photos of the VIP launch and day one are up at http://www.flickr.com/photos/just-b/

day 2 should be up by the end of play today

I, like millions of others, got a vPod for Christmas. I remember, not so very long ago, wondering who on earth would want to watch piccies or moving content on a square little bigger than a postage stamp. Then I got the vPod. Soon I was an evangelical convert. The image is clear and the viewing experience intimate. Unfortunately, there seems to be a dearth of content made specifically for them. I want heaps of engaging episodic stories please… and if I want them I can only imagine there will be many others like me wanting them too.

Two of our speakers are building very similar businesses around exactly this user need and will talk about them at 2.15 on Thursday. Richard is hoping to deliver audio books in episodes, Will is running a portal site called Clickwheel delivering much covetted content to comic book addicts. Comics are quick. They are easy to absorb on the go. Comics are easy. Easy to read and also easy to make. Easy, quick and addictive. He is delivering comic book as podcast – seems like an obvious way to distribute content !! So why aren’t more people doing it? It’s only a matter of time until more people catch on to this and develop ever more sophisticated models based around aggregation and content delivery.

Just thinking how much the mediascape has changed since we started throwing the b.TWEEN bashes. Technology has changed, expectations have changed, business models have changed. The web is pretty much as mainstream as TV: broadband is ubiquitous. Internet advertising has finally jumped the hurdle and become big business, there is at last such a thing as a successful online media company

VCs are actively investing in content and content distribution models. The creative aggregation of disorganised markets has got to be one of the most interesting emerging opportunities. Podcasters themselves are unlikely to make cash from their toils, but the aggregator who can offer and easy to use interface to access them can. I’m looking forward to seeing what Richard and his panel have to say on this..
Whichever way we look at it, the web and the way we interact with it is still in it’s early infancy and creative and business opportunities will carry  on growing apace. The citizen journalist can get to the breaking news quicker than professionals. Commissioning processes will have to change with the changing tide of consumption. Closed gates have swung wide open. If people can’t see something when they want to see it, they will find a way to download it to watch at their leisure, and if it isn’t available legally, they’ll find another way around it. While the older generations may continue to watch programmed, passive TV, the younger generations will drive models forward by insisting on content when and where they want it. Channels are becoming less important, broadcasters are less important, individual platforms and their owners are becoming less important. Audiences have choice and expect control. Broadcasters could, if they wanted to, develop new, more intimate relationships with their viewer, exploring two way conversations rather than one way monologues.

What interesting times we’re living in

One of the things that we are committed to doing is putting b.TWEEN at the intersection between commercial creativity and the experimental creativity happening on the blurred edges of commercial world. After all , most of the companies that this event is aimed at hail more from arts backgroud than a business one. As such, though all things business are doubtlessly crucial if small companies are to stay afloat in an increasingly competitive marketplace, it is creative inspiration that separates our products from those of our competitors. To get your creative juices flowing, we like to add plenty garnish to our bread and butter, and this year some of this inspiration will come to you in the form of a public facing interactive showcase

Two works will take pride of place in this showcase, the first two b.TWEEN commissions
The first of these is b.TWEEN 2 cultures, a collaboration between internationally renowned creative technologists Soda Creative and Chinese media artist Yang Lei. Provoked by fragments of text, b.TWEEN2cultures juxtaposes tagged culturally relevant images from Chinese and UK cultures that suggest shared meaning

You can contribute to the project by uploading images at Flickr.com. If you have photographs relating to Chinese culture then simply add the tag btweenchina, if you have photographs relating to UK culture then tag them with btweenuk. Continue to identify any of these images with additional tags that express their specific meaning to you. Tag your images at Flickr.com to join the conversation and explore the results at b.tween2cultures.net. Get uploading!

The second is by Someth;ng, a talented, emerging and ambitious creative technology collective based in the North of London. They develop innovative concepts that exploit the potential of interactive media; generating new experiences and engaging audiences in unique ways.

Their work, b.TWEEN Timelines is a world first interactive application and will equip each delegate with a smart RFID tag, allowing tracking of movements and interactions between delegates. It will invite ‘temporal bookmarking’ and providing data to create an online visualisation. It will allow delegates to locate other attendees with shared interests and provide a searchable archive of the two-day event. Something have been on a steep learning curve working with this pioneering technology, and have successfully managed to stretch their commission budget through attracting sponsors left right and centre. They will beta test the application at Cybersonica this weekend - can’t wait to see how the visual interface has panned out.
we’ll also be showing a SCAN commission by Igloo: Summerbranch- fab dance technology company that we have known and loved for some time - their work has continuted to push boundaries over the years

Last but definitely not least, two of the cybersonica commissions will feature at the event, Fijuu by Julian Oliver and Steven Pickles and Freq 2 by Squidsoup

Ok, just over a week to go to the b.tween conference. We would really like to get you start submitting comments, themes, questions or asking me (katz) on here, about the conference content. Each session will be very interactive; we will be blogging the event and using chat systems to enable all visitors and interested parties outside to take part.

Any contributions via this blog or diect to me would be welcome.

I was at a BIMA event on Thursday night (”iMode is big in Japan…. will it make it over here?” ). One of the speakers quite rightly pointed out that no one talks about TV in terms of content and technology, we refer to channels and programmes. The average user has no interest in how they access the content of their choice, only that they can access it, and painlessly. No one cares if the mobile website they use is delivered and designed for WAP or iMode, or quite frankly if it appears by magic. They only care that it is easy to get to, easy to use and that the user interface and interaction is enjoyable. The technology is only a means to an end and is only truly successful if it is invisible. Furthermore the user only buys into something when there is a clear jump in ease of use and quality.

Steve Benford will talk about his locative and pervasive work at Mixed Reality Lab. He has collaborated with artists and practitioners for years in projects that explore links between the virtual and the real. They take day-to-day experience of city streets and overlay them with a virtual layer of information, augmenting reality, layering the ordinary with the extraordinary. One of the first pioneering projects to come out of this academic/ practitioner collaboration was the impressive and memorable Can U see Me Now by Blast Theory (www.canyouseemenow.co.uk ), which we are proud to have supported through the first round of Shooting Live Artist funding (www.bbc.co.uk/shootinglive) and was first showcased at one of our earlier events, b.tv 01

Can You See Me Now? is a game that happens simultaneously online and on the streets. Tracked by satellites, Blast Theory’s runners appear as avatars on a map of the host city. Each player has an avatar and the task is to avoid the Blast Theory runners for as long as possible. 20 people can play online at a time, exchanging tactics and sending messages to Blast Theory. An audio stream allows online players to eavesdrop on their pursuers, getting lost, cold, breathless and narrowly avoiding traffic on the city streets.

Their next project, Uncle Roy All Around You, took the original concept one step further by allowing players onto the streets themselves, interfacing with performers and collaborating with online helpers to find Uncle Roy’s office.

Since then, they have been invited to present their work in across the world. Their work combines virtual environments, live interventions, interactivity, and risk to explore and challenge what we perceive our increasing dependence on technology, social implications and political realities.

Though their work cannot be seen entirely as an ARG, there are obvious relationships and lessons to be learned.

Steve will be joined by Adrian Hon is Europe’s foremost Alternate Reality Game ( ARG) designer and the Director of Play at Mind Candy. Simlarly, their best known project Perpex City, involves a cross over between the vitual (dozens of websites with thousands of pages) and the real ( puzzle cards and live events involving hundreds of players, skywriting over Manchester, black helicopters in London). Alternate Reality Games (ARGs) are beginning to explore the web as not just another way of watching content made for other media ( TV programme, films) but as an intergral part of new forms of cross-media entertainment. They intend to infiltrate all sectors of the media offer, including traditional medias TV and radio.

As mobile phones become more sophisticated, new creative entertainment models can evolve that change gamers’ relationships with their city streets. Using SMS, GPS, GPRS a new set of location- based games can evolve.

In other countries, more commercial on street games are being developed. To name just a couple: Mogi is a treasure hunt played on the streets of Tokyo. Using GPS phones, it maps a virtual data layer onto Japan and brings a fresh new way to look at the city. As you move through the city you can check a map on your mobile phone, which shows you where game items are located. You can collect those items by physically travelling to those places at the right times. You can also meet and trade with other players in the real world. BotFighters is a location-based mobile game where user design personalised robot player that battle against other players out on the streets. Users play via SMS on standard GSM phones. Players locate each other with their mobile phones, move physically to get within range and then duel by shooting at each other with SMS. Mobile positioning is used to determine whether the users are close enough to get a good hit.

It was billed as the world’s first and is certainly the most successful location based mobile game so far. It has been launched in Sweden, Finland, Ireland and Russia and is currently generating one million SMSs per week. There’s a website, which is used to build up a community which in turn builds up an ongoing brand loyalty.

For the less trigger happy, the same company have also developed a location based virtual soap opera game, Supafly, where intrigue, gang conflicts and romance are the tools of the trade for becoming a virtual celebrity. The player has an online character, which evolves and develops a unique personality as the game develops. Competition is fierce, and players have to find allies, belong to the right group, and follow the latest fashion trends in order to stay on top. There still appears to be a dearth of these experimental on street games in the UK, though I am sure that there is a real and growing market for them. I can’t help thinking that considering I pay a small fortune for my mobile services, surely the least my provider can do is ensure that the services I want to buy are available!

At our last advisory meeting, we discussed that although the major broadcasters are still an important part in the shifting media landscape, their commissioning funds are essentially limited. Creative companies should explore other routes to get their ideas into production. How does the mobile industry interface with independents for example? An urban myth tells us that the operators are desperate for innovative content and services, so how, if at all, do they work with independent talent to ensure that this content gets to market. And how about the new major players, the ISPs. What is the relationship between them and the small creative player?

I hope that this panel will be chaired by Imran Ali from Wannadoo ( or Orange as they are now)– I expect to be able to confirm him by the end of play today – and that he’ll tell us about some of the interesting work he has been responsible for at Wannadoo R & D.

Adam Gee is responsible for adult (informal) learning/factual interactive initiatives. Recent projects range from Lost Generation (Not Forgotten) to Germ, from Jamie’s School Dinners to Breaking the News. He is also responsible for IDEASFACTORY, a major creative industries talent development initiative from Channel 4 and is a specialist in multiplatform interactive projects around TV. He is a strong advocate of disguised/informal learning and creative blends of on-line/off-line activity. He will talk about Channel 4’s new media strategy and what kind of projects they intend to commission over the coming year.

Jem Stone, lovely man and Executive Commissioner BBCi will be covering how the BBC new media commissioning process works and some of the BBC New Media’s newest attempts to support independents and third party innovation. This will include the Innovation Labs, backstage.bbc.co.uk and the BBC’s API strategy. He’ll provide some tips on cold pitching, how to raise your profile to BBC commissioners and what bbc.co.uk is really looking for.

I am also still trying to track someone form the mobile industries who is willing and able to talk about how the mobile operators interface with independent talent and how they are intending to answer the growing need for innovative mobile content. It occurs that they are all so desperately busy trying to make an effective business model around paying back the phenomenal amount they had to fork out for the 3G license fees.

We feel that interaction between different sectors is important, but that it’s notoriously difficult to lure various industry groups away from their established forums and that the strongest way of moving forward is to focus clearly on the new media industries.

b.TWEEN is therefore designed for a specific core audience; digital media SMEs. Once b.TWEEN defines itself as the digital media event, other sectors that want to build connections with new media will come (e.g. TV producers are starting to realise they need to talk to new media producers and film makers are beginning to realise how powerful new distribution channels can be for profile raising activity).