some of these titles is backward-looking, in my opinion. The Batman titles, for example, feature the exact same creative teams as they do now, just mixed up a little bit. They also include two titles written by artists who have since been unable to get their books out on time. I’m not sure how revolutionary this is going to be for modern audiences.

DC's rebooted TEEN TITANS #1 by Scott Lobdell and Brett Booth.

There are some positive indications, however. DC is taking this opportunity to indeed ratchet up the diversity factor in their books. We’re seeing more women, more heroes of color, and more international representation amongst team books. It also looks like a design edict has come down the pike from DC Editorial to ensure women’s costumes are much more appropriate for modern audiences, as opposed to the pervert suits we’re all used to. I think these are all positive steps toward modernizing the DCU for maximum appeal to that key young demographic that has proven so elusive to them over the past 20 years. I’m most intrigued by the inclusion of a brand new title featuring Batwing, the Batman of Africa:

 

BATWING #1 by Judd Winick and Ben Oliver.

Although, I would have been much more impressed in DC’s attempts to diversify their lineup had they given an ongoing title to the Muslim Batman of Paris:

 

Nightrunner – the Batman of Paris! He’s a Muslim, y’all!

 

Get clickin’, y’all!

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Jun
01

Digital Comics: DC Shows Everyone Just How Big Their Dick Is

The big news yesterday hit that DC Comics will reboot their entire line of comic books beginning in September: all new #1′s, all new creative teams, all new continuity from which to tell all new stories about their classic characters. In the wake of their currently ongoing Flashpoint event, apparently some kind of event will occur that will reset the DC Universe to 0. Rolling out their big guns to show how serious they are, DC announced the first title in this reboot launch for August 31: The Justice League by writer Geoff Johns and acclaimed artist Jim Lee.

DC's rebooted Justice League. (Image courtesy of Newsarama)

 

 

For comics fans alone, this was a bombshell of an announcement. The hits didn’t stop there though as DC announced that in conjunction with this reboot, everyone one of their new titles would be available digitally same day as print.

That’s right. That noise you just heard was every comics retailer in the country shuttering their doors.

The comics Internet has, of course, exploded into fanboy rampage as the dwindling numbers of comics retailers express their outrage that DC is leaving them in the dust. They’re correct, too. DC isn’t just leaving them behind. They’re bending them over first and giving them a right good evening of buggery.

I’ve written before on the state of digital comics and how upset I am that there isn’t a better selection and a better on-time delivery date for new comics to digital apps. With this announcement, DC is coming down squarely on the side of the future, where people consume their content digitally. Pay attention to that Amazon announcement where books sold on the Kindle outsold print books? Yeah. DC did too.

I dig DC’s decision to jump headfirst into the digital arena. This is a great first step for them, but if they really want to bring the AWESOME, they need to take a couple more key steps to become the reigning giant of digital publishers:

  1. Make digital titles less expensive than print titles.
  2. Sell bundles or collections of stories at discounts, similar to affordable trade paperbacks.
  3. Make an effort to get their entire library in their digital store.

Like a friend of mine said, I want to reread Preacher in all its glory, but I don’t want to pay $2 per issue for the complete digital edition (for a total of $132). It makes no sense. Sell that at a massive discount and I will by the entire series, like I will with other complete series like The Invisibles, Transmetropolitan, and Justice League International. For what it’s worth, I think DC is on the path doing these things; they’re probably just waiting for their competitors’ next moves in the digital arms race.

One thing is clear though: retailers, your day is DONE. No more will parents have to worry about what their children are being exposed to in shifty, dank stores run by unkempt and unclean comics fanboys. Those retailers that survive will be the ones who innovatively design their store experience, as James Sime has done for Isotope.

As for the rest of you, I will not miss your terribleness one iota.

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May
25

Station Ident: I Got To Freak, I Got To Flow

Apologies to all you good people for the lack of substantial new content lately. Work at @Du4.llc has taken off in the past couple months, and a smattering of other esoteria has also begun vying for my time. Instead of whining about it though, I figured I’d post a quick update on what’s new in AWESOME-Land.

Depending on how the summer shapes up, there may very well may be some professional work changes to report. Despite my love of the freedom of independent consulting, Sean Connery said it best: “Never say never again.”

This is Must. Be. AWESOME!!! Dot com.

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Mar
23

The SXSW Experience

I tried to document as many of my ongoing thoughts as I could over on my Posterous feed during SXSW, but I thought I’d take some time to try and make some coherent sense of the week-long insanity I put myself through.

Location, Location, Location

There didn’t seem to be any consensus on a single new technology or app that debuted or blew up SXSW this year. However, plenty of existing ones brought immense marketing campaigns to Austin, and the majority of those seemed to be location-based services. Gowalla, in my opinion, severely dropped the ball by not preparing local Austin businesses for the influx of SXSW geeks galvanized by the Gowalla passport scavenger hunt. Foursquare, on the other hand, ruled the day by deploying 2000 virtual “Golden Tickets” into specific checkin spots in Austin that unlocked free tickets to their Big Boi headliner show. So many more location-based companies littered the landfalls in Austin as well, each with some zany promotional campaign to get people to download and use their app.

David Armano's Allhat3 at Guero's.

For my money, Foursquare was the clear popularity winner here. Their partnership with Pepsi – where they created an actual competitive foursquare court near the Austin Convention Center – culminated with an AWESOME party at the Seaholm Power Plant, where all sorts of people got to chill with Dennis Crowley and his Foursquare army to the tunes of Locksley, The Sounds, and Big Boi.

App Discovery of SXSW: Roqbot

Roqbot is an app-based service that allows you to take control of online-enabled jukeboxes in bars, clubs, restaurants, and other locations featuring these types of music services. Once you download the app, you develop a DJ profile of your favorite music and check into whatever location you happen upon that has one of these net-enabled jukeboxes. From there, you’re able to control the music playlist emanating from the box. Don’t like Lady Gaga? Spend a couple Roqbot credits to put some Oasis on higher in the music queue. You also earn free credits to play by unlocking various checkin rewards or you can just connect Roqbot to a Paypal account and buy songs directly. It’s SUCH a great a control solution for jukeboxes in places. I can’t wait till they expand their services into the DC/NOVA region.

DC Represents

I was caught off-guard by the massive DC presence at SXSW. From government rockstars like Amanda Eamich from USDA to nonprofit supercolliders like Tammy Gordon of AARP, DC’s varied social media community descended on Austin in force. I hung out with Mike Schaffer, Director for Social Media at iostudio the most, and lamented that despite having met and living near DC, we never hang out like we did at SXSW. I’m making a pledge to change that behavior on my part now that I’m home, and I want to invite any and all DC/NOVA peeps to call me on any antisocial leanings I may display from this point forward.

Margie and Dave Newman, masterminds of the DC Flacks Meetup group, created an on-the-fly “DCxSW” Twitter handle and hash for all of us while in Austin. They also organized an impromptu meetup of these DCists at the Driskill Hotel one night where I had the best networking conversations of the week. I met a lot of folks i only knew through Twitter here, and I am super-excited to build upon those relationships in the future.

So here’s a big public shout-out to all my DCxSW peeps: Margie, Dave, Schaffer, Gabe Hilado, Amandare!, Alejandra Owens, Peter Corbett, Tammy Gordon, Tammy Portnoy, Lisa Byrne, Patti Shea, and all the rest of you AWESOME DC peeps. It was also great meeting a bunch of non-DC folks like Jeff Esposito, Teresa Cantwell, and old friends Anne Weiskopf and Tonia Reis (formerly of TWTRCON fame, now The Realtime Report

"You may all go to hell, and I will go to Texas." --Davy Crockett

).

Walking in Your Footsteps

Much of the research I performed in prep for this massive undertaking panned out well. I intend to do up a fuller post on the travel hacks I came with on the fly, but the basics came down to comfortable shoes and clothing at all times. I can’t tell you how many times I just had to sit down because my feet hurt so bad from walking around so much. People recommended Converse as the go-to shoes for SXSW, but I have to put in a plug for the much comfier and supportive Merrel’s that I brought.

Panels & Speakers

For the mot part, I found SXSW panels pedantic and freshman. The only ones that piqued my interest and delivered a good conversation were a panel on The Singularity and another with John Hagel III on shaping the future. The Singularity panel brought together experts like Michael Vassar from the Singularity Institute and Natasha Vita-More from Humanity+ for a SUPER-AWESOME discussion about the ethical limits of transhumanism and posthumanity. I’m stll processing a lot of the info from this panel, but be sure to check out the convo archived on the #singularity hashtag. That conversation is still going on, so feel free to jump in and add your thoughts.

Seaholm Power Plant, site of the Foursquare/PepsiMax party.

I missed Seth Priebatsch’s keynote on the gamification of marketing and education, but I heard it was cool. I also missed Christopher Poole, aka moot of 4chan, who gave a keynote on social communities online and how their influence will continue to grow in the future. I heard good things about both of these keynotes but just couldn’y sync schedules to make them

Getting Your Groove On

I was most disappointed by the party situation. I RSVP’d for several parties specifically to hang out with or meet people that were throwing them. Unfortunately, every party is oversold, leading to massive numbers of people often crowding into small clubs, all trying to figure out who’s there that’s important or famous. What’s worse, I got the distinct impression at many of these parties that pre-existing community relationships led to a degree of “cliquey-ness” that isolated a lot of outsiders. This bothered me mainly because a lot of folks like myself stood in these long-ass lines for long periods of time to get into cool parties that only turned out to be fun for the cool kids.

 

Ogilvy Notes, a cool attempt to make visual sense out of all the information overloading SXSW's attendees.

There were literally so many people at many of these parties that you would get interrupted talking to someone of note, and they would never come back to you due to successive interruptions. It’s damned hard to connect with someone in this fashion, and you can damn sure bet I’ll be working on a SXSW Guide to Party Ethics for 2012.

Even worse, most of the Interactive parties featured some of the worst, most annoying DJs on the planet. Note to party organizers of the future: they don’t call Austin the “Live Music Capital of the World” for nothing. If you want to throw a SXSW party next time, do some fucking due diligence and get a couple of inexpensive but AWESOME live acts instead of a bunch of douchy DJ pricks.

Music vs. Interactive

SXSW should really be broken up into two conferences for Music and Interactive because virtually everyone from the Interactive festival popped smoke when the Music festival began. It was SUCH a sea change in personalities too: I joked to a buddy that all the Interactive geeks stayed inside the Convention Center for Interactive where Austin had to shut down streets to accommodate the influx of Music nerds.

What’s funny about the disparity between Music and Interactive attendees (and the lurking Film festival geeks too), is that they could all stand to spend time in each other’s sessions. So much inspiration flowed out of musical performances that I think would have benefited Interactive attendees, particularly the PR and marketing types who were hard-charging the entire time selling and jiving versus soaking up the people’s culture.

 

Emmylou Harris performing solo on the Radio Day Stage.

I’ll do up a separate post later on the musical discoveries I made. Those are stories in and of themselves.

Omni Hotels Continue to Rock

Not only did my lovely friends at Omni Hotels hook me up with a couple free drinks and grab bag of SXSW necessities, I also found that the Omni’s parking situation far outweighed any other in downtown Austin. Where other lots were jacking prices up to $10 and $20 at a time, the Omni kept a moderate $7 a day parking charge for SXSWi. What’s more, you could avoid that charge completely if you returned for your car after midnight, where they opened the garage. GREAT customer service from Omni, especially for people who weren’t even staying at their hotel for SXSW. Thanks again for the stops along the way!

(Pro-tip: The Omni also had the cleanest bathrooms in town. At about midnight when those tacos are kicking in, ain’t nothing better than a spotless and empty bathroom!)

Where Do We Go From Here?

 

The Macallan 15, proud sponsor of SXSW and drunk-asses everywhere.

SXSW was a worthy event, but I’m not sure I can do it all in one sitting again. It was a great time, and I enjoyed it, but had it not been for the people I met there, it could have been a big old bust. I brought back with me a ton of great ideas and content that I have to work with, so I hope to see some heavy return on investment soon. In that vein, keep your eyes peeled for successive posts about different SXSW aspects that I couldn’t fit into this one.

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Feb
24

SXSW: The Adventure Begins

I finally bit the bullet this year and bought a full conference pass to South by Southwest, Austin’s long-AWESOME music, film, and tech festival. Having suffered through years of Twitter and Facebook friends broadcasting the varying degrees of AWESOMEness emanating from one of my favorite towns in Texas, I’m taking the @Du4.llc plunge.

While I do have a few specific goals for my trip, a large part of it remains unplanned. I intend to broadcast my experiences often, and I thought this would be a great opportunity to develop a publication strategy for a single event. Granted, it’s a media-heavy event, so separating out fun content from crappy stuff could be dicey. So here’s a quick breakdown of how you can find the different Du4 media that I’ll be pumping out from AWESOMEville.

Where I’m Gonna Be: Plancast

Here’s a new social stream with which I’m experimenting: Plancast. The idea is similar to a calendar except you organize your plans socially around what your friends are doing. You can also link into several existing tags for types of events, like I’m doing for SXSW. I’ve been invited to and RSVP’d to a staggering number of parties and events at SXSW, so keeping track of everything via my email inbox has just become too tedious and confusing. I’m hoping to use Plancast to organize my plans (duh) for Austin and share them with folks via my Plancast stream so if you do want to link up with me, it’ll be easier to sync schedules.

However, let us all remember the special operator’s maxim: “No plan survives first contact with the enemy…”

Twitter: @Du4

I’ll be broadcasting my hour-to-hour activities at SXSW via Twitter. The #SXSW hashtag will probably be overloaded with people tweeting on it, so follow me for direct updates. I’ll also be retweeting cool content I find on Twitter throughout SXSW. I’d also encourage anyone who’s doing remote listening of the event using tools like TweetDeck, Hootsuite, Radian6, or whatever, please hit me up with any emerging hashtags you see coming out of SXSW so I can find ‘em “on the ground.”

Twitter is also my go-to service for preferred commo. If you need to get ahold me right away, @reply or DM me and I’ll get back to you fast. Even better, if you’re attending SXSW, be sure to hit me up so I can follow you around too!

Locations: Foursquare and Gowalla

I’m a dual geolocation user: Foursquare for the badges, Gowalla for the items. There will be a TON of SXSW specific checkin rewards for 2011, so I’m going to have a ball checking in and sampling all the AWESOME places and things to do during the week. I have both accounts connected to my Twitter stream, so just follow me on Twitter to see where I am and what exclusive badges and achievements I unlock as I roll through Austin. I will probably post some pics and tips for various places too. Where Plancast is a proposed schedule of where I am planning to be, Foursquare and Gowalla will show where I actually end up.

Pro tip: you can click on the link in each checkin tweet I make to bring you to my Foursquare or Gowalla page and see everywhere I’ve been.

Photos: Posterous and Instagram

I’ve been noodling with how to use a Posterous page for a while now. For those who don’t know, Posterous is a dead simple, email-based blogging system. You have a couple simple commands that you set up via your preferred email account, and then you just publish content to your Posterous stream via email or SMS. It works best when you’re on the go and want to share something or capture something quickly form your mobile device and get it online and visible. You’ll also receive every comment on your posts via email and be able to reply back via email.

For SXSW, I’ve developed a brand new Posterous page where I can instantly upload content. I’ve found this is the simplest way to upload HD photos from my iPhone to a website where people can view them without a corresponding account. You just click on that link and BOOM: AWESOME shit direct from Du4. Because I can gin up other content and get it quickly published as well, I may use this Posterous page for snap, on-the-street blogging or “scrapbooking.”

(Aside: I got the idea for said use of Posterous from “vigilante pundit” and comedian Baratunde Thurston, who uses his Posterous as “an internet scratch pad.” I love that description of the service, and you can see from Baratunde’s updates exactly how well such usage of Posterous suits him.)

Baratunde Thurston at ROFLCon II

Baratunde Thurston (image via Wikipedia)

(Aside 2: I’ve also got a Pulsememe stream I’ve been using via Posterous to share stories and other content I view through the Pulse iPad app. Pulse is a cool reader-like app that I use now for ALL of my daily reading; Google Reader is dead to me after playing with this. Pulse connects to a separate Posterous URL where I share any interesting articles, links, and other stuff that comes across my ADD-addled eyes via the Pulse app. I also pull my Links of the Week directly from this Pulsememe stream.)

For those of you on Instagram, you can follow my feed (my username is du4) there for any photos I upload and touch up using Instagram’s color tools. Instagram does not have a web-based version of its users’ streams so you can only view it from your smartphone.

Longer-form Reporting: Must. Be. AWESOME!!! dot com

If SXSW is social media nerd heaven, then I wouldn’t be a crown prince in the nerd host of angels without a blog. So every couple of days, I’ll throw together something more thoughtful than a mere tweet or photo upload can convey here at http://mustbeawesome.com. You can also expect some video blogging, interviews with rad people I meet, and other video clownishness posted here.

Stay Mobile, Stay Flexible, Stay Alive

SXSW is going to be a good opportunity for me to really put the gas pedal down on developing and sharing content online. I may get part way through the experience and realize that I don’t need all the streams I’ve talked about above. I figure this will be a supercool learning experience though. Let me know what you think by leaving a comment here or anywhere on one of the social streams I’ve described above. If there’s something I’m missing, I wanna know about it!

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Feb
22

AWESOME Things To Watch in 2011

After enjoying JWT‘s roundup of radness from their 2011 predictive trendspotting BIZINT department, I inferred a couple of times that they my have missed some things to watch in the coming year. I struggled with whether or not I was going to do a 2011 predictions post of my own (especially with all of the other great [and TERRIBLE] ones out there). As I intimated in the JWT post though, it’s tough to maintain your street cred as an armchair futurist if you don’t make some play calls – good or bad. It’s not like I can go on TV and just fry motherfuckers with my brain like Jamais Cascio:

Image courtesy of orderofchaos.soup.io

Here then is the Must. Be. AWESOME!!! 2011 Predictive Tapdance:

The Elephant in the Room: Islam

For all the loveliness that “hope” and “change” brought us in 2009, 2010 saw a whole lot of retrenching when it came to comprehending and engaging Islam. Look for the debate about what constitutes Islam, Islamism, what various groups of modern Muslims want in today’s world, and popular revolutions in the Middle East to ratchet up. Also keep an eye on what the Muslim Brotherhood does in the wake of Mubarak’s resignation: they will telegraph a lot of the conflict about modern Islam.

More Mashups, More Memes

I don’t care what anybody says: mashups and memes will continue to provide ample entertainment to We People of the Internetz. Look for advertisers to begin capitalizing on meme-trending and mashup-producing. Performance indicators: the next acquisition/website startup from the I Can Has Cheezburger collective AND Wieden & Kennedy after hiring the creator of this AWESOME video–

Cloud Seeding

As gaming continues to seep into the popular consciousness through applications like competitive geolocation (i.e. Foursquare and Gowalla) and passive social gaming (i.e. Farmville), look for more creative approaches to “seeding” the cloud with various types of content. Be it for advertising or grassroots mobilization purposes, effective influence and content promotion campaigns of the future will unfold via a variety of platforms. StickyBits and other QR code scanning apps are good indicators of tactical implementations of a cloud seeding strategy.

Hacktivism Triumphant

If WikiLeaks has taught us anything, masses of anonymous hackers can make or break online footprints. With Anonymous’ mobilization against Amazon and other deniers of service against WikiLeaks, it is apparent that all-out online cyberwar can and will occur at a rate of minutes and hours. Government will continue to play catch-up to the independent entities playing havoc with cybersecurity. DDoS attacks will become typical tools of the trade, and countermeasures against such attacks will demonstrate a new “arms race” in evolving security and attack technology. We will also see cyberwars play out in days between entities if not hours and minutes, the extent of which will run the gamut from mere inconvenience to full-on revolution (there’s a reason why Mubarak shut off the Internet, yo). It is possible that a wild 4channer will crack U.S. cyber defenses in 2011 and perhaps provide a 9/11-like impetus for government to begin getting serious with policy and legislation to operate in the digital age.

Nobody Cares About Public Diplomacy

Barack Obama’s 2009 Cairo speech demonstrated that the U.S. government will continue to centralize public diplomacy initiatives in the White House, leaving State Department assets twisting in the wind as hollow emperors in the field. U.S. legislators will increase the depths to which they could give a shit less in 2011 about PD because PD does not create jobs for Americans. Meanwhile, 20th century institutions of public diplomacy like Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty and the Broadcasting Board of Governors will continue to wither and die in the digital age as on-the-minute social reporting and citizen journalism make them further irrelevant. Funding for PD initiatives will continue to stagnate while implementers will find more creative methods of achieving strategic PD goals, mostly via the private sector tech sector and citizen diplomacy organizations. China and some European countries will continue to lead with non-obvious but concerted national efforts in global influence, the effects of which will remain undiscovered by their targets (i.e., US) for years.

Passive Social Gaming EXPLODES

Related to my concept of “cloud seeding,” 2011 will see an explosion of social games in the vein of Farmville. Already, 2011 has seen Zynga publish a suster game to its masses-tranquilizing hit called Cityville. Transmedia, alternate reality gaming, and other episodic social gaming entities will experiment further with audience acquisition, retention, and profit conversion this year. Advertisers will cash in on these mechanisms en masse, driving ad-tired audiences from game to game and forcing ad strategists to begin thinking in different ways about social advertising. We will also see a continued harmonization of transmedia and ARGs cross-platform, online and offline, for social gaming experiences that will, for example, weave in and out of Facebook, Twitter, iPad and other mobile apps, and in-person performance art. More and more people will join longer term games socially as new genres are introduced on social networks. Performance indicator: keep your eyes peeled on LinkedIn for a business-based social game that trains executives in a number of administrivial and professional functions.

Location-based Services Get Profitable

Also related to “cloud seeding,” location-based app services such as Foursquare and Gowalla will rapidly get profitable this year. While many detractors continue to ridicule the small audience size these services carry, their growth will continue by orders of magnitude in 2011, so much so that advertisers and marketers for brick-and-mortar businesses will pay oodles of dough to access their users. Look for more unique rewards for users who check in to local places and events as well as the beginning of an actual value system based on fictional goods (i.e. Gowalla’s items).

People Begin To Realize All This Social Stuff Really IS Creating Socialism 2.0

Marx said it would take capitalism to run its course and fall out of favor before true socialism could take hold of the world. Macro-philosophers and economists will slowly begin to see that that is happening on a mass scale in 2011. Group buying services like Groupon and Living Social, crowdfunded charity programs, realtime crowdsourced news reporting, and near-realtime media curation will continue to prove that power really is all about the people. Democratization of content and price will, therefore, produce The New Socialism or Socialism 2.0. This will freak out conservatives and create performance indicators on conservative news networks that decry not only a socialist presidency but a socialist economy beginning to develop. Look for influencers that combat these conservative perceptions as the emerging leaders of the Socialist 2.0 movement (which in and of itself will never be referred to as an organized, network movement with a solid objective… it will just happen). Parallel to this, fortunes will begin to change hands as sales for various product areas crash: for example, the comics industry will continue to lose sales in print as consumers demand more digital, interactive content.

We Need a New Narrative

No more Harry Potter. No more Lord of the Rings. No more Star Wars. What’s the next big franchise? 2011 will see experimental repurposing of old ideas into new franchises. My money is on Thor and Captain America to be the starting point for a huge Avengers movie franchise in 2011 and 2012 (with reams of associated multimedia content) while Green Lantern and Transformers: Dark of the Moon tank.

What Do You Think?

Got some predictions of your own? Think I’m off-base about some of these things to watch? Let me know in the comments.

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Feb
21

Back to the AWESOME

I specifically waited for Telltale Games‘ episodic Back to the Future game to come to the iPad. I had heard great things about the PC and Mac desktop experiences, but when the studio announced that they would also adapt this continuation of one of my favorite movies to the iPad, I knew I had to experience that. What I got, unfortunately, was a game port rife with bugs and glitches.

The Story

I do, however, want to emphasize the AWESOME of this game. BTTF: The Game picks up the BTTF mythos where they left off. It’s now 1986, and Marty McFly is worried about Doc’s disappearance after the end of Back to the Future III. The city is selling off the contents of Doc’s lab, much to Marty’s chagrin. All of a sudden, the DeLorean (once thought destroyed) reappears with an audio note from Doc telling Marty that he’s in trouble. What follows is an earnest thematic sequel to the BTTF franchise where you play as Marty trying to discover where Doc has disappeared to and how to rescue him.

One of the things that I love about Back to the Future is the on-the-fly screwiness of everything. Doc and Marty are never adequately prepared for the adventures they get into, so they have to improvise as they go along: using a 2015 hoverboard to sneak up on Biff’s car, rigging a pair of walkie talkies with giant batteries in the Old West, etc. This theme gets pricelessly reflected in BTTF: The Game. Marty – a character that, let’s be honest, is kind of a dumbass when it comes to science – has to cobble his way through the game’s plot, and this leads to really fun gameplay that involves engaging zaniness. It’s no surprise that this game feels like a Back to the Future sequel: Bob Gale, who wrote all three movies, acts as a story consultant to Telltale’s developer crew.

Episode 1 begins with a curious twist on a classic BTTF scene.

You can tell that the Telltale crew are rabid fans of BTTF, from the spot-on use of Alan Silvestri‘s original movie score to A.J. LoCascio’s eerie dead ringer impersonation of Michael J. Fox (complete with a “WHAT THE HELL IS THAT?!” moment in Episode 1). It’s that kind of fan-favorite attention to detail that makes BTTF: The Game such a rich and fun story experience. And before you ask, yes, we do get to the bottom of how all these paradoxes are possible after BTTF3‘s seeming end to everybody’s favorite time machine.

The Tech Specs

All of these positives make it such a shame that the iPad port clunks along. Framerates are choppy and skippy right from the opening menus. Video integration is just as bad: character dialogue often skips like a scratched CD between scene and level changes. What’s worse is the dizzying degree to which some of the character and art rendering doesn’t measure up to the iPad’s HD resolution. Characters’ clothes in particular look jagged around the edges. For a $6.99 app, Telltale could have spent MUCH moe time ensuring a bug-free port from the desktop version of the game.

The DeLorean Time Machine in

Image via Wikipedia

The Value

Is BTTF: The Game worth it? If you are a fan of the Back to the Future franchise, absolutely. The obvious technical limitations of the iPad app are far outweighed by the fun and engaging story. Each episode will be released as a $6.99 app, so you’ll be looking at around $35 for the entire “season.” It’s about $10 less to buy the entire season online for desktop play AND a better gameplay experience, so your mileage may vary. IPad apps for subsequent episodes will be released quite a while after the desktop versions (Episode 2 is out now). I for one have to believe that Telltale will see the mass of criticism over the iPad port for Episode 1 and endeavor to fix many of those problems for its Episode 2 port. I really enjoy the interactivity of the iPad version of the game; it’s much more of an interactive movie than a hardcore shoot-em-up or driving game, so the story is allowed to breathe more.

If you’re not a huge fan of BTTF, I’d wait for the entire series of episodes to be released. It’s possible Telltale will release a “game pack” of the entire season at a discount, either through the iPad app store or online.

Either way, this was a tremendously fun game for me, and I really enjoyed revisiting the BTTF characters. It’s a damn sight more entertaining and cooler than that awful cartoon they did in the ’90s.

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Feb
04

Links of the Week: February 4, 2011 Edition

Happy Febs!

Major paradigm shifts in the history of the wo...

Image via Wikipedia

What Is The Singularity And Will You Live To See It?

This is a great, concise backgrounder from io9 on the concept of The Singularity, something I’ve referred to once or twice in my posthuman posts. This formerly science fiction concept – and now more speculative possibility – involves a point in time where mankind’s technological evolution happens so fast that there will come a point where our comprehension and application of edge knowledge occurs simultaneously. It’s a tough idea to wrap your head around mainly because of the possibilities involved and each person’s perceived ideas of what The Singularity may look like when it happens. What do YOU think The Singularity will look like?

Apple policy may set up a roadblock for digital comics

So continues the latest in the drama of online comics and how creators and publishers make money off them. Dark Horse Comics, which originally planned to debut its own proprietary app for digital comics last month, was derailed by Apple’s policy that all apps in the iTunes store MUST offer payment methods via iTunes in conjunction with any other payment mechanisms said apps features. This ensures Apple gets its cut of digital purchases, which almost kills the profitability of some digitally produced comics.

Interesting

Here’s a great, fun little story from The New Yorker on the real life man behind Dos Equis’ Most Interesting Man in the World. I respond to fun, engaging characters in advertising when they’re part of great stories. Like the Old Spice Guy, The Most Interesting Man in the World is one such AWESOME character. I’ve often thought about writing a League of Extraordinary Gentlemen-type crossover story involving famous, AWESOME ad characters like these. Regardless, this is a great histoire of the man behind the character and well worth the read.

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