Topic: Entertainment
The Know Your Meme team gives this fast-tempo and seamless presentation of Know Your Meme as an important node of internet culture and folklore. Comparing themselves to American musicologist and folklorist John Lomax, they delineate the issues of internet meme-recording: even where you might think there's too much information, you still don't have any guarantee that it will be there forever.
Dr. Moira Gunn talks with Pulitzer Prize winning author and New York Times journalist, Matt Richtel about his new thriller, Devil's Plaything, where he marries an exquisite nightmare with true science.
Ray Kurzweil has spent most of his life imagining what the future might be like, and then inventing it. In this keynote from 2010, Kurzweil shares his vision of the future with Tim O'Reilly, founder and CEO of O'Reilly Media. The interview begins with a discussion about the Blio, the future of digital publishing, and finally the Singularity. This interview precedes the September 2010 release of the Blio, a TTS-enabled, full-color, web-enabled eReader.
"Cutting through the hype," game designer and social architecture expert Amy Jo Kim breaks down the process of creating games. She presents 'gamification' and game design with target audiences in mind. The underlying goal, she stresses, is to know your audience and meet it's desires in terms of technology, fun, and trends. Whether your are a game designer or game player, you'll enjoy learning core principles of game design.
eReaders are big. And so is social media. How about an eReader platform with a social component. Copia is an eReading platform, a book store and a means to connect to people with similar reading tastes. You can choose the books you want to read, and discuss them with others on Copia. It's like a book club without the real-life commitment. In this presentation, Anthony Antolino explains this new foray into online social marketing from DMC, the company that popularized the digital watch and the hand-held calculator.
Digital distribution is here to stay, and Hollywood knows it. While studios experiment with new distribution models, talent agencies are capitalizing on a new world where content is king. In this interview, Ari Emanuel, Co-CEO of one of the largest talent agencies in the world, talks about representing the current generation of entertainment talent, and the connection between content creators, the influencers who promote content, and distribution through social networks.
Opposite Google, Facebook and Twitter, there is Gowalla--a location-based service that sits on top of its bigger, more established internet cousins. Gowalla's proposition, using collectible virtual goods and digital souvenirs, helps the relatively young location-based social networking service carve a unique name. In this Where 2.0 episode, CEO and co-founder Josh Williams talks about the beginnings of his company. Gowalla encourages its users to travel and explore the world...outside of cyberspace that is.
From podcast to hardcover bestseller. Scott Sigler surprised the publishing world in 2007 when his book, Ancestor, released by small publisher Dragon Moon Press, appeared on the Amazon bestseller list. It was already available on line as a free serialized podcast, where it had gained 10,000 fans. In fact, all of his work is available free, but fans still buy. In this talk, he chronicles the publishing of his fourth book, The Rookie, a sci-fi football story, and the possibilities for authors who maintain an on-line following.
On foursquare's first birthday, 200 people in a Chicago bar called founder Dennis Crowley via Skype to sing. They all earned their swarm patches that night. In a year, 750,000 users signed up, made 22 million check-ins, and convinced 1400 venues to offer foursquare specials. Mom-and-pop venues have had their very first peek at their own marketing analytics through foursquare. People use it to find the biggest party in town. Here, Dennis Crowley talks about the foursquare phenomenon, one year in.
Paul Fenwick takes us through a humorous journey of bad inventions from bygone eras. They are cautionary tales with a plea for inventors not to screw up. He talks about asthma cigarettes, cocaine toothache drops for children, the Tempest prognosticator, and blood fueled devices. In the world of bad inventions, toys take center stage, with Cabbage Patch Doll "snack-time kid" which grinds its plastic food into dust along with other unintended food.
