Know anyone invited to go to the MIA awards and win something? We do, us! The Pervasive Media Studio, where we’re currently residents, scooped the ‘outstanding contribution to innovation’ award.

The sexy awards night showcases the best in the South West’s talent through a wide spectrum of Media categories.

I found some of the best pieces were, Scayrecrow a dark and twisted animation that scared the cr*p out of me in the screening.

Moose Hunt, which let loose ripples of giggling from all tables as Simon from Simon Games meandered through the New forest with nothing but a moose costume on….

Finally, we were honored to be the guests for the University of the West of England’s table, red-wine included. It’s was very warming to see all their School of Art, Media and Design staff talking so passionately about their job roles. Lots of chatting about how they’re making their MA the best, discussions about maximizing students employability and the direction of their courses. Even better however is how much fun they all are, comments about ‘interesting’ Satin dresses, the 2 course Dean and school photos… What goes on tour, stays on tour.

Let’s see what Thought Den can win on their own next year!

Another week of some truly amazing web & mobile fun. In the previous weeks we’ve really been focussed on future phone payments, but this week Thought Den are breaking into the ‘original online’ world again. So let’s have a look at some of the things we’d love to play with this week…

Interactive Youtube – Ben is clearly a better magician

It’s seems Youtube is taking the next step in video being more than ‘just watchable’. Videos are now supporting a new feature, ‘annotations’ which allow a publisher to add interactive commentary to their work, eg, little hotspots which can link to anything, “click here & goto our site”.

So far it just looks like little gray boxes that slightly get in the way of what you’re watching. But, I’m excited to see what people will start doing with it for fun, also to see if any other vendors will start mucking around with new interactions in their players maybe layered animations? But, to be honest, it’s something we’ve all seen before in the South West and Coull make their money out of it!

The success of the new player will be interesting, I wonder if it’s going to follow the same route as Interactive Story DVDs, anyone remember Final Destination 4? It didn’t really hit the papers with it’s “choose their fate” selectors and gory promises. But I suppose the Youtube audience is a lot younger and open to trying out new things so who knows, it could become a fun way for telling a story.

So here’s a few Viral Campaigns we’d like to run at Thought Den now…

• Anne Summers (not with the Wii this time)
• Lynx
• Dungeons and Dragons, “will you attack the beast (goto video 4) or will you use your sword of many omens (goto video 9)”
• Final Destination 5…

Become a 3GP avatar

Tech-crunch blogged about Beema, who’ve released a new platform (in beta) that allows users to generate 3D speaking avatars with only a phone call.

[youtube]http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=fb1rRm4vTF8[/youtube]

You phone the number, register, pick (more…)

A film that has cropped up recently on the Rubber blog and Connecting Bristol is showing people what it’s really like for us lucky people to be working here in the South West.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hgYwTELj-fs[/youtube]

For us it’s all about having the open spaces, greenery, no tube stations, no shoulder-to-shoulder grinding with suited monkeys and always having really amazing (more…)