What was that just moments ago on Twitter? Did one of the characters in Crushing It just respond to an @?

@youngneal's feed has has a little activity over the last couple of days. Tonight, Ink Canada tweeted at him:

It wasn't long before Neal responded.

If you want to follow Crushing It, then follow the Crushing It Twitter list and tune into Twitter during Social Media Week from February first to fifth. If you want to be part of the story, then be sure you know where the @ is on your keyboard.

From All Things Digital:

Omri Marcus has quite a brilliant piece in the Huffington Post about comedy in the digital age:

Some things have not changed so far, so it's safe to assume that they will remain unchanged. The laws of the classic joke, a setup that brings you into the world of the joke and preps you in a certain direction ("I bought some batteries...") and a punch which surprises the listener and in fact lets him understand that the assumption he had made upon hearing the setup was incorrect ("...but they weren't included so I had to buy them again" -- Steven Wright). It worked for Shakespeare, it worked for Chaplin, it worked for Seinfeld--and it will probably continue to work in the future. The fact that it used to be clowns who told "jokes" or "stories," whereas now they're called stand-up comedians and make "observations," hasn't actually changed the basic technique. In the world of new media too, for all the developments it has brought about, there are no new techniques for humor, only a refinement of the old ones.

The topics too are likely to remain unchanged: interpersonal relationships, identity, romantic relations, parents, children, work environment. Obviously, the physical expression of these issues will change according to time and location, but then, too, the new images will pass through the filters of humor as soon as we start developing an emotional relationship with them. If we add the issue of new media into the equation, it becomes clear that in a society that is becoming ever more technologically oriented, humor will also increasingly deal with the mediums themselves. This is especially true when the medium itself becomes much more than a channel of information and turns into a status symbol. When Apple made the platform as meaningful as the content that was being transmitted over it, humor too turned more to the platform. (Link)

From a psychological standpoint, laughter is a social experience. Canned laughter is a testament to this fact. The concept of attaching audience laughter to a joke is as daft as it is effective. For years, the convention that reigned supreme was that in order for an audience to laugh, it had to be told where to laugh, and to be made to feel that it was OK to do so. Humor, as has been stated on the American networks, is like that tree falling in the woods: If no one heard the joke, is it really funny? On the other hand, in recent years, in the transition from classic sitcoms to comedy series such as "30 Rock" and "The Office," there is less and less use of canned laughter. In Generation Y, the consumer implements the social element by forwarding the sketch through his social network, and by doing so, he effectively creates a community of sorts, who are all in on the joke.

Monty Python and Woody Allen base a substantial part of the comedy in their sketches on knowledge shared by both the creators and the audience. Quotes by Freud, Bergman and Plato are a layer of humor that goes by completely unnoticed for people who are not familiar with their writings. As society puts less of an emphasis on the importance of such a single cultural core, we will able to see these influences in comic writing that will be less intellectual. It is important to emphasize that this writing will not be less cultural. The vacuum will be filled by other content, largely commercial or processed. This, by the way, is not necessarily a bad thing. Here is an excellent example from the guys at College Humor who made a parody of Disney's "The Little Mermaid". I'm not sure Hans Christian Anderson would recognize his creation, but hey--it's funny.

The cultural reference is simply different. Here's another example, a parody of the "2 Girls 1 Cup" video, in which Kermit the Frog and Rowlf watch the clip together. The cultural knowledge required here comes from the field of hardcore porn, no less.

You should go read the whole thing because it's an amazing analysis and valuable information for writers, creators and comedians. And there are jokes.

We shot the posts for Barbara's video log this evening. And the first is already up. The amazing fluidity of working in the digital space.

Last Sunday, at the Crushing It story meeting, we realized how hard it was proving to get to Barbara's story -- Barbara being the character I'm writing and who is known on Twitter as barbology. There was really no way on Twitter to get to her subtext.

That night I decided to write her a little video blog that we could post day by day over the week. Dharini Woollcombe -- who I've worked with before and whose work I love -- agreed to play her.

I looked at my week's schedule and saw a gap of about 4 hours Thursday afternoon and evening. That was going to have to be when we'd shoot it.

I'd never met Jennifer Liao before she sent me an email volunteering to work on Crushing It. Every minute I spend with her, I'm more amazed by her skill set, her calm competence and her sly creativity. At our first story meeting, she showed us her new HD flip-style camera. And I'd seen a test web video she'd shot for her character, Neal (@youngneal). So I asked her if she would shoot Barbara's videos with it. She agreed.

Next, a location. Scott Albert's office seemed like it would suit my needs. Not just because it would look right but because Scott seems to know how to just about everything well. Bonus: Scott invited Ben Walsh who's playing Scott's character, David to join us.

What else really? Oh yeah, scripts... the hard part.

Today we shot. We met at Scott's office around 4:30. Wrapped and home by 7:30. Uploaded the first of the videos by 10. I built Barbara a little blog on tumblr and boom! Done.

Conception to distribution in less than five days.

Who loves the web?

That would be me.

Barbara and Laurence are getting married on Friday. They might both be getting cold feet.

Lily’s baby isn’t due till March… unless she made some serious miscalculations.

David is about to get fired, spilled on and dumped.

It’s going to be an interesting week.

Crushing It is a social web comedy in which each character’s twitter feed and blog is written by a different writer. In a daring feat of collaborative story telling, nine writers on two continents will spin the tale live on Twitter daily from February 1st to 5th with most activity around 1 and 6 pm eastern.

Audiences will have lots of opportunities to interact with David, Barbara, Gam3rgurl, Neal, Laurence, Brad, June, Peter and Lily. The audience can @ the characters on Twitter and take part in their conversations. They can influence the plot including how it all ends.

Crushing It is an homage to Gary Vaynerchuk and his book, Crush It! Neal, Gam3rgurl and David are all Gary V fans and are on the web nightly, crushing it and hoping that one day, Gary will follow back.

Follow the story by following the Twitter list @crushingitstory/crushing-it-story, searching the hashtag #cistory or following the aggregation on our soon to live website.

Cool cool stuff continues to develop around Crushing It -- the Social Media Week Story Project:

Graphic designer extraordinaire and good friend Amy Leaman has put together some very fun logos for the project.

The beautiful and talented Dharini Woollcombe has agreed to play Barbara Marks, the character I'm writing. I'm so excited. We're going to shoot her video blogs later this week!

Eli Singer has helped us organize a panel discussion on the Making of Crushing It. It will be held at the Rivoli on Queen Street in Toronto on Thursday February 4th, 2010 from 3:30 to 5:30. The deets should be up on the SMW website shortly. I'll also be making a short presentation about Crushing It at CaseCamp on Tuesday the 2nd -- also at the Rivoli. (Yes, a return engagement at CaseCamp, pray for me.)

The story has developed to include quite a bit of user participation. The characters will ask for advice a number of times through out the week. They'll @you back on Twitter if you @them. But most importantly, we're leaving the ending to one of the major storylines up to the audience. They can advise the characters on what their final choices should be. I can't wait to find out what they decide.

I am so excited about this project. It is an extraordinary example of the social media bringing people together, enabling them to collaborate and hopefully to reach an audience. Of course that's the big hurdle that lies ahead. Can we attract attention in the crowded space of the web? Will people understand how to "read" the story? Will they be able to follow it?

The Social Media Week Story Project continues to come together at an amazing pace. Dean Meyers is in the process of building our site at crushingitstory.com where all of the story components will be aggregated. Our writing team has been working hard building character and story. And producer Cathleen MacDonald has been keep us organized, on schedule and practical.

With just over a week before we go live, one of our most important jobs will be to make sure people know how to “read” the story. The Crushing It! site will be the source of all information and links. We plan a daily blog that will help you keep up with day’s developments. On the site you’ll also find links to our characters wherever they are on the web.

We also have a Facebook fan page. There’s very little on it yet, but it will be another great source of information. Join now to get the latest news about Crushing It! and also to help us spread the word and build an audience.

The plan is to have our characters live and active on Twitter at 1 and 6 pm Eastern daily Feb 1-5 (not all the characters but the ones who have developments to tweet). Search #cistory to follow the action.

You can also follow our characters. Here’s who they are:

David Tetley written by Scott Albert http://twitter.com/BigD4Dave

Laurence written by Illia Svirsky http://twitter.com/about2bhitched

Brad written by Brent Delaney http://twitter.com/soon2b_single

Lily Green written by Adam Higgs http://twitter.com/lottalily

Peter Hollinger written by Lorin Wertheimer http://twitter.com/hollingpete

Neal written by Jennifer Liao http://twitter.com/youngneal/

June Tetley written by Sophie Sampson http://twitter.com/june_h_tetley

Gam3rgurl written by Elize Morgan http://twitter.com/gam3rgurl

Barbara Marks written by Jill Golick http://twitter.com/barbology

Today, a little lesson in the history and geography of the social web via infographics.

Let's start with history:

And now some geography.

First, who's using which social network where:

Now, what social networking tools are being used around the world, which I find pretty interesting. Everyone uploads photos, but look at the difference between blogging (orange) in Canada versus China. Managing a social networking profile (turquoise) is the dominant activity in many countries, but not in Japan or China or South Korea. You can learn quite a lot by studying this graphic.

For bonus marks, a little gender studies:

Wo0t. The Independent Production Fund will be financing web series! The press release contains the great news:

The Board of Directors of the Independent Production Fund (IPF) has approved a new pilot program to fund drama series created for any platform. In recognition of the evolving broadcast environment, the IPF will provide equity financing not only to drama series with a television broadcast licence, but also to scripted drama series that are designed and produced for exploitation on the web.

The IPF is inviting proposals for online drama series at its application deadline of March 31, 2010. Regulations for applicants will be minimal in order to encourage maximum innovation and experimentation. Projects must be webcast on Canadian-owned websites as a “first window” to ensure more Canadian content for Canadian portals. Some of these projects may serve as pilots for traditional television drama, while others may develop their own dedicated online communities and audiences.

Film Nova Scotia is contributing to the new fund and up to two projects originating in that province will be funded.

The projects must be new, original, scripted dramas. The producer or creator must be Canada. The production must be on a Canadian-owned URL, portal or webcasting service.

The IPF’s contribution will be a recoupable investment.

There are two steps to the application process. The first, due March 31st, is a Executive Summary of the web drama including a description of the creative. It shouldn’t be longer than 6 pages. It can be submitted electronically.

A limited number of projects will be invited to participate in a second stage due May 10, 2010 which involves a more detailed production proposal.

Final decisions will be made by mid-June.

The Independent Production Fund has been listening to creators and has stepped in to fill a need. They heard us when we said we can’t finance web-only drama and they came up with a fund. They heard us when we said we don’t have the resources to complete complicated and massive applications like those for OMDC and Telefilm grants and they made the application process simple and straight forward. They heard us when we said we need the money now. June is not that far away.

Thank you Andra. Thank you IPF board. This is going to make a real difference.

I scare myself sometimes. I come up with crazy impossible ideas like a Social Networking Week Story Project with a different writer bringing each character to life and live scenes on Twitter.

Actually, if all I did was come up with the idea, it would be fine. This idea itself isn’t crazy. It’s kind of cool. It calls for performance writing and writing is a performance art done in private.

But I wasn’t content to come up with the idea. I had to try to make it happen.

That’s the crazy part.

That’s how I scare myself.

I’m trying to do it.

I started with the open call for collaborators. I had some people in mind and was hoping they’d volunteer, but I wasn’t above making a call or two. Some great people volunteered including a few unexpected people, some I know and some from beyond my immediate circle who saw something in a blog post or on someone’s Facebook wall.

Writers aren’t enough. You need characters and story for them to inhabit.

Over lunch last week, with Scott, Karen and I talked about the kind of stories that might play out over a week. We thought there should be some kind of a ticking clock in our story to give it momentum. We told each other stories. Stories about Twitter or Facebook and people’s lives. Themes come up. Reconnecting with old friends and old flames. Forgetting that it’s a public space and showing your underwear (metaphorically and figuratively). Connecting with total strangers regularly – casually and but also forming close relationships. Becoming part of a virtual community. After the meal, Karen spilled her coffee on Scott’s smart phone (a Nokia E71 if you must know, which he happens to love). And all over Scott, so he was soaked in coffee and his beloved phone was wet. Karen was horrified and kept apologizing. I recognized an inciting incident when I saw one. (Sorry Karen, your life continues to generate all the best stories.)

I took some of the stories Karen, Scott and I discussed – along with the spilled coffee incident -- and wrote a bible with half a dozen characters and some simple stories for each laid out over 5 days.

I sent that to the people who’d expressed interest in the project and offered them a choice: adopt a character from the bible or come up with your own that plugs into the ones already there in some ways.

Last night, I spent a couple of hours with Adam Higgs, Brent Delaney, Illia Svirsky, Jennifer Laio and Scott Albert. By the time we were done, there was a character for each writer and some broad strokes story for each character.

This is a strange way to write. In television, film, novels, one person writes all the characters. This is more like improv. Actually a combination between puppetry and improv. We’ll all be working from a blueprint which will tell what is going to happen, but it will be up to each writer to manipulate his or her character in the moment. Exciting and scary.

And there’s another thing to remember. All of us at the table last night are screenwriters which means that our stories are built for film. We think visually in scenes. But we’re not going to have the luxury of video (or at least much video) in this telling. The story will be told almost entirely in the first person (although there will be a half dozen or more first persons) and the characters will be telling their stories in the public space that is the web. No objective camera catching secret moments or listening in on private conversations.

But we had a lot of fun and many laughs in the couple of hours we spent together. They had great ideas and I felt like, maybe together, we’re going to pull it off.

Then they left.

And I started thinking about what’s left to do. Everything has to get written up. There are several other writers with other characters who have to be integrated in and brought up to speed. There needs to be branding and more story meetings and schedules. And a website!

The website’s a big one; a central hub to find everything about the story. This is what I wrote about the website in the Crushing It bible:

We’ll put up a site at Crushingitstory.com. It will aggregate the story itself and any mentions of it on blogs, tweets etc. It will also host the schedule of live Twitter scenes.

Website features:

For each character:

• Links to all social networks with profiles, twitter, blogs etc

• A FriendFeed widget that aggregates all that activity

• A writing credit and link to the bio of the writer

• An acting credit (who the profile picture really is)

For each scene on Twitter:

The scene laid out as a conversation including tweets from all the members of the cast and any other people who chimed in, in chronological order so that it can be read like a script or conversation.

A blog:

In which I do a daily recap of the story events of the day with links to everything for those who want to follow the narrative that way.

A credit page:

With info on everyone involved and links to their presence’s on the web

An About page:

With info on the project

A press page:

With links to any blog or conventional press about the project

A Twitter feed:

Capturing any mentions of the project on Twitter

Now I just have to find someone to help me build it. Hello? Anyone out there want to help with that?

Malcolm MacRury sent along a link to this promo for tonight's episode of Cra$h & Burn which he says includes "a rather odd colonoscopy". I'm intrigued. Going to set the PVR now. 10 p.m. Thursdays on Showcase.

The Social Media Week Story Project has a title: Crushing It!

Crushing It! is the comic tale of a group of people whose lives and social networks become intertwined over the course of a week. The story will be collectively told by a group of professional screenwriters and others through social networking tools.

The title, Crushing It! is an homage to Gary Vaynerchuk and his book Crush It! which motivates entrepreneurs to use the social web.

An incredible team of writers are assembling to make this thing a reality along with a group of non-writers who are also contributing. Sophie Sampson, in the UK who penned Mrs Hudson’s twitter feed for 221B, is on board along with Scott Albert of Tights and Fights fame and the soon-to-be-released Job Review With a Vampire. Also Lorin Wertheimer of Speedie Date, Illia Svirsky, Brent Delaney and more. I should have a fuller list of names up soon.

After a lunch with Karen Hill and Scott Albert, I put together a quick bible which outlined a few characters and story lines. That went to everyone who’d volunteered to participate and a few people who hadn’t quite volunteered yet.

Some of them have come back with their own characters and storylines, others have laid claim to characters in the bible and still others will have characters thrust upon them. Tonight a bunch of writers are getting together to do our first Crushing It story meeting.

One of the things I’m grappling with is how much to open source this. Should I make the writers bible available? That’s a spoiler if ever there was one. On the other hand, open source creative is a cool idea. Does anyone have any thoughts on this?

People used to create their own entertainment. After dinner, they’d gather around the piano and sing. They’d make up stories to tell their children. They’d play sports and cards and board games. They’d knit and sew and crochet.

Then along came radio, television and film turning entertainment into a one-way street. Professionals entertained you and you sat back on the sofa with a bowl of chips and paid attention (or fell asleep, as the case may be).

Media that require passivity on the part of the audience aren’t new. Many are great art forms in the hands of great artists. You’re supposed to sit quietly in a theatre, at a concert, while reading a book. The experience of sitting back to be entertained can be wonderfully delicious. There’s nothing quite like gaining access to a rich story world and having its wonders play out for your pleasure.

People want more, at least some people do. I see this very clearly. People want to create and participate. Not everyone, but lots of people. Go to a knitting event. You’ll see hundreds of women buying yarn in order to explore colour and texture and make unique and beautiful things with their own hands. Look at YouTube and all the videos people have made. Look at how many zillions of blogs there are.

Yarn and needles are cheap easy ways to create. Computers and the web give us tools that allow anyone to be a creator/producer/publisher.

TV has dominated North American life for about 50 years. Maybe all this creating and participating is a kind of backlash to media telling people to sit quietly and listen for so many years. Maybe it’s just human nature.

I find the idea of telling stories in a medium that allows me to interact with my audience very exciting, but daunting as hell at the same time.

Yes, I want to know what my audience is thinking and how they’re responding to the story. But the next step after listening to them, is finding a way to invite them into the creative process. That is a scary thought.

Working on a television series you learn how difficult it is to create a story world when a committee is involved. In TV, the committee members include not just the writing team, but also the network, producers and directors. The actors often have something to say as well. It works best if one person has a strong vision and can get everyone else to buy into it. That’s the showrunner’s job; getting the entire team to visualize the same world and built it together.

Only the best and most experienced showrunners do it really well. And they are working with a team of experienced professionals.

Suddenly we have the possibility of audience co-creation. How the hell is that supposed to work? How do you allow an audience hungry to be creative and participatory into the creative process without destroying your end product?

My knee-jerk reaction is to say, you don’t. They can’t. I’m a pro. You’re not. Sit and watch. I’ll tell the story. But then I’m back to the TV experience.

The guys creating Purefold have an interesting model that maybe could work. It certainly takes you a step closer to involving the audience in creation. They are creating a story set in the future. The venture is branded entertainment. Advertisers are paying and their products are part of the story. You can learn more about Purefold in a variety of places around the web.

Their idea for involving audience in creation works like this. They are sharing the research that the writing team are using with the audience through FriendFeed groups. As an audience member, you have access to the same articles, videos and so on that the writers are reading to inform their story telling.

You can participate by commenting and rating articles. The content that most interests the audience will rise to the top and that informs what the writers write.

This is all still theoretical as far as I can tell. There are no Purefold episodes kicking around yet and there doesn’t seem to be a community rating articles yet either. Although I have found a couple of FriendFeed groups with Purefold in the title: Purefold Discussion, Ten Pilot and Directory of Synopses . None of these seem to have much activity in the way of commenting, rating or contributing content.

The Purefold method doesn’t let audiences in on the actual process that goes on in story rooms – the breaking of stories and creation of character – the really fun stuff. But it does allow their choices and interests to inform the direction the story takes, which means its more closely tailored to their interests. If you're in the employ of ad agencies, brands or networks this would probably give them a sense of comfort. It's like advance focus testing.

But in the real world of creating entertainment, will it help create entertaining product? We'll see as Purefold emerges. One thing I can say about this is that when people become fans of projects they are always hungry for more and this gives them more. Plus, the writers are still free to do what they want. They can create their stories however they think they're best created, taking the audiences' whims into account or ignoring them, which I think, is the environment a creator wants to be in.

Another thing it does is give audiences some of the tools that the creators have. Maybe they’ll use it to build onto the story world the creators are making. Maybe they’ll make their own episodes or create characters of their own.

One of the things I like best about the Purefold plan is that they are doing everything under a Creative Commons license which means that you -- no matter who you are -- can take the content they create and build on it, play with it, reshape it, mashup it. You can use it in anyway you choose to fuel your own creative endeavours and not only that, you can profit from doing so. That's very inclusive and foreward thinking.

This is an emerging art form. I find it fascinating.

In my avid pursuit of all things transmedia, I recently came across the site transmediaTracker:

transmediaTracker was created for the purpose of tracking transmedia projects big and small, professional and indie, by fans and insiders alike.

This is a hub not only to expand the conversation about transmedia, but to discuss its effectiveness across platforms, emerging technologies and trends, review implementations of it, and share our opinions.

I left a comment, Roneil Reddy wrote me back and low and behold, I’m now a columnist on transmediaTracker. Read my first post -- on Wicked as a transmedia extension of the Wizard of Oz -- here.

You can follow transmediaTracker on Twitter as well.

Check out Caitlin Burns’ review of 221B, the transmedia extension of the Sherlocke Holmes film. It’s over on The Social Robot.

221B is a groundbreaking, immersive game that should be emulated as an example of social media applications, transmedia narrative and interactive gaming.

The story follows eight related cases that Holmes and Watson must solve using clues found in videos, articles, flash games, virtual searches of rooms, and asks players to deduce the solution to cases that lead directly into the mystery the film. The game offers character introductions and “Easter Eggs,” tidbits from the game that the feature film will reference, validating the fans’ participation in the property. The game’s production design is fantastically executed: its aesthetics are beautiful and engrossing, allowing the player to play the game for hours without a jarring exit from the page. Even the branded mini-games from the sponsors are aesthetically and thematically consistent while still getting their brand’s messages across to the targeted consumer.

The social media rollout of Sherlock Holmes is carefully executed (despite the occasional questionable in-store poster for taquitos) the transmedia program has even managed to integrate Twitter. Mrs. Hudson, Holmes’ housekeeper at 221B Baker Street tweets gossip about the cases as they are released and The Society Spy reports on the more tawdry and scandalous news stories of fictional London Society. When one gets over one’s initial aversion to the idea of Victorian characters on Twitter, the narrative bits that are expanded in the twitter feed seem more and more charming. With the help of yet another sponsor, The Tweetdeck Telegram Co. preserves 221B’s aesthetics and once again, shows how a consistently executed production design can bring an audience member into a fictional world.

Congratulations to Sophie Sampson who penned @mrshudsonsdiary.

Has anyone played 221B? I'd love to hear what you think.

Sid Caesar was one of television's original pioneers, figuring out how to use this then-new medium in creative ways on his 1950s sitcoms Your Show of Shows and Caesar's Hour. The sketch, Beethoven's 5th Argument, is long by today's standards but what an amazing and still-fresh premise. There's a laugh out loud moment shortly after the 4 minute mark. Then stick around for the final payoff.

The Social Media Week Story Project is starting to take shape. A team is forming. Stories and characters are developing. And a plan for pulling the whole thing off is starting to fall into place.

Yesterday, Karen Hill and Scott Albert sat down with me and we had a first go at wrestling this sucker to the ground. I’ve worked with both Karen and Scott before and they are both funny, experienced, reliable writers. The kind of writers I want at my side when I’m biting off more than I can chew. The kind of writers who can save my ass.

We tossed around idea for story and character and talked about our own and our friends’ relationship-in-the-social-web-stories. We also figured out some process.

The plan is for me to begin writing a bible that sketches out the beginning of story and character. We’ll meet again next week with a broader collection of writer and contributors and keep figuring it out step by step.

We’re still looking for people to join the team especially in the following categories:

• Web savvy people to help with technical elements like setting up web sites, RSS feeds and all the aggregation we’ll need to make this easy on the audience
• Designers to create a logo and design the web site
• Community manager/public relations/cheerleaders to help us get the word out
• Actors to lend their faces to characters

There are probably lots of things I haven’t anticipated yet, so if you want to participate, let me know. (email to story2oh (at) gmail etc)

P.S. If you come across anything on the web that looks like it could have relevance to what we're doing -- in terms of story, character, strategy, etc -- please add a link to the Social Media Week Story Project FriendFeed.

It's only the 8th of January. How's your motivation level? Still on track with those resolutions?

Here are few things to keep you inspired, one about starting and the other about finishing.

First is a piece on Go Into the Story based on an article in the Writers Almanac. Isabel Allende starts a new novel every year on January 8th with an elaborate ritual:

Today, writer Isabel Allende is starting a new book, just as she has been doing every single January 8th for the past 29 years. On January 8, 1981, when Chilean-born Allende was living in Venezuela and working as a school administrator and freelance journalist, she got a phone call that her beloved grandfather, at 99 years old, was dying. She started writing him a letter, and that letter turned into her very first novel, The House of the Spirits. She said, "It was such a lucky book from the very beginning, that I kept that lucky date to start."

Today is a sacred day for her, and she treats it in a ceremonial, ritualistic way. She gets up early this morning and goes alone to her office, where she lights candles "for the spirits and the muses." She surrounds herself with fresh flowers and incense, and she meditates.

She sits down at the computer, turns it on, and begins to write. She says: "I try to write the first sentence in a state of trance, as if somebody else was writing it through me. That first sentence usually determines the whole book. It's a door that opens into an unknown territory that I have to explore with my characters. And slowly as I write, the story seems to unfold itself, in spite of me."

Go read the rest of Scott Myers' piece. But first watch this video of Seth Godin about avoiding self-sabotage and getting your project done and delivered.

I often call Hailey Hacks my experiment in revenue models. I have used the project to explore different ways of monetizing online projects and will continue try different things with it.

When I uploaded the current crop of episodes to blip.tv, I decided to try turning on the ads. I haven't turned on pre-roll yet. That's clearly where the most money is, but a pre-roll, as the name indicates, runs before the video and I feel it's too intrusive. I think it dillutes the user experience. I know that I hate when there's an ad before the video I'm trying to watch, so I decided not to inflict that on my viewers.

I did turn on overlays and post-roll. Post-roll runs after the video and I'm pretty sure no one sticks around for it, even though if you did, I might make fractions of a penny and if you really loved me you would. Overlays are the ads that sit at the bottom of the screen over top of the video. They have a button on them so you can make them disappear if they interfer with your viewing pleasure.

The revenue from these ads is dependent on a number of factors including how many people watch, how long they watch and where they are. Is it lucrative? No. I haven't made enough money to go to Starbucks yet.

And for not-the-price-of-a-cup-of-coffee, who's advertising on Hailey Hacks?

And here's a live one, who knows what ad will come up next:

It's a bit of light weight interview with Jeff Gomez about transmedia, nonetheless Jeff pulls out the beautiful phrase "a symphony of narrative" to describe the transmedia experience. He also makes some a bit of business case for transmedia.

A guest post by Illia Svirsky

If a tree falls in the woods, does anyone hear? The same can be said about a writer without a production deal. Sadly, in this business, many spend lives stranded out in the woods. But it’s only now, in our epoch of savvy, that we’re stranded in the woods with a smartphone.

Everyone has a voice – but unfortunately, for it to reach even a single pair of ears, the voice needs to get a sponsor – a benevolent benefactor committed to delivering it into the living rooms of the adoring public. The problem begins when we realize that Mr. Sponsor is not at all benevolent, but actually a malevolent little man operating on his own agenda. As it all plays out, unless the voice effectively and comprehensively delivers the sponsor’s agenda into the living rooms of the adoring public – it gets sent back into the woods.

Throughout all of history there have only been two brief periods of time when artists and entertainers had received the rare opportunity to bypass the sponsor.

The first period was in the 20’s, at the dawn of radio, when for an instance there, every bozo with a transmitter enjoyed a window into 25 million living rooms. It took five years for the sponsors to get annoyed with this and the White House was summoned. The result - the Radio Act of 1927 a.k.a the Communications Act of 1996; formation of the FRC a.k.a the FCC and with it, 19 out of 20 thousand voices exiled into the woods, leaving only a couple around to deliver the sponsor’s agenda.

The second instance, paradoxically, is here and now... For a brief moment in history the gods of technology have blessed us with the gift to let our voices be heard. Who knows how long it will last? Rumor has it that in 2012 good old Internet providers conspire to redefine the way we use the internet. Maybe. Maybe not. But between here and two years from now opens a plain of infinite possibilities.

So don’t get stranded out in the woods – put your voice out there... and may the world decide if it wants to hear, and not the sponsor.

The Age of Stupid is a documentary film about the oil industry and climate change. It was directed by Franny Armstrong and produced by Lizzie Gillett. I haven't seen the film, but I've watched the making of (embedded below) and perused the web site and I suspect it's a very good film.

The business model behind it is brilliant; totally amazing. Much of the financing was raised through crowd sourcing which has reulted in Gillett and Armstrong owning all the rights to their film. They have used a distribution agent for some territories but they have made a lot of deals on their own, managing to organize a global premiere of over 500 screenings in 40 countries with live transmissions via satellite from New York.

Gillett and Armstrong have created web-based software that allows anyone to book, license and organize a screening.

Anyone in the world is now able to buy a licence to screen The Age of Stupid whenever and wherever they like. Our cunning software will calculate the license according to who you are, where you plan to screen, how many people you're screening to and where you are in the world. You can even keep the profits for yourselves or for your climate campaign.

In the Power to the Pixel 2009 video (below, the filmmakers talk with great excitement and charm about how they raised the money for the film and how they are profiting from it. They give numbers. But according to them, the biggest advantage of retaining all the rights has not been the profits (although they seem quite delighted with those), but the total editorial freedom they enjoyed.

The video is long (23 minutes) but totally worth viewing because it offers a glimpse to one possible future of entertainment, one that is artist controlled -- and in which the artists actually make a profit from their work.

Based on the making of video below, it looks like The Age of Stupid is a terrific film.

The Making of The Age of Stupid from Age of Stupid on Vimeo.

Social Media Week is February 1-5, 2010. It’s an international five day event being held simultaneously in New York City, Berlin, London, San Francisco, Toronto and São Paulo to “explore the profound impact that social media has on culture, business communications and society at large.”

I think it’s a great opportunity to use the social media to tell some stories about how social media are affecting relationships. Do you want to help me do it?

The Idea

The Social Media Week Story Project

an original comedy about relationships and social media

told entirely in the social media

and presented live February 1-5 2010.

If the girl you’ve been crushing on changes her relationship status to single, do you have to wait more than an hour before asking her out?

Is it okay to check your JDate profile for new matches during a first date?

Is it wrong to set up a Twitter account under a fake name to stalk your own child?

After your first love reconnects on Facebook, do you have to tell your husband?

Is it wrong for a married woman to flirt with total strangers on Twitter? What if they live on another continent?

Social networks are changing the nature of human relationships. The aim of the SMW Story Project is to tell some these of stories.

Empathy is the theme of the story project. Empathy is the fuel that drives social media and the building block of community. It’s our hope that our funny little story will allow us to understand our fellow human beings a little better.

The Process

1. Blog the experiment from beginning to end, starting with a call for writers, actors, designers and anyone else who might want to collaborate in the project and continuing through every stage.

2. Mine the web to find out how social media is affecting human relationships. Using a variety of tags, we’ll check out what people are talking about when it comes to dating, friendships, family and social web. Mothers stalking their kids on Twitter, boyfriends who won’t update the Facebook relationship status, long lost friends who find you through your blog.

(Make all this data publicly available in a FriendFeed group so that anyone interested in the project can add, comment on or favourite the material or use it to create their own characters to interact with the characters and storylines we create.)

3. Put together a story room of five or six smart, funny writers to turn the data into story arcs.

4. Have each writer create a character on the web using social media tools like blogs, social bookmarking, FriendFeed and Twitter.

They can cast actors to “play” their character in profile pictures, photo albums and other media they may develop

5. Set up a central website with links to each character’s social media footprint, RSS feeds, widgets and the schedule of performances.

6. During Social Media Week play out the stories of our characters through their social networking activities. In addition to blogs, podcasts, photo albums and social bookmarks, our characters will meet on Twitter at specified performance times to enact scenes in the dramatic narrative. These will be improvised by the writers based on scene outlines (think Curb Your Enthusiasm). Audience members may tune into “watch”. They can chat with the characters. Or they may even create their own characters and participate in the drama.

7. In the final days of Social Media Week, host a free panel discussion to talk about the project and tell stories from the trenches.

The Call to Action

If you want to be part of the writing team, drop me an email to let me know. If we haven’t worked together before attach a short writing sample please.

There are lots of other ways to participate besides writing. We’ll need someone to help set up websites and manage RSS feeds. We could definitely use some design elements. There are probably tons of things I haven’t anticipated yet. If you want to participate in other ways, let me know how you can help.

Send email to Story2oh (at) gmail (etcetera).

Over the holidays I spent quite a bit of time watching videos from MIT's Futures of Entertainment conference. I was particularly taken by the case study of Purefold, a project which seems to defy description.

It's a transmedia project in its early stages that has no elevator pitch and is the antithesis of high concept. The principals talked for a very long time in the video (embedded below) and slowly a vision of what they are doing emerges. And it is COOL.

Here are some things that I can tell you:

• The project is with Ridley Scott’s company, so ad agencies and some global brands.
• The goal is to create a bunch of short form videos that tell a story set in the near future.
• The project is collaborative, everything will have a Creative Commons license that lets anyone participate, use the elements and even profit from them.
• Crowd sourcing will be used to inspire some of the storylines by mining the web to find out what real people are saying about certain topics.
• For brands and advertisers, the series is an opportunity to engage real people in discussions about future products.

Aside from the video above and the one below, there isn't a lot about Purefold yet on the web -- no actual videos and I haven't found a wiki yet, as far as I can tell, although I found a FriendFeed discussion.

Here's what it says about Purefold on the Ag8 website:

Purefold is the first product conceived by Ag8 and developed in partnership with Ridley and Tony Scott’s newly launched entertainment division Free Scott. Purefold is an open media franchise designed for brands, platforms, filmmakers, product developers and communities to collaboratively imagine our near future.

With a central theme 'What does it mean to be human?', the franchise explores the subject of empathy - a shared theme with Ridley Scott’s most compelling Science Fiction movie, Blade Runner.

The franchise contains infinite interlinked story lines, turned into short-format episodes by Ridley Scott Associate Films’ global talent pool of directors, and informed by real-time online conversations from the audience, which are harvested through FriendFeed, the world’s leading 'life streaming' technology.

Taking place in the near future, Purefold enables participating brands to take an alternative route to brand integration than traditional product placement and embrace invention within a narrative framework.

Purefold content will be distributed according to the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 license, giving both audiences, brands and platforms unprecedented equal use rights through their participation.

There's a LinkedIn discussion going on about Purefold in the Transmedia Network Group.

This is definitely a project to watch.

Seth Godin writes about the evolution of every medium.

1. Technicians who invented it, run it
2. Technicians with taste, leverage it
3. Artists take over from the technicians
4. MBAs take over from the artists
5. Bureaucrats drive the medium to banality

Maybe in Canada we should amend it slightly:

1. Technicians who invented it, run it
2. Technicians with taste, leverage it
3. Artists take over from the technicians
4. Governments take over from the artists
5. Bureaucratic application forms drive the medium to banality

Seth uses the example of TV, but promises that the web will go this way eventually. But right now? Artist's medium.

I'm feeling a little ornery this morning. Not because I'm hung over or I didn't get kissed at midnight or anything like that. I had a fantastic new years eve that culminated in fireworks all up and down Banderas Bay which we watched from lounge chairs under palm trees. And the fireworks actually seemed like overkill since there was a full moon above ringed by a circle of white light. All of which I enjoyed surrounded by family and friends. It was truly a spectacular night.

This morning, I'm listening to waves breaking on a sandy beach and watching as the sun slowly burns away the cloud cover. The kettle is boiling and coffee is on its way.

So why the need for an early morning New Years day rant? Two reasons really. The first are the people who continue to refuse to accept change. The second? It's 2010 and I still don't have a robot.

Last night, as we were preparing to leave for New Years Eve dinner with friends I read a tweet that got under my skin.

I hate that sentiment. (Sorry Judy, it's not you.) If you feel the need, go read Ben Macintyre's piece, which dates back to November and claims that narrative is disappearing.

Oh bullshit.

I've been hearing this fearful line about the latest mass medium ever since the wandering minstrel showed up in the first village and all the mothers hid their children under the mattress for fear that this innovation would pervert them. A woman in her late 70s who I know tells me that her father -- a scholarly man -- wouldn't let colour comics in the house because he thought would ruin his children for great literature.

Pop music will kill classical.

TV will destroy the novel.

How many times do we have to hear this?

Innovation doesn't kill what came before. But it does bring us something new and potentially wonderful.

On this glorious holiday, I read a 1000 page novel despite all the evidence in Ben Macintyre's piece that my addiction to social media is killing my ability to absorb longer narrative. It was okay, but even though the writer was working in the-oh-so-revered form of the novel, the experience left me a little cold. The author failed to capture the promise of his premise and so I slogged through 800 pages waiting to get to the nut I was looking for. On the pro side, every chapter was a good lead into a siesta.

Next, I read Crush It! by Gary Vaynerchuk, a slim volume of less than 150 pages which I crushed in less than a day. Despite the fact that Gary writes like an infomercial and the book contained zero information that was new to me, it left me feeling excited and motivated. I'm pretty sure that the high falluting culture snobs who are sounding the alarm about the death of narrative wouldn't admit Crush It! into their library of approved reading, but I thoroughly enjoyed it and passed it on to someone else to read. I think "Crush It" is quickly becoming my catch phrase of the moment.

Whilst reading these two books, I was also very much enjoying watching the video podcasts from MITs fourth Futures of Entertainment conference. And when I say enjoying, I mean I was at the edge of my seat thrilled. The ideas about new ways of creating narrative are nothing less than mind blowing.

As a consumer of entertainment and story and as a creator, I have never been so excited in my life.

HOW CAN ANYONE BE SO STUPID AS TO SAY NARRATIVE IS DYING? It's growing, it's changing, it's been reborn. We are not less for it. We are more.

Novels, film, tv, radio, classical music, theatre, opera will all continue to exist. Never fear, you'll always be able to read Plato, Dickens and Falkner -- and you won't even have to do it on a Kindle.

But whole new forms are opening up before our eyes. Amazing collaborations are springing up. Readers/fans/audience members who want to stay immersed in beloved worlds will find greater and greater depth (or drillability as Henry Jenkins says). We'll be able to consume the narrative in film, tv, books, games and so many other ways. Our thirst for story will satiated in a myriad of new ways and the human race will be richer for it, because culture -- even popular culture -- is good for us.

I have another blog where I write about TV writing. I started this blog as a space to write about digital drama. It's been hard to stop the content from crossing over and as of today, done with that. It's convergence time. From here on, I'm rolling the two blogs into a single narrative about story, storytelling, storytellers -- transmedia and traditional. In the end, I want to blog about what I do and what I do is tell stories -- in whatever media best suit the story.

Now, can I have my robot please?