Our concept and prototype for the next level in locative rating systems really caught the attention and I found myself getting excited all over again. Two buttons, one red one green. Or one smiley one sad. Or one tick, one cross. And all you do is rate how you’re feeling at that time in that place. The iPhone fairy then takes over, sends the rating and GPS data to our servers and we create a happy heat map of the world…

In other news, touchscreens have taken over the world. Every shop front worth its salt within a square mile of Oxford Circus now has some form of large, interactive touchscreen wizardry for passing pedestrians. The battle is on for the hearts and minds, fingertips and hard-earned dollar of the casual window shopper. You Tube and 4OD have also teamed up in Carnaby St for a truly widescreen touch-off.

The exciting news is that Thought Den and Joanie Lemercier have been plotting some similar schemes over the last few months and our first prototype will be demoed at the TD offices in the new year. Watch this 3D space…

The festival eases into action this evening with a Moose Safari, and the headline game La Noche de Los Muertes kicks off on Friday. It is already massively over-subscribed and is shaping up to be a spectacular chase across the city.

My other two personal favourite games Rainbow Rain and Sneaks and Blaggers are also fully booked, which is a shame, but I’ll be doing my best to bagsy a spot.

And before signing off I’d like to draw attention to a special little sub-game that will be running throughout the festival. It’s a battle between Bristol’s media agencies to see who is – Bristol’s Biggest Player! The ideas is that agencies get points for playing igfest games and the more they play the more points they get. Given all the press the festival gets, it’s a nice way to shout about the great media talent we have in this city, and encourage the agencies to get out into the streets and play.

If anyone has any thoughts on how we could pimp igfest, please do get in touch. And if you want to volunteer to help run the festival, please get in touch. And if you want to play – get your arse down to Bristol town centre on 11, 12 and 13 of September for some serious frivolous mental fun-ness. Over n out Cap’n.

A common problem facing many of the studio residents is how to pitch their wares to commioners who might not be as technically au fait with the sort of work coming out of the studio. The ethos in the studio is to collaborate, explore and innovate and at times we risk isolating ourselves clients who are looking for more mainstream solutions. The T-Mobile campaign is a great example – swathes of the creative community sneered at the Liverpool St Station dance-off because Flash-mobs were so 5 years ago , but the general public absolutely loved it! And T-Mobile’s Trafalgar Sqr singalong sequel is again doing well on You Tube. So we looked at ways to take a step back from the cutting edge to make our work more accessible, along with what metrics might be relevant to demonstrate the success of our work. For residents like Simon Games and AntiVJ it can be a real challenge representing the success of a project because more often than not they’re dealing with a more profound emotional engagement than a simple page impression. These issues are far from solved but the debate is beginning…

We’ll be presenting the project in all it’s detail to Pervasive Media Ethics group (http://pervasivemediaethics.blogspot.com/) who are then invited to discuss anything and everything. No holds barred!

I’ll then be blogging up the main points later, good and bad!

Many of the clients employing Pervasive Media for promotional campaigns are dependent on its PR success. Enable Interactive’s Alternate Reality Game (ARG) for the Red Cross was hugely effective because of the extensive press coverage achieved with an almost non-existent media spend. The product engaged its audience and was genuinely interesting to the national press; innovation captures the imagination.

So are we likely to see more brands take these sorts of risks? And let’s be honest – the risk must be part of the appeal. As the arteries of the internet continue to be clogged with LOLs and ROFLs , sponsored marketing messages and sleep-walking dogs it is harder and harder to build an authentic and rewarding relationship with an audience. Pervasive Media is the new frontier for engagement – it could be online, offline, on a mobile device, in a busy metropolis or on a deserted hillside, in a dis-used prison or projected onto a building facade. What is unique about this sort of work is they create an atmosphere, they are experiences that transcend the medium and exist as part of day to day life, no longer confined to the screen.

AntiVJ + Créa Composite / Nuit Blanche 08 / BXL from lego_man on Vimeo

And so how do we sell these products, services and pervasive propositions? We need to get people excited about them, we need examples, we need to develop a language that describes pervasive experiences, we need to come together as a community and keep on expanding and exploring, pushing the envelope, dancing on the cutting edge!

That’s the sound of our own trumpets screaming to the heavens as we find ourselves in the industry magazine NMA (New Media Age).

The article is all about the Happy Packages project and covers how Thought Den and Mobile Pie are working together in the Pervasive Media Studio to produce a sexy iPhone application aimed at friends leaving fun trails for each other.

If you’d like to read more about the initial Happy Packages project, take a look at some of our posts.

Small side note, it’s worth mentioning that they managed to spell our name wrong and we’re now ‘Thought Deeds’. Also while we’re at it, it’s a good time to mention the Evening Post’s misspelling of Ben’s (our creative director) surname a few weeks ago. Good morning, Mr Pembleton!

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It’s been hard-core few months, as you might tell from the other blog posts and mediasandbox…a lot of fun, inspiring, challenging, and more than anything this project has opened hundreds of doors for everyone involved. A realisation dawned this week that we really are operating at the forefront of the pervasive media industry…things break, people don’t understand, it’s new NEW stuff!

Our stand looked beautiful, as did Tom’s face beaming out from the 42″ plasma screen. People milled around, took the Happy Packages GPS demo for a test drive, asked us what on earth we were talking about and nodded knowingly when we explained the difficulties working with pervasive convergence in multi-platform content distribution systems.

At around 3 or 4 it was time to deliver the 6 minute presentation and face the judging panel, who were:

Sam Ingleby – Digital Communications Programme Manager, Intellect UK
Dan Sutch – Researcher, Futurelab
Paul Appleby, Series Producer, BBC NHU

It was all over in a matter of seconds (360 I suppose) and as the beads of sweat poured down my face my mouth moved of its own accord, parrying everything the judges could throw out – It’s a niche product, a playful campaign machine, a response to the enthusiasm shown by modern consumers to engage with their brands…And as it turned out, the cold hearted commercial hard-sell was what done it for us! After a painful few hours wishing the other Media Sandbox participants the best of luck, the announcement was made.

Happy Packages lives on! After an awkward group hug (and some slick high-fives) up on stage the party was on full swing. It wasn’t long until we headed to Start The Bus for more, and while I didn’t manage to get the barmaid’s number (no appreciation for Pervasive Technology it seems) it was night to remember: Champagne, food, friendly back slaps and promises to take over the world. Watch this space.

The Situation

People who are constantly bombarded with repeated Bluetooth requests every time they walk past Co-op’s Bluetooth gopping device are slowly or possibly very quickly going to get annoyed with the vibration in the pocket requiring their attention. It’s just bad etiquette to interrupt someone with something un-expected and then probably ask them again the next day. So if during their personal time, while a client is choosing a sandwich, they’re re-asked to about downloading something, are we providing them with some very simple and mostly detrimental choices, get it, ignore it or turn their Bluetooth off.

Either option is going to be painful to the project, because as the Pervasive group mind map diagram shows, certain media should be subtle and intelligent. If someone’s who’s already downloaded the Application is repeatedly prompted to “Accept the incoming transfer” when they were thinking about which sausage roll to buy from Greggs, they’re gunna’ be pissed off and a little more worn with the whole idea.

A Parallel

To re-enforce the idea of fatigue, imagine work experience tea-boy who keeps forgetting how many sugars you take, and each morning will interrupt you anywhere and everywhere to ask. Not only is he tiring you each time, he’s meant to be (within reason) intelligent about the situation so should remember, the same way people will assume a digital device knows what you’ve got already.

The Issues

Unfortunately, the technology surrounding Bluetooth isn’t always going to know who has what without extra programming, so keeps searching for new connections and asking them to download some content. Which presents us with the problem of Digitally Fatiguing our users.

This clearly brings up the wider questions and solutions, is there a situation where Bluetooth Gopping won’t completely ruin a fragile relationship people might have with the technology already? Is the best way to interact with people over Bluetooth using loads of P.R (Pervasive Relations) or maybe if there were certain zones where people walked into to get content?

Both Clare and Dick from the Watershed lay down some inspirational speeches, waxing lyrical about the fantastic creative and computing industries currently booming in the west country. Roll on world domination. View the rest of the pics here