A Source Of Inspiration

Hello everyone. It’s been a few days since I’ve posted, but back from vacations (and a bit sick) I’m ready for the full 3 days at OFFF Lisbon 2008, live blogging and twittering.

12:00

Loads of people outside (an estimate of around 2000). Collecting their tickets, getting a sun tan and drinking beer. I’ll need to do an errand, but i’ve been told the doors are already opening.

12:30

TheKDU is showcasing their works.

12:40

Just found out that some conferences are being broadcasted at
http://videos.sapo.pt/offf. For those abroad, Sapo is a xtra cool portuguese portal, and i’ve met with some of their team here at the event.

13:10

Dino dos Santos, one of Portugal’s most famous type designers, talking (in English) about the process and themes that inspire him.

18:00

Late lunch and more errands, after watching Eric Natzke (North kingdom cancelled their talk).

Now watching Trafik and their several interactive projects.

19:00 - 22:00

Last but not the least, the all exciting Joshua Davis, with his humorous talk, inviting everyone to get naked. The day wrapped with the work of PsyOp (and a wonderful making-of their latest commercial for Absolut). See ya tomorrow.

Thibault Imbert is a System Engineer at Adobe France, with several years developing in the Flash platform with a personal playground at ByteArray.org, and side projects at WiiFlash or AlivePDF.

Last year, he wrote a book on Actionscript 3, and just when all was set to publish, the whole process went void(0). So what’s a writer to do? Well, of course, in the best spirit of Flash community: let’s opensource-it !

Thibault has now released the full Actionscript book, “Pratique d’ActionScript 3″, in PDF for download. FREE. Not as in beer, but it gets close.
Be a good sport and remind to hit that Paypal button. I donated a cheap 5€, the least i could do considering all the hard work Thibault had. And it’s a fine way to refresh my French skills.

Time for a music post, right before a weekend break.

The Belgian electronic duo David and Stephen Dewaele, aka magnificent Soulwax, premiered their documentary “Part of the Weekend Never Dies” at the Royal Festival Hall yesterday.

They filmed 120 shows with footage of 2manydj’s, Tiga, Justice, So-Me, Peaches, Kitsuné, Klaxons and tons of other artists. Check the trailers

Radio Soulwax - Part of the Weekend never Dies - Are You Filming

and enjoy the weekend.

Who will come and get me? I’m entrapped on the new online game / video for Nokia’s GPS device, the PND 500.

Get a look at it and take the role of Christopher, who tries to sell his kites and gets in trouble while following the plot around a mysterious Black Box.

The interactive experience, from the folks who brought you The Passenger, is quite addictive so pay close attention and dare to solve the mystery. It took me a while (with a bit of help) but i survived to tell the story.

Immersive online narrative, impressive shooting and sound design. A winner.

URL:
http://www.blackboxmystery.com/

Credits:

• Concept and script: Hyper Happen
• Film production: Pioneer Films
• Post production: Met Films
• Online production: Glass

• Host an Event
• Attend an Event
• Watch: Broadcast Information
• Learn: About the Event

What a bummer. I realized that i just missed the shooting of the latest work by FarFar and HobbyFilm here in Portugal, downtown Lisbon.


URL: http://www.get-out-and-play.com/

The first time i saw the video at Adverblog it felt somehow familiar, and as i browsed the website it became clear that the real-life snake game was indeed shot in the always beautiful and sunny Lisbon.

The Get Out and Play website features the full HD frame-by-frame video and a impressive behind the scenes involving 1000 people playing life-size Snake at a popular Lisbon square, Martim Moniz.
The mobile gaming concept is further brought to life with a chance to also play Blocks with real people and highlighting the Nokia N-Gage game service for models N81, N82 and N95.

Now i have no excuse to miss Improv Everywhere’s Portuguese mission, even it isn’t done by some wacky Swedish folks (*).

(*) I wonder if any of them is coming to OFFF ?

Interactive Advertising Bureau released the whitepaper “User-Generated Content and Social Media Advertising Overview” (PDF, 3.4 MB), a hands-on guide to social media, focusing on terminology, practices and standarts.

Interesting Snippet by lynetter

The document intends to clear some of the fears that brands and agencies might have on using this dynamic medium, framing the whole UGC movement and reminding brands that user reviews are just like personal recommendation, one of the most effective forms of advertising.

Source: eMarketeer

Blogs, wikis, UGC and Ad Networks are described, with several examples how to integrate advertising with social media. The myth that Social Networks is kids stuff was also debunked, by showing that “more than half of MySpace users were over 35 years old” and “LinkedIn, reports that its average user is 39 years-old and has an annual income of $139,000″.

With all the buzz surrounding social media, it’s easy for brands to jump into the bandwagon, and try to push their messages instead of engaging into conversations with their audience. Marketing author and blogger Seth Godin brilliantly states it on his latest book “Meatball Sundae”, reminding companies that just because they put money into new media that doesn’t necessarily translate into effective customers. Be ready to fail, experiment, optimize and most important, be ready to listen.

The document is a valuable first time reading for professionals that want to get acquainted with social media. For a 17 page paper, it manages to get a good overview that you can enrich with several web resources , such as Paul Isackson’s recent presentation, or from Fallon planer Aki Spicer:

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This entry was crossposted at Interact Congress Blog.