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Film & New Media | Ben Templeton | Thought PieThoughtden were lucky enough to speak at Cineformation's last event at the Watershed: Film & New Media. Not only was it a great chance to share ideas with like minded people, we also tested Compila, the open-source Bluetooth software, by spamming the room with Dude Corp videos and the results of our group brainstorm session.
The brainstorming was great fun and we came up with some bizarre scenarios to explore how people might access and pay for video content on mobile devices. Though no solid conclusions were drawn, it was in enlightening half an hour all the same. The industry is moving so fast at the moment it's impossible to determine exactly how we'll be using our mobiles in 12 months time.
As for the results of the Happy Fountains experiment, people were far more keen to watch the Dude Corp videos than look over the JPEGs we produced. Humour was a BIG factor when deciding what content would be allowed onto peoples' phones.
Thought Pie Progress | Ben Templeton | Thought Pie
After some productive and painful discussions with Parkhouse of Rubber fame I think we're a little closer to finalising the research question of the Happy Packages project. From the off our proposal made reference to all the successful yet 'old' media in Bristol (magazines, posters, stickers, SMS shortcodes etc) but there's quite a gap in uptake between these and the more advanced 'pervasive' WiFi / GPS enabled devices such as those that support the mscape software.
What we find interesting (read challenging!) is how to encourage Joe Blogs to start using funky connected pervasive technology & applications so we are producing three or four projects under the Happy Packages umbrella to explore where the drop off and loss of impulse occurs.
The first, and most simple (the 'control' in our experiment) is called Happy SMS and we have secured a partnership with Venue Magazine. We have developed an Artificial Intelligence back-end that will interpret a text message sent to our special happy short code 60300 and reply with the most relevant what's-on information. For example 'happy music jazz centre of town' will return 'Venue Mag and Happy SMS recommend the Tantric Jazz Cafe, 8pm, live jazz with Henry Humperdink, free'. It'll be up and running when the Mobile Pie boys get back from their gallavanting…
The second, slightly more advanced in terms of technology and engagement, is called Happy Fountains. What some might think amounts to spamming, others define as 'contextual information distribution'! We are setting up a network of Bluetooth zones, or fountains, where users can pick up Happy content. The ultimate goal of this area of the project is to allow the targeting of specific users (unique MAC address) with specific content that reflects the relationship between the sender and recipient. However, we are yet to find the perfect hardware - trials are ongoing…
The third, more advanced concept, is Happy Stamps - this is an application that is downloaded to the phone that represents your passport. We hope to encourage people to visit the happiest areas of Bristol (defined by you the ugly masses!) in order to collect all the stamps. Just like that annoying friend of yours that didn't forget to ask for stamps in their passport on their gap year and now has all those lovely colourful foreign marks of authority. The Happy Stamps application will reward users with discount vouchers at Happy Package selected places round Bristol.
To drive traffic to the Happy Packages projects, and to encourage UGC, we also have something called Secret Happiness which lets users anonymously submit a sentence and image describing a Bristol place / activity / idiosyncrasy that makes them happy. These will be distributed via happy Fountains, Happy Stamps and happypackages.com, Facebook, MySpace etc
Also, for your interest, below is some development work we did on the Happy Packages character…
We're in the GUARDIAN!! | Ben Templeton | Thought PieAfter some quick-thinking from the Happy Packages team, an impromptu photo shoot and some excellent work by the PR team, we've finally got lift off on some mega-publicity. Though, in truth, I'm not sure who reads this blog….
An introduction… | Ben Templeton | Thought PieFor those of you who don't know the Happy Packages team, here is a brief, if not that accurate, introduction…
Field Research, Part 1 | Ben Templeton | Thought PieWow, what a lovely day it was Wednesday the 30th!
So not a good day for Thought Den and Mobile Pie to stay in, and as such we headed out into the big wide "real" world to do some initial Gopping tests.
For the results of the Field Research, read the thought den blog post
