In December, 192 nations will attend the UN Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen. To raise awareness, the UN has partnered with a coalition of advertising agencies to create the “Hopenhagen” campaign. They hope to empower global citizens to engage in the conference and encourage government leaders to make the right environmental decisions.

UN launches Hopenhagen campaign to promote the UN Climate Change Conference

The campaign focuses on the need to shift from just “coping” with global problems to “hoping” and ultimately acting to face challenges head-on. The concept of Hopenhagen came from the idea that the UN Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen is an opportunity to protect people and the planet and to power global green growth in order to adjust the fate of the planet.

The Hopenhagen web site encourages visitors to leave a message about what gives them hope for a better planet. You can leave a note, filling in this sentence: “__________ gives me hope.” And you can then watch others’ messages scroll by on the screen.

The web site is slated to be the campaign hub. Right now, there are just the scrolling messages, a short blurb about the Conference, and links to the creative content of the campaign. But a bigger, splashier launch is planned in September when more content about climate change will be offered to visitors.

Let’s hope that the site offers concrete information and ways for individuals to make changes in their own lives, families, and neighborhoods. Otherwise, it’s just a pretty site with inspiring messages, but no real call to action.

image: hopenhagen.org

The “Eat Mor Chikin Cows,” who have been part of Chick-fil-A marketing and advertising efforts for the past 14 years, have been honored with a Silver Effie award for “Sustained Success” in creativity and effectiveness in advertising. The Effies began in 1968 and each year recognize creativity and all other aspects that make a successful advertising campaign with their awards.  You can download a list of all the 2009 award winners (pdf).

Image: Chick-fil-A

“Winning a second Effie award is a high compliment to the ‘Eat Mor Chikin’ Cow campaign,” said Steve Robinson, Chick-fil-A’s senior vice president of marketing. “The Effies are known globally to advertisers and agencies as one of the most sought-after honors in the industry. The Cows have continued to stay popular with our audiences. They are endearing personalities that are staunch supporters of chicken, and our customers not only find them humorous, but they enjoy watching to see what they might say or do. You never know where the Cows might show up next.”

Execs from Chick-fil-A and their advertising agency, The Richards Group, received the award on June 3 at the Effies in New York.

The cows have been well received since their introduction in 1995 and have received many awards and honors over the years.

Chick-fil-A’s fifth annual Cow Appreciation Day will take place on July 10, 2009. This promotion encourages consumers to visit any of the chain’s restaurants on that day dressed as a cow to honor the “Eat Mor Chikin” Cows. Anyone dressed as a cow will receive a free Chick-fil-A Meal.

The chain has more than 1,440 restaurants across the country.  According to the company, “Chick-fil-A produced record sales in 2008 of $2.96 billion — a 12.17 percent overall increase and an 4.59 percent same-store sales gain that helped extend the chain’s streak of consecutive sales gains to 41 years.”

Check out one of the past ads featuring the “Eat Mor Chikin” Cows.

While everyone’s buzzing about Microsoft’s new venture, Bing, Google is introducing a new product that may just change the way you use email. It’s called Google Wave and it is nothing if not ambitious. The product was shown to developers at Google I/O and while it’s not ready for an official release, it already has many people buzzing.

credit: dailylifeofmojo

Google is defining its wave as

“…equal parts conversation and document, where people can communicate and work together with richly formatted text, photos, videos, maps, and more.”

- Google blog

It combines IM and inline responses to messages and almost instant updates. Two people can work on a “wave” at the same time and see the typing as it happens. It incorporates conversations much the way Gmail already does, but you can add someone mid-conversation and even play back the previous messages so the new person can catch up.

And Google is making the protocol open so developers can create extensions that work with the program. In fact, the attendees at Google I/O were promised development accounts so they could go in and take a look and start working on extensions with the Google Wave API. It does, however, rely on the HTML 5 standard, which is a new standard that most of the browsers are ready to implement (except Microsoft, apparently). The sharing potential is pretty amazing. TechCrunch did a thorough review of the product, too, which you should peruse if you’re intrigued about the product.

You can watch Google’s announcement video below. What do you think about Google Wave? Do you think it will revolutionize email and IM?

Asics is one of those brands that if someone mentioned it to me, I would not recognise it but I would recognise the logo. That’s because I always pronounced it O-asics in my head!

Screenshot from site

But now I know better. Last night I went along to the the opening of their first shop outside of Japan to find out more. This was not any special blogger opening, but a full-on PR festival, with store management, lots of people from the fitness industry and a smattering of sports stars. Food was served, drinks were downed and we got to listen to a few of the Asics athletes being interviewed about their trainning, competitions this year and plans for 2012. Iwan Thomas ‘exclusively’ announced he would be running in the next London marathon; Nell McAndrew talked about her running the Great North run this Sunday in a Wonder Woman costume and Tim Don talked about his race against the Circle Line. The race was one of the key PR events, with the tri-athlete competing against the Tube over 1km and 5km, winning both times.

image: from me

At the end of the night we got a goodie bag, with with things like a t-shirt, socks and an mp3 player (I’m guessing those with VIP labels got a different selection. The other opportunity we had was to get our feet measured and trainers recommended. That all went well, so I have a good idea what I’m looking for. Overall, an enjoyable event.

So they invited bloggers along, as part of their social media effort but at the moment the rest of the digital work appears pretty standard. The website falls into the informative style, with lots of product information ,especially about the science about it, plus news about the brand and their athletes. I think they could do a lot more with the product section to allow people to explore what would be best for them (a simple search from product would help). When it comes to online conversation, they seem to get a consistent level of chatter.

English posts that contain Asics per day for the last 30 days.

Get your own chart!

Last night, I went along to the London Bloggers Meetup, as sponsored by Smirnoff. As I wrote earlier, Smirnoff are doing more grassroots work, sponsoring these sort of events, mostly through the efforts of their PR team from Splendid.

It seemed they had a hit on their hands, as both Annie and Julius commented. Great drinks - the Smirnoff Mule being the featured drink, plenty of food and great hospitality in the Diageo Bar.

Plus, personalised cocktails. They’d done their research, looking at everyone’s blogs and designing something to match what they saw. In my case, they chose the ‘Big Apple’ which was the Mule with added apple and mint which turned out to be absolutely lovely. We all (well, those who remembered to grab one) got a freebie to take home and make our own Mules.

image: from me

As an outreach event, I thought this was pretty much spot on. The conversation around Smirnoff was all positive and everyone seemed to be really pleased with their individual cocktails. These events don’t scale much beyond the 40 or so there, but they all add to the overall online profile of the brand, to the perception amongst influencers.

As a final note, here’s a picture of me the last time I was in this bar, back in early 2006.

image: from me

Internet World takes place at the end of the month (by the way, I’m moderating a panel on metrics) and to promote it, here’s a little viral game that seems to be doing quite well in the carts - grab your wee man and put them in the right place with the Internet World Game. It’s a fun timewaster, unusual when it comes to viral marketing as it promotes an industry event as opposed to a consumer event,

screensho from game

One of the things I want to do at SXSW, using my new N95, will be to do some quick videos, starting off asking one question. What’s your favourite marketing campaign of the moment? Of all time? Given that this will be a geek conference and there’ll be a few who will say they never watch the ads, then what is your favourite product and what do you think of the marketing associated with that. Hopefully I’ll get some interesting answers. Anyone want to comment here?

A final panel from the weekend conference looking at ‘cult’ media and the challenging of the growing audiences.   Although this is about TV entertainment, a lot of the lessons can be applied to brands as they expand.
Panelists: Danny Bilson, Transmedia Creator; Jeff Gomez, Starlight Runner; Jesse Alexander, Heroes; Gordon Tichell, Walden Media

Cult properties have become mass entertainment. Marvel’s success bringing comic book characters to the big screen and the resurgence of the space opera suggest niche properties may no longer mean marginalized audience appeal. This panel explores the politics, pitfalls, and potentials of exploiting niches and mainstreaming once marginalized properties. How do you stay true to the few but build properties attractive to the many? What role do fans play in developing cult properties for success? Is it profitable to build a franchise on the intense interest of the few and rely on Long Tail economics? Are smaller audiences viable in the short term, or do we need to rethink the length of time for a reasonable return?

• Danny Bilson, Transmedia Creator; I started in B Movie in the 80’s, then did the Rocketeer, the Sentinel, Flash.  Wrote comics, Red Menace graphic novel.  I teach game writing, I was at EA for 5 years.  Going back to gaming; do a lot of counter-terrorism for the government.
• Jeff Gomez, Starlight Runner; a similar story. I grew up in LES Manhattan, got bullied, the outsider in the neighbourhood, I had to learn how to deal with this, and that was by exploring the world of imagination - needed someone tough to protect me and that was Godzilla.  I needed to create my own content. Began to explore mythology, Tolkien in particular; I wanted to emulate that and found D&D.  I went on to be a creative writing teacher, published a DTP magazine, got a lot of access and content, got national distribution. Predicted about stories that started on TV and then jump to bulletin boards, then back into a video game or a novel.  Then later I started writing modules, joined Valiant comics, doing games.  Developed worlds, magic the Gathering, got the world from my old D&D days.  Formed own company, we take IP and develop the fictional world, help the company develop the world.  Hot Wheels, Pirates of the Caribbean, jame’s cameron new movie
• Jesse Alexander, Heroes; a writer, producer.  Before that worked on Alias, Lost.  Before that I wrote film screenplays, genre properties.  Wrote video games.  On Heroes, writer/producer, manage the writers room , help shape content, get them to collaborate.  It’s similar to a D&D game, getting to the end point.  Also involved in production side, budget, and casting and advertisers and the transmedia content.  The budget is significant in a way that is crazy.
• Gordon Tichell, Walden Media.  Been in business in about 15 years, for most on the finance side.  I analysed the projects. For the last year I have been overseeing our outreach programme, create programmes about how people can use the movies, create programmes to bring people in to the project.
• Henry Jenkins moderates.
• HJ: there has been a shift form side to mainstream
• DB: it was Jaws, it came from literature, basically a monster model, created the blockbuster.  The B movies became the A movies and vice versa.  
• JA: there are so many factors that apply to this; there have always been fans but not had the ability to connect until the net.  The people who create the content are getting older, those who love genre are those creating it.  Think what is going to happen when the Harry Potter people start creating the media
• JG: there is magnificent talent being applied to that now, it is not the hacks.
• DB: all these skills of drama are being applied to them that were not there in the 50s.  In his show  [refers to the Heroes of Jesse] the traditional TV show is there, look at Lost, the same, connections.  You bring new stories, the comic stuff that is being put on TV.
• JA: that is a huge part of it, they creators work in the TV space and understand it, understand the broadcast market.We tried to populate the show with characters that people can identify it. 
• GT: it co-incides with DVR, you can dive deep into programmes that you need to be able to record, catch up.  I watch in the plane, I keep up that way
• JA: with Lost series 1, it was massive broadcast, some of the audience started experiencing in different ways.  The best way to watch is at your own pace, not split up.  The themes of hope and community, those are positive themes, right for our times.
• DB: does it work with non-serialised?  All my shows were one offs..now they are talking about numbers down…
• JA: (we have very good DVR numbers….)
• DB: if they did not do the rest , revenues down
• JA: it was done deliberately.  With Alias, we tried to get the stuff all over the place, to keep us on the air, it applied to Heroes.  You need to find other revenue streams to get money.
• HJ: is there a tension between what you need?
• JA: sure, what I do, I approach as a superfan. I grew up obsessed with Star Wars.  I approach it from an authentic place.  in books about marketing it is important about going after the early adopters.  That kind of strategy is important to apply to something like Heroes.  There is a tension in serving that audience and a broad audience.  You have to build things into content that are accessible to a broad audience and are authentic to the core audience.  The first thing i said when I joined was we had to go to ComicCon and it got set up that day.  That was our core base, that would support the property,
• HJ: the characters, arcs, are powerful emotions and relatively clear in agendas as human beings.  The transmedia elements made it far deeper, richer, complex. You have official resources to delve into. You can find out answers and be rewarded.
• JA: that was one of the brilliant ways that it was crafted.  They are archetypal characters that the broad audience can grok and deeper that the genre audience can get in.  
• HJ: a family watching, the son could give the full backstory to a minor charater and add things to the community, to the family.
• DB: a great example how the hard core can service the broad base. When creating the stuff I never think about all the stuff we are talking about today, I think about what I want to see the most.  and that is it.  I live my doing what i want.  The stuff we talk about here is reverse engineering what we do.  I was making 2 shows and then I asked if I would watch this and I said no.  I play games.  I am starting to look at film as a piece, there’s a channel where I can get certain levels of emotion and things, but if the game is added I can do more stuff.
• JA: that was my take and experience on Alias, we did basic web games and puzzles.  There were a few writers who did that because we love the show and we did it for fun.  Now we are at a point where that is transmedia..I found out what I was doing.  it all grew out of a fans passion for doing something that they loved around a property they loved.  The critical studies thing is so helpful to people like me.  We are creative from an instinctive place and be able to have thoughtful people talk to me about what is working, helpful in looking forward into how i will work, about creating.  Giving us names and structures and labels is important
• HJ: if you alienate the core audience, you are going to erode everything
• JA(just did it!)
• HJ: looks at Xfiles, they are bigger than people creating the property.  if you stop being true to the property, stop being the steward, and start to noodle your own thing…they will get pissed off and walk away.  If the geek is pissed off and walk away, then Joe Average will think about that and start to agree
• DB: there is a big difference between originals and adaptations.  I wrote the Flash - the misson was relaunch for a new generation.  We created new stuff and the 6 guys on comic block took us apart.  I should have used 3 of the most popular rogues…our mission was to forget the old guys.  The people who buy are those who care about the canon…..we sit there with wikipedia to find all this stuff…we went to ComicCon and were getting assulted….we had to apologise.
• JA: you are correct.  it is something that we, when the creator, of the show does something popular and gets bored and may want to do something else and steps away from vision that may alienate audience.  Advertising is another way product integration, if you appear to be selling out you can alienate.  That’s one of the things that keeps me up at night.  For Heroes product integration is a necessity.  Cell phones, Cisco, cars.  I can do it if you allow me to do it integrated, authentically that continues to be germane.  That is challenging to do when advertisers come in, they have specific needs and requirements.  In the past those needs have been passed down on paper and been told to do that.  With Heroes, I got to work with the clients, get to talk to them start a dialogue with these people and engage with them creatively you can come up with organic integration.
• DB: The prop guys used to make fake brands, , I’d rather get real products.
• GT: commercials are not been watched. We have met with major conglomerates to develop a movie around a product.
• JA: I have these, companies want to spend.  I’m Ok as long as there is creative control. Look at the Starter Wife and Ponds. Now I have Ponds on the brain, it was effective.  We have done great product stuff, Nissan Versa, we were a new show, it worked out well, they did not have a lot of specific requirements.  Hiro kept talking about the Nissan Versa as it was organic to who he was and his character.  Huge Success on an international level, have a Heroes branded versa in Frace
• GT: I’m a fan of Zip cars..and I pick out the Versas now,
• HJ: looking at Narnia, opponents to genre is fundamentals, how have you reconciled Narnia with that.
• GT: we look for good stories.  we went to a lot of teacher, parents etc to understand want children want.  Narnia is a very powerful story either as an allegory or had no idea, the power of the literature allowed us to make a huge fantasy film. Christian audiences liked it, we were respectful to the material,,  The opening, the bombing of London, people watched that and were bought in to the film.  We left the allegories in the film, we were not going to build that up to turn off others.
• DB: in the new job, the next movie, you must be doing a major job
• GT: the next in Prince Caspian. We have done a huge outreach to librarians, faith groups, introducing the audience.  Hopefully we will be successful  we will be a faithful adaption, you cannot talk down to your audience
• HJ: how much revenue form Heroes come from international sources and how doe this affect the process.
• DB: I’m doing something like now, they feel the syndicated market is coming back.  they all got worked-up over 300, I like CG and live action,  The plan is to start overseas, that market is very important
• JA: it has been massive, to everyone who worked on it was very surprising.  The cast went to Paris, when the show had not been there yet, but they had all watched it and were looking for the cast, talking to them, they knew the show.  Revenue generation is important.  The crazy idea I have, that I am excited about, a new property designed to launch simultaneously across.  We create format and find a format and find partners that want to create their own ideas, that are local; creating properties, gaps in the properties where people can express themselves, which can be part of the mythology without altering it significantly.  It’s almost possible now, because of the success of the shows, the web and transmedia storytelling…it has to be built into DNA of property have to think about it from beginning, so you can reach audience, generate revenue in an organic way and continue to make it
• JG: in 2002, Starlight Runner was approached by Mattel, to create content for Hot Wheels website.  We said we could start on the web, in comics, jump the story line to videos, rig it in a way you can do a tv series.  To my shock they went for it. I was fantasising in front of their board and they approved it and we had to do it.  We had to create a narrative round the toys.  An 800m$/year fanchise for Mattel.  we had to get the content in stores in November, this was June.  We wrote a race around the world, across 2 dimensions, we put landmarks around there and giving Mattel heart attacks.  We conceded somethings, but drew the line when Mattel said no women in the story line.  There are 36 cars and 10 characters, there are no girls.  They said our consumer base does not want  girls…we asked again, the bottom line that said the product was sold in nations where women drivers did not exist.   We took a stand, we almost lost it, an 8mill$ account.  We got with the video producers and the chicks were in.  They said the girl needs to get in trouble and be rescued…we scripted that she was surrounded by lava and she harangued them to rescue her.  Then she solved a major thing in the next issue and solved it with maths.
• JA: a quick Heroes story of something like that.   Hiro, they speak in Japanese and it is subtitled.   Ando is Korean, so questions were asked about how good is his Japanese, how would a Korean actor play in the Japan market,   Both of them speak perfect Japanese, there are certain things that may have been a problem in taking to Japanese market.  But it was a huge, huge success in Japan. There had been so many meetings and hassle.  But was coming form a clear honest place that thematically connects with people
• AudQ: taking a social stance, improving diversity.  Last month I was at SAG Summit, part of Performances with Disabilities, so last Monday’s episode was interesting.  I would love to see a character with a disability.
• DB: our casting director has always bought in all sorts.  One of my shows I had a actor in a wheelchair. but you still need the really good actors, I used someone in one show and he nailed it…
• JA: when Tim created Heroes he wanted to create a show that showed the world that he knew, what showed diversity. we were lauded for having ethnic characters.  It was significant.  People loved that stuff, in terms of being locked by the form into a specific ensemble group.  We have been trying to introduce new characters and it has been challenging,.  We need the space in the narrative to do it, one of the reasons we created Origins, that allow us to explore other stories, so we could have someone in a chair.  I spent about 3 hours on it before it was killed. Hopefully post-strike it will kick off again.  When you are dealing with a serial and ensemble it takes you in a direction that you can’t necessarily break away.  Origins allows us to brand out
• HJ: How does transmedia make it easier.
• DB: it should make it easier, you can show all these revenue streams.  But you find that the different groups protect own piece of the pie, not the content,. It will happen the opposite way, with the media directly, from fans and from outside the core.  Maybe we have to give them tools.  What I learned form the Sims is give the users the tools and they will do the job for you. Set the state and let the players come in.  I was going to ask about when you start one of these projects, how do you start,  in the new media side you have to build worlds,
• JA: that is the greatest. Dealing with transmedia, corporate convergence.  It is correct, these companies have been pursuing a specific model for a very long time, there is a massive infrastructure in these companies, when you think about the companies it is not ‘a’ company with one idea. There are multiple departments, that could be doing the same things and they may never have met, may not know what is there, there is potential for a lack of synergy. We are seeing a change in the companies in that they are understanding the space.
• GT: On Narnia, Disney has been a great partners everyone gets together regularly to go over everything, for games and products and spin-offs, the CS Lewis estate is involved in what can and cannot be done.  As long as we are being respectful of the property.
• JA: it is cultural and Disney does get it.  Within that infrastructure there is a way to connect executives with the creatives and that is the big disconnect.  The divisions are meeting and creating transmedia and there is no connection with the people creating the content, so no connection to the  content.  But it has worked out pretty well for me. 
• DB: Heroes and Narnia are very different.  Narnia - they know there is franchise, there are 7 books there.  There’s revenue, dollars etc for an existing piece content.  When you take something original from zero, they were spending a lot money on advertising, it turned me off a little bit, i was offended by the hard sell. 
• JA: Lost was there and their campaign could be said to be more elegant
• DB: it is a gigantic achievement, starting from scratch
• JG: with the producers guild they are defining transmedia and transmedia producers,.  the silos do not talk to each other; even with PotC, don’t you want to take the universe and make Star Wars,  the only way to do that it is to fabricate and persist with a transmedia experiences.  We make out these story lines and rollout and create stories about how it journeys from one media to the next.  The other thing, sort of the secret source, we are a third party, granted a little of carte blanche by TPTB, we can break down doors and make sure everyone’s working in the same world.  We use diplomacy and co-ordination to be the shepherd and clearing house for the UP.
• DB: the brand managing?
• JG: it is happening, and they love it as they are juggling the next things….to have someone doing the legwork, it helpful for them.  This could not happen unless there were visionaries in charge, who say I want that, who pay for it and them let them implement.  
• JA: we have a transmedia dept on heroes, that idea of finding individuals in companies who get it and want to attach to this property. They could be young and open to risk, you have to find out who will attach themselves. Over the course of Heroes we have found these people and have bought them together,  they need to create transmedia czars, someone who can oversee the properties and connect people together.
• DB: you guys ever have to show metrics? what the execs think..it is hot and sexy?
• JG; they are saying what are the metrics
• JA: they can sell advertising.. they do not do it because it is cool..they do it in small ways, they investigate.  it is when they start kicking in money you know they have found a way to get paid
• JG: that is a fiction piece and advertising is a possibility; with a brand it is a little trickier.  You can plug your own product, so there needs to be other metrics.
• DB: have you looked at virtual worlds?
• JG: at United Talent agency, they are building the kind of metrics you are talking about. to help sell.
• JA: CAA and ICM have people and are starting and they would not being if money is not there.  Any brand can find a way to do some kind of transmedia, any successful property has an audience that loves the brand and wants to find new ways of interacting.
• HJ: a new question…we have talked about only official transmedia…what about legal and labour values, what about fan stuff
• DB: the show The Sentinel went off in 1999. The target audience was the male 18-24 but there was a fan base of 100% women on the internet.  I get emails, we have reunions.  They write fictions, etc,  we are talking about the hardcore, they are creating content because they love it.  Give them the tools and they do it.  I talk to EA all the times, they talk about empowering the users, how do you org that, how do you get it to add value…
• GT; look at SL on line, give people tools,
• JA: I’m obsessed witht hat shit, I’m trying to give peoplel ways for people to play with my stuff.  Finding gaps in the content where people can play and that is something I think about a lot.  there is the hard core of people who will create and ways to reach out to a broad audience.  the sprint partnership, is the a way that people could create own characters, we ha a great interface, to allow fans to create fans on location, power, peron they are.  it is like a game, it allows them to participate in a casual game style, there is a way for characters to compete., they will battle there way to the end - like a trading game on the phone.  then may take the winners and get them into a webisode,…..just launched.  it is with sprint.  we hope it is cool.   These people with the phone can be in a webisode series.  we have to find a way to make that character cannon and find a way to make the value.
• JG: When I was a dungeon master and playing, I was creating a world in which when it was done just right, there was a spark of magic, we were in this world and I as a story teller was validating your participation in your world, raised you up in the world and then challenging you. That was so intense and passionate. i want that for an actual fantasy universe, I want you to be part of cannon, to be celebrated and validated.  these are the tools that we are trying to build..depending on your participation and loyalty and cleverness and how others feel about you , you will move closed to the center of the action. 
• DB:a game?
• JG :a transmedia experience?
• DB: but you are a game designer, you have to have a reality, it is not virtual reality…-
• JA: and that is awesome, we know that will happen eventually.  the real challenge is creatively collaborating, and D&D is a perfect analogy for the last series of heroes.  we have  set of rules, and we collaborated and last season it captured magic.  perhaps when we moved away from that and went more traditional we created something that was more traditional, and we have learnt from that.  it is super-collaborative..I acted as dungeon master
• DB: in a film there is a director..in games there is this sick egalitarian thing …you need  core visionary, a games master
• JA: that is right, and there are lesson from game industry, that team approach to creating something….a single creative thing.   As a group we do rapid prototyping, functioning as a group…we see what is working and what is not, allows to stay ahead
• AudQ: as a former D&D players, i understand the vision.  but D&D is a micromedia, a small community in same time and space. we are talking about transmedia across the world, maybe asynchronous. there is huge gap in how to massify it?
• JG: I would call it a design challenge…
• Aud Q: MMOs.. you need to play a lot to get to the center, I do not see how to accomplish it
• JG: play MMOs and it can take years to get anywhere.  with the kind of tech that is being developed the personalization mechs will start validating your investigation in this world.  Not necessarily talking about a true game experience,  it may be enhanced fan experience.  if you want to play the game you go play the game, I’m talking about playing and the more you do then the closer you are to contributing to cannon.
• DB: I’m consulting on a theme park for Dubai, here’s the thing..I’m going to say some high level stuff.  If you wear something on your body that is holding the data and is persistent. I designed an attraction that is expandable..be a character. uses tech, motion capture,  reflective surfaces.  Really cool, basic concept is take a theme park and have a sort of live action MMO.  Really, really, really excited and having more fun than anything in 20 years! can’t talk anymore
• AudQ: approaching question between fantasy and actuality from perspective of someone working in mobile etc.  I an interested in participant production. In transmedia can we extend from fantasy to real world issues.
• JG: Overcoming obstacles etc, in order to speak here etc, I had some hard knocks and learned some lessons.  i think about my peers, who do not make the same choices, I’m trying to talk back to them and reminding me..there is a social message in what I do,  I look for a message in the worlds and universes I create, without a message this whole thing will collapse. that’s what Narnia has, that’s what Heroes has.
• JA: Tim created heroes from a pure place, tell a hopeful story.  the way he has seen a fan community build around the property and the support and love that has.  He believes the success is based on the fan community.  He has come up with a concept, he wants to find a way to use heroes as a transmedia brand to be a positive force for good in the real world, to bring community together,  finding out what they care about and helping them find ways to affect a positive change in the world.  We are working in it, talking to a lot of people, everyone is excited, we are trying to find a way to use entertainment to show people how they can effect change. help people understand the power they can have, there is tremendous, things, Invisible Children…a transmedia property, based around grass-roots high school programme that kids can work to affect change in schools in Ethiopia. 
• GT: that is what i love.  At Walder, we try and find a social cause to get behind with every film…it did not mater that it was aslo marketing.
• JA: the trick is to find something that fits, we chatted about one laptop per child, very tied into heroes, a way of empowerment, so Heroes is attached to one laptop.  Thematically on our brand.
• AudQ:  I want to challenge you guys to think about fans extending your worlds.   we have tech that can put people into videos.   Are you going to be willing to open up your content, put the clips there…
• JG: we do not have to do it….they can do it in a year!
• JA: first I would say no.  we will not give you all our core characters, but we will do other things,  The broad base needs to be protected we have to protect cannon for everyone, but we want people to be doing things. so have to do it right.
• DB: it depends who it was for. I developed a show where you had 2 main things and then b characters doing a lot of other stuff.  so you have users create.  that is cool if unofficial stuff. the official always comes from core, but open it up for people to play. It does not have to interupt the show. if I want more I can fool around.
• JA: Henry talks about layers, different experieces.  the audience is massive, it is not just the fans, there are different niches, we could create spaces where they can officially interact and certainly there will be unofficial ways.  it is a way of trying to come up with as many ways to let them do what they want to do while staying true
• JG: there needs to be some pioneering legal stuff
• JA: on Heroes,….people were mixing to music, they were doing stuff.  I wanted to acknowledge it, to recognise it.  I wanted to do stuff…do a contest.  Then legally it came a problem, we needed to control that remixing, give them give a creative rule set, specific clips that had been cleared.  the legal constraints we were locked into that model.
• GT: he you seen ’studio’ UGC,
• JA: we have done some great videos at the launch.  there is a amazing video about Clare the cheerleader…on mobile…her friend drives the car at her.. it was too real we could not put it out there.  we made all this stuff and they would not let us put it out.
• HJ: what will it take to move the industry away from thinking transmedia is just a clearer way of advertising.  and where are we going?
• DB: High school musical is a ridiculous transmedia property…
• JA: almost anything can have a community, it is finding ways to give that community ways to experience it
• JG: alludes to the future, HSM, you will see transmdiea moving more that way, it started with the matrix etc and evolving more mainstream.
• DB: my guess is that when the executives enjoy transmedia, then they will get it, until then it is advertising.  until they have the user experience.  they have to understand it from a user view. not just a revenue stream

There were a few more questions which I missed transcribing, but the main points are caught.  This was my favourite session of the 2 days.

Tags: Heroes, Mattel, Hotwheels, Narnia

Day 2 of the Futures of Entertainment.  After the openign remarks, we only have 2 panels, the first on Advertising and Convergence and the second on Cult Media.

The panelists for the first session are: Jason Mittell, Middlebury College; Jonathan Gray, Fordham University; Lee Harrington, Miami University. Moderated by Sam Ford

• Jason Mittell, teaches media studies.   Looking to answer the question about what do media scholars have to say on these issues.  Looking at industries, texts and audiences - the 3 main areas. The industry is not one singular thing, it is not the father of the Holy Trinity, but is a pantheon of gods.   There is a key lesson that scholars needs to learn is that it is not a singular beast.  The industry is not all powerful.   There are multiple entities in play, we have to think of the industry as a much more varied than than scholars often think about.  Scholars can be sceptical of industry power; many media scholars could see an event like this as heresy as you are not supposed to ‘talk to the man’.  Another notion that is studied is the ‘death of the author’ that the writer does not fix the text; today there if often no centralised author and text can be emergent, with UGC etc.
• Jonathan Gray, I use the word ‘text’ to mean more than just the words, something my students often confuse.  The work is what you produce and the text is what happens when it has meaning.  A work becomes a text when it has meaning, when someone engages with it.  The text is not something the industry can necessarily produce, the audience has to give something to it.  The text has to be created with the audience.  People engage with text. The challenge is to work towards fostering the better creation of texts, the industry to see themselves as contributing to this.  They only contribute part of the text; look at Star Wars, watching the movies only gets you so far.  In between the first 2 films I did a lot of playing with the toys.  What Star Wars means to me is in the toys, the toys created a lot of the popular constructions of what SW was.  The Simpsons, we have to look away from the show to things that are outside.  Looking forward the texts that are going to matter the most are the ones that can capture the oscilation, that can create on multiple points.  
• Lee harrington: Proifessor of Sociology. Listening to yesterday, we are asking the same questions we did 50 years ago.  Most of discussion of what people want came from the audience,  UGC, entertainment value, privacy.  One of the key questions is what are we measuring; there seemed to be a lot more scepticism in audience.   A second question was about gender and class, we talk about affordability.  Media literacy is a question, can they access, who wants to access.  Who does the industry assume wants to access the content.  The answers are in age, gender, class etc.  Looking at age, it seems that if you are over 34 you are over the abyss, they don’t want to talk to you.  We seem to talk about the baby boomer power in every aspect except the entertainment ones.  What are the long term economic consequences of ignoring the aging populations.
• SF: what kind of qualitative methods can find passion points, how can we do qual research at mass
• LH: the pace of market research vs academic research are different.  Academic is a slower way.  
• JG: the industry could read more academic study, see that they are on the same page.   Researchers have had the experience of working on a book and trying to publish things and being warned away from research by legal teams.  A lot of the research is already there but is not been looked at.
• JM: qual is not generalisable in the same way that quan is.   Academic research questions don’t always converge with what the industry wants to here, we can be bad at making links where industry and academia fit together.
• JG: with good audience, you have to be prepared to be surprised.  If you go in just wanting an answer to a question, than not doing good research.  In the industry there’s a problem with that model.
• SF: online discussion groups, blogs etc, measuring buzz - is that possible. In the industry, you say qual and they reply ‘focus groups’.  Online buzz can add to the discussion.  What are your takes on how this could be of value.
• LH: it is of value but you have to take into account that that is a skewed sample as well.  I study soaps and focus groups were huge in the 90’s.  And the genre reeled.  All have their place, and so does the slow stuff.
• JM: good qual research has that media consumption is contextual.  Some good qual research look at the community, the intepretive comms, looks at how it is consumed communally.  
• JG: in addition to focus groups we need lack of focus groups and that is what the online study can do, let you see where the ocnversation goes.
• LH: it is not helpful to pitch qual vs quan, it is about the question and the best way to answer it.  it always starts with what question.
• SF: when a programme becomes a text you can find that what it was targeted for may not be the ones getting involved.   Look at soaps and older viewers, not target but get involved.  Also others, look at Veronica mars the audience they were reaching was not the one they were markeitng for.
• JM: The Wire is another example.  The 2 main audiences are the typical HBO, higher income great for advertisers AND urban drug dealers, where it has a cult status.   The latter is a totally surplus audience that is not monetised by HBO.
• JG: ho do you create broad audiences?  The Simpsons has a broad audience and has a high end audience for the advertisers.
• SF: if you move to engagement, how does that change the indicators of who the audience is outside of age and gender?  Are the demographics bringing people together or the viewers? Is there a disconnect between ad view and audience view.
• JM: when I teach at V I differentiate between audience and viewer.  Audience is an industry term.  The metrics are designed to create audience categories. I would love to see a bottom up way of measuring, an open way of opening up the black boxes.    But it won’t happen economically in the media.
• LH: industry leaders and academics often agree on what the problems are, there is an awareness of the older viewers etc.  But not acknowledged as having economic power.
• JG:  one of the things we need to get away from is the idea that Neilson is gone.  Nielson is not really good science, it is not reflective of the larger audience.   The ones that are best are the ones that are engaged.  When we are talking about impressions and stuff and where the advertisers are, it won’t come from what happened yesterday but it will come from a longer term approach.
• SF: How can we foster conversations between academia and industry, that happen more than once a year like this.
• JM: I tend to talk to creative personal; if you can get to them then they are very receptive. (although often legal depts cut the connections). Things like this can be crucial.   On the academic side there is real scepticism as well.
• SF: I’ve seen some academic blogs call us some pretty nasty things.  And I’ve talked to people in industry and they have had a hard time getting funding as what is the benefit talking to academics
• LH: in the soap opera area, they often welcome the input, but a lot of time challenge.  One thing we have to do is produce research that is readable
• SF: language is a problem, there is jargon that add confusion.   
• JM: someone is commenting that no one thinks Nielson is God…from the outside Nielson does appear to be God, everything is based on that.
• JG: in the absence of others, we have to fall back on Nielson.
• SF: So what now?  what can we do to keep this going.
• JM: I’m optimistic about new models of publishing and commenting and research.  I hope on the industry side people start reading these.  As more scholars start to do that, then hopefully more industry participates.
• JG: the academics need to look more as well, I had to tell some colleagues about the Writers Strike the other day.

Fan Labor

Panelists: Mark Deuze, Indiana University; Catherine Tosenberger, University of Florida; Jordan Greenhall, DivX; Elizabeth Osder, Buzznet; Raph Koster, Areae

There is growing anxiety about the way labor is compensated in Web 2.0. The accepted model — trading content in exchange for connectivity or experience — is starting to strain, particularly as the commodity culture of user-generated content confronts the gift economy which has long characterized the participatory fan cultures of the web. The incentives which work to encourage participation in some spaces are alienating other groups and many are wondering what kinds of revenue sharing should or could exist when companies turn a profit based on the unpaid labor of their consumers. What do we know now about the "architecture of participation" (to borrow Tim O’Reilly’s formulation) that we didn’t know a year ago? What have been the classic mistakes which Web 2.0 companies have made in their interactions with their customers? What do we gain by applying a theory of labor to think about the invisible work performed by fans and other consumers within the new media economy?

• Raph Koster, Areae: doing end user virtual worlds,.  This last year has been interesting to watch, livejournals, takeup or nontake up of fandom, music industry, co-option of user creation.  people realising that web2.0, or  a lot of it, built on getting stuff out of people.  there is a really complicated social content.  the line between fan and professional is a lot about luck, who is where when.  the money bit often causes the problem  Until about 1890 artists were really paid, the idea that creative content earned money for amateurs and professionals was bizarre until recently.  A lot of the issues are from looking at cultural products through a 20th century lens.
• Elizabeth Osder, Buzznet; - has communities in music and culture.  over last.  Ran communities on Yahoo etc.  I’m trying to learn about users; I want a close relationship with users to understand them, about how I can give them things they want.  I’m a product developer.  I’m not naive to the fact that these people are creating value and I want to find ways to incent I want to award people for consumption as well. I think about all the different states of users, the different points of passion, the intersect of passion and time.   We want lots of people participating at all levels.
•  Mark Deuze, Indiana University;  I started out as a journalist - I was a fan of heavy metal and I wanted to meet the bands.  I asked to get involved..I got sent to interview Black Sabbeth guitarist!  Loved it..my professional identity.  Now I interview people in the media and ask them what they do.   Many people work in the media because they are fans - the motivation not just benefits and compensation.  it is about freedom to do what they want to do.  One thing I have seen happening, the media professionals don’t really like the idea of collaborating audiences as it is seen as an impingement on their creative freedom; it is low on the professional hierarchy.   Some types work, give you better assets.   In some orgs, where they have adopted it, there are orgs that are co-opting labour.  Letting journalists go and doing citizen journalists.   Awesome but….. That validates some of the scepticism towards convergence culture in some professional orgs.  Now working with companies to innovate the process of working with fans.
• Catherine Tosenberger, University of Florida;  I wrote my dissertation on HP fandom. We are in 3rd generation of fandom scholars..when the first studies were done they were writing a lot about adult women.  There’s a lot of stereotypes about fans, the teenage fan, the virgin 40yo in his mothers basis.  The web and HP fandom grew together, you got scholorship about adult fans, and then HP came along and bought a lot of teenagers there.  Before it was restricted a lot to adults cos you had to know people, events etc and the wb allows it to be visible more so so teenagers getting involved.   it can’t be the weird hidden community anymore, it is open to all.  The culture of fandom is changing all the time. looking at the writers strike and the relationship with fans.  Fanlib wanted to capitalise on labour and not pay for it.  Also interested in fanfiction as it relates to larger artistic issues - using characters is an old thing of artists.  Fandom offers a lot of freedom that professionalism does not
• Jordan Greenhall,DivX :I’m a fan.   I’m passionate about music, helped start mps.com, DivX, now starting stage6.  focused on media experiences.   Things that are interesting is the movement in the mindset on the ways things are going in the media industry. 10 years ago I was telling them that artists would release direct they thought I was stupid, and now it has happened.  they are changing the nature of the rhetoric that is used.  Economic substructures are moving..Radiohead was significant.   Remix culture, especially multimedia.  An entirely new medium, a lot of creative energy around expression.  where are we going? how do we steer it?  The conversations are getting more practical and that is what is exciting
• Henry Jekins moderated
• HJ: so what are some of the expectations?  Social contract?
• JG: the term brand, audience and community can mean the same thing.  When you feel that someone is putting content into the community and it is artificial, then that is a breaking of the social contract.  There is also the expectation that the audience can participate.
• CT: the social contract between producers and the audience, the audience is not some monolithic mass.  Even among the participatory fans, the ones we can focus on as they are producing material, there are still a lot of groups.   They want different things; not everyone wants to give feedback  Some want to just carry on doing what they are doing and keeping the producers out.  eg slash fans, who are used to producers not catering to what they want, used to just getting done on their own.  Who are you talking about, you have to keep this in mind.  Who do you want?
• EO: when i think about this I try to break it down to what the old producer had that the fan does not.  it’s access - stars, fans, information.  The access to information has changed.  Being credible has changed - news used to be the voice of the audience, answered questions they thought the audience wanted.  Now they have access to the questions as well.  Now, when I go and interview, I ask my audiences what questions they want answering.  My obligation is to get it right, get the bands and fans close together,  create the bond and the conversation.  There’s a tremendous obligation and far more transparency about if you are doing a good job.
• RK: A key thing about how web20 functions, with UGC whatever, one of the bullet items is metadata.  Web20 does not care what you are creating but care about what you are doing and tracking it so they can sell it.  The companies invite the participation so they can measure it.  and sell it.  Understanding that the business models are premised on that is important to understanding how the platform interact with the customers.  Many do not have investment in the content.  livejournal happy to host all the slash in the world until it impacts the business model and what they can sell.   The basic premise of a facebook app is to steal the fb database, the premise of Dopplr is to steal Sabre database.  We are asking the wrong question - it should be who owns the user profile of the person who wrote the fiction.  that’s why things like Fanlib goes south and why LJ can handle it.   It boils down to whether or not they are smart about managing the clueless creators who play in their pens.
• EO: I think a lot about that.  metadata and the data is the ultimate answer to the business model is going.  but today, there’s a lot of people who wished they had that ability.  That’s the fast track.  But in the middle of it, lets talk about the vertical social networks…different things on different networks.  There is something in creating good places for people who want to share..anyone can do it.  rollout the wallpaper and decorate it to a clubhouse for things people are interested in.and you can make a buck.
• RK: many of these spaces are created by superfans, created out of love, then it hits scale and the business needs drive the agenda - an enormous bandwidth bill! 
• EO: maybe that is where authenticity lies, micromedia.  When something scales it may not be authentic.
• RK: look at Club Penguin.  dedicated to making clean entertainment to kids.  they did not think Disney was clean enough!  They donate 10% to charities.  they sold to Disney and retained their culture.
• MD: I think it is important when thinking about fan labour, the contract.  It does not really have anything to do with the net.   People have always done it.    Newspapers often say they wanted to hear more about their fans…I wrote an article that got a lot of letters to the paper, but they never followed up.  The two elements that I see are ‘leave me alone to do what I want’ but ‘acknowledge what I do’.   Professional creators want professional autonomy….do not want to work for special interests. 
• HJ: What are the expectations about renumeration?  Many fans do not want money, do not want work commodified.  What incentives are being offered?
• CT: in a lot of cases, the idea of companies providing an incentive is not the reason that fans do it.  Leave me alone but acknowledge me is common..the second you bring money in it becomes commercial.  It brings in the idea of control.  If you get paid then you are in a commercial transaction.  If you are doing it just for enjoyment and then you get paid, what are expected to get in return.  You do not have to write to a template, to what a company thinks can sell.  You can write what you want.  Control from an outside source is the perception when you bring money into it.    Fans are setting up spaces, giving each other the renumeration - attention, feedback, support, a space to play.  Always the feeling that if commercial companies join in, it tips the balance.
• EO: there’s a lot of stuff out there.  the beauty is that anyone and everyone is out there.  You have a choice where you want to be.  Ad sense is the economic engine for many.  I want to see study on what happens when fans put adsense on their sites and they try to optimise it.
• CT: it’s a long tradition to sell support, sell zines to recoup costs.  Beyond that, one of the really big rules is do not make money..it’s considered wanky. 
• EO: Revver is one idea about being able to pay creators, but not really taken off.   It was something that people were talking about.  tv.com, a bulletin board, was gobbled up but lives on.  There’s a game culture there, they get badges for doing things.  Fantasy sports is a good place to watch - they are picking teams, they get a rewards for picking the teams that work.
• CT: a lot of communities do not have winners and losers as in fantasy sports.  If media companies get involved, it can produce winners and losers as well.  there is a sense that they start to pick prom queens.
• EO :then the community should pick then
• CT: it’s difficult to gauge if that works unless you are embedded in there.  You get lots of subgroups.
• EO: how much reputations scoring is there?   In my world, we constantly count and measured.
• CT: in fandom, it is very difficult.  you can measure comments.
• RK: you can parse comments to find out what are significant.  Where we landed at is ‘don’t pay the fans’.  the currency is reputation in the community.  those running communities are not often seen as being in the comm as they are in control.  Look at earlier fandom, the gaps that existed between writers for zines, editors etc  Look at the terms of social contract, look at Dragonriders of Pern fandon -  mccaffrey gave them permission to write as long as they did not make money.  they were far more anal in enforcing the rules to keep this, as the author had given permission.  Can’t remember anything that did not go wrong when money was involved.  Look at Second Life, people go in and try to make money there and then.
• JG: you have this spectrum btw professionals and amateurs.  And another spectrum between those who are just trying to maximise economic return.  There’s some thinking that can be done about how different structures impact effectiveness.  In the music world, it was about quality,.  If you invest dollars than that will be better and therefore important..investment and quality of output was seen to be true.  If we find that adding economic value to fiction increases quality than that would be good..or ot could go the other way.  no one know s the answer.  But I agree that adding money means it will go bad.
• EO: there are other motivations
• MD: look at how companies can reward fans.  In the UK there is Scooped.  Gives money to photographers if their image is used.   Endomol recently started a new project, giving video cameras to people, which goes onto TV.  Amazon.com has reviews, my students contacted the top 20 reviewers.  8 of them said Ok - they get a lot of free stuff from publishers, they use the reviews to get an in with publishers as they are budding writers.  To get into gaming industry. the best way is to mod the games.
• RK: those aren’t the company providing the award in the latter - it is the larger ecology.  There is not the formal framework there.
• MD: I’m throwing out notions to deconstruct the idea that fans are just happy-go-lucky.  Reality tv as a genre is based on the reward syste,
• EO: we all think about it in terms of NDAs and maximises profit.  I want to think about it like a Craft Guild - you spent time and became skilled by working with others which can then become a profession.
• CT: this can still put being paid at the top of the ladder.  You can do things as a fan fiction you cannot do as a professional, many do not want to stop that.
• EO: people often do things for the love of doing it,  that’s more what I meant from a Craft guild.
• JG: there needs to be balance between economic production and cultural production.  If we do not prioritise cultural production then we have  a life of no meaning.  There is little discussion about maintaining cultural economics.
• RK: not in the copyfight communities.  It is not completely buried, but it is an artifact of last 120 years.  Most of cultural creation has not been about the economic value…
• JG: I’ll throw in religion there - the money moved to the top!
• RK: you get lots of people without money and in orgs with money it often moves to the top.  There’s always a curve and much of it is below profit line - people do production for the love of doing.
• HJ: will the creative work of fans be more important than mass media.  Will we have fandom without mass media? will fans ever buyout a creative property? (in relationship to fans buying a football club in UK)
• CT: what do you mean by mass influence?  you can do things in ff you cannot do to a mass audience.  You have to be embedded to know what is going on.  some of the great joys is that it is unpublishable.  it only makes sense in a small groups and can be very influential in that group.  There are really creative and talented people out there that could have a wider audience, and others who just produce for the small group.  Mass influence can ruin the fun
• MD:  fans are insanely powerful….(with reference to any UGC etc).  There’s few if any companies in media, news, games, that are not talking about co-creation, working with fans.  With brands they often insist…in the news industry citizen journalism is being dealt with.   In that sense fans are powerful as they are changing the way people are operating.   Fans buying own football club, then if media workers are fans, then public companies are going private again, eg Bungie.   A similar extension.  Ad industry, these huge holding firms, you get smaller firms emerging that are run by creatives in frustration at the move in power to account management. 
• RK: all of hiphop is fan movement.  that is how it started.  take it further back, see artists to create Atlantic records, examples pop up everywhere.  The new stuff, the cool new shit, does not come from the big companies as they optimise the revenue.  it comes from the fans, the small places.
• EO: the greatest thing about social media is it is the greatest A&R.  the dynamic has always been finding talents, they create something new, source content, scales it, gets mass appeal and then gets commented. There’s so much commentary now and is that going to create enough economic value?
• JG: you have to recognise that culture is the medium.  Fans only works when you are in a culture where being a fan has meaning.  Mass media enables a particular subset to be propogated very quickly.  You can have meaningful fans without mass media.
• AudQ: for much of history story telling was oral, and there were few mechanisms to pay them?  now we have micropayments, why can’t audience members who are creating great source get income?
• RK: there are 2 pieces to answer this.  The classic pattern, was about a creator who had a personal relationship with their audience.   Maybe they found a patron, but most had a far more personal relationship. The internet is giving a return to that, that is what radiohead can exploit that.   It;s not the scale it’s the connection. Mass is good at monetising scale, individual are better at monetising passion.  Bands are making more money on the swag - the passion.  If a media company is paying a blogger -the term is sockpuppet.    In games, fans start running fan sites and hit scale and then they take ads…then they start a brand and branch out.  many of the big names started out as small fan sites.
• AudQ: I want to build gender and class in the discussion.  I agree with CT that if there are going to be monetisation it needs to be from bottom up.  Hiphop was from bottom up.  Fan fiction is just as large an industry as sampling, it is developing and deepening the universes.  I want to take issue that the women do not want to monetise.  It is an stance that women have done for a long time, something counter to masculine commerce.  it is a safe space.  so what is the cost to women not being paid for their work.   women stop writing because of the economic realities.   There is a gendered aspect to this - who gets paid to remix hiphop and who does not get paid to remix fiction.  The fanlib of the world will start to monetise unless they mobilise. 
• CT: there’s along history of of this.  fanfiction is in a strange position. It is a safe space, there is freedom to write the material and I think it is most valuable.  I do not know if it can be reconciled at the moment.  I like to take it as it is,
• EO: we have this conversation in a space and a country where we have great freedoms
• RK: regency romance is one place which is a mashup, it is extremely commercial. it is not completely bleak there are spaces.
• CT: children’s publishing used to be the same.  
• [long discussion about women, gender roles, earning money]
• AudQ: there a lot of apps online that allow people to create content on sites, MTV, YT with remixer.  how does that change the creation if a user creates on a corporate site and the site owns the site and resells it.
• EO: it is the power of distribution that the corporates have.  without that, there is little value.  so stuff will not be heard of if no corporates
• RK: a lot of the sites do not do this.   the media companies are not stupid, they find other ways to monetise it.  Accommodation start being found.  some do not care, other creators will sign away different rights. 
• AudQ: in the panels this morning there was a focus on understanding who the audience is.  can you do that here? (for advertisers)
• JG: interesting in audience but only in a permissive way.
• EO: it is content - it’s part of reality
• JG: you should only be advertising things to people who want and need it.
• Eo: media companies want to inform and entertain, surprise and delight - and ads can do that
• RK: hire a fan a the ad agency!

Tags: FOE2, UGC, fan labour, fansumers