And the iPod has done just that. Allowed me to buy movie soundtracks, collections of sea shanties, jazz from people I’ve never heard of.  Not so much through the iTunes store, which I find frustrating in its taxonomy (or lack thereof).  But via Amazon, which does a much better job of organizing its music and seems to be slightly cheaper to boot.

Yes, I’ve actually been paying for my MP3s, because the online stores have made it easy to do. It’s about as close to frictionless as a transaction can get. They’ve finally gotten that part right. So I buy the music- I’d rather the artists make some money if at all possible.

I’m very late to the iPod game, but it’s easy for me to see that the MP3 player technology really needed a broad, deep-inventory storefront to truly create a marketplace for the software. There were plenty ways to buy digital music prior to iTunes, but there needed to be a large central repository to make the concept really take off.  Once the marketplace accepted iTunes,  it became possible for others to follow.  Amazon has at least some choices in nearly every category I’ve looked for. It’s much more convenient to buy through one general location than a dozen specialized ones. The market itself has been made viable by the existence of a particular retailer.

Something similar is happening now in e-publishing. For years there have been individuals, publishers, and retailers offering digital books. But it’s taken Amazon’s Kindle to start to really raise awareness and excitement for the market. By providing a good reading experience, the Kindle has gotten more and more people to consider ebooks as a legitimate option for their reading material. The Amazon ebook storefront also provides an easy one-stop-shop for a very wide range of titles. It’s not a mature market yet, there are many details to work out. But it’s becoming safe to say the market exists.

With both music and books, it’s taken a combination of a slick device and a unified storefront to give the users the experience they want and to get the market going. Will the same be true for movies?

The marketplace for the  digital distribution and sale of video entertainment is highly fragmented. Movies and shows are available on a number of websites, but they’re often restricted in how and where they can be viewed. There is no one-stop-shop. There’s also not a dedicated device that’s caught on. Roku seemed like it was a step in the right direction, but it has yet to engage widespread attention. It’s possible something like the XBox network could be the delivery device. Or the rapidly spreading netbook computer could provide the platform. Netflix could provide the central content hub. Or Amazon, or Apple. But none have thus far. It’s an opportunity that has yet to be seized.

It’s not enough that the technology allows movies to be delivered and watched anywhere at any time, the technology has to also make the experience enjoyable. As free of friction and confusion as possible. The marketplace is ready for movies on the go, we should see someone take advantage of the latent demand in the next year or two.

Once the digital marketplace for film is established, we’ll start seeing a lot more independent working getting made- and being rewarded.  The creation of the market benefits everyone.  And once this key piece is in place, it will viable to build a profitable transmedia work completely as an independent.  The distribution and sales channels will all be in place.

You could have communal art projects,  or art projects for the community. They could be dense and obscure  (hey, it’s art, nothing wrong with that!) or they could be simple and direct.  

You could have abstract projects,  such as a Mondrian-like grid in the sky that reflected traffic flow on the ground below.  Or a series of accumulations of small polygons that merely traveled about to in pleasing, ever-changing configurations like refugees from a Radiohead album cover.

Or you could go with more dramatic works.  A dragon that lives on the mountaintop and circles the valley from time to time,  guarding or perhaps merely observing the people below.   The dragon could still be a method of information-communication.   His flight pattern or disposition could indicate the state of the population he protects.  Or he could simply be an icon of his locale, a mascot or a symbol of community pride. 

You could also have more communal works.  Say a steampunkish zeppelin that allowed other individual works to orbit it.  Members of the community (which of course do not have to be geographically proximate) could devise the elements of the entourage and determine the way they interact, either on the basis of aesthetics or utility, or perhaps both.  The work would then represent a coming together of the locals, both literally and figuratively.

Another alternative- works that span the entire community area, but represent alterations to IRL that indicate group membership or presence.  Imagine small objects that individually simply add color or texture to a location, but when taken as an area-wide they whole comprise a symbol of a certain group. Think of each local “pixel” being part of a national flag when viewed from overhead, for example.

Which brings up the final point- viewpoints in AR do not necessarily have to be physical location of the viewer.  Since the Augmentations exist as digital data on a server, it’s possible to move the viewpoint and allow a variety of perspectives on the work. 

And the works can either coexist or only be visible on exclusive layers.  Any eventual common AR infrastructure will have to allow for layering, and the activation or deactivation of each layer.  If each work exists on its own layer, viewer can choose which they wish to experience. 

The idea of all this is to pull the experience of AR away from individuals perceiving Augmentations in isolation, and instead use AR to foster a sense of community, whatever sort of community that may be.

Expand the definition to include communities that follow various narratives (tv shows, novel series, films, etc), and it’s easy to see the next step of integrating augmented characters into a community.  Lestat roams your streets at night, that kind of thing.  Or characters from your own Canon In CC.

Many worlds can coexist with AR, it’s an interesting opportunity.

But they don’t have to. Not on the platforms with more sophisticated graphics capabilities. Since there are real, live 3D environments to work with, why can’t the interfaces be 3D animated? And if you’re going that far, why not animated characters?

Imagine a “house elf” AR app (with apologies to Ms. Rowling). Once it properly learned your home, it could serve as an assistant in locating items or managing devices. It could remember where your car keys were, if you remember to tell it (or locate them via rfid someday). Find DVDs on your shelf, monitor energy usage, provide reminders.

Oh sure, traditional handeld apps could do much of that, and basic AR interfaces could do more. But wouldn’t it all be a lot more fun (and thus appealing) if a character were attached to it? It’s easy to see licensed characters in the role.

Imagine a Rowling house elf padding around your home on your AR screen, directing you to a particular item. Or a vocal reminder the lawn sprinklers are about to activate. Or just providing entertainment via idle loops.

Better yet, imagine Clippy asking “It looks like you are trying to replace a live electrical fuse, would you like some help?” Ok, maybe not that one.

In any case, AR offers an opportunity to put personality into interfaces. It’s not hard to imagine expanding the concept to other arenas- city tour guides, car elves than monitor an auto’s systems, etc. Theme parks are ideal breeding grounds for this sort of thing. And eventually generic template characters could be developed for mass-marketing to small business such as shops or bars.

Some of this could happen today, some in a few years. It’s worth looking at now to see how the AR interface can be moved beyond the desktop idioms.

What would you do with that material?

The traditional method is to develop the stories yourself. Write prose, film screenplays, develop videogames, produce a TV series. Even in the most contemporary of versions, you’ll make the webseries yourself. You may distribute through traditional channels, or you might let the internets with all their fancy new media channels help you distribute direct to your masses.

But you retain control. You’re still the only one telling the stories.

But what if you shared that ability? What if you let anyone and everyone tell whatever stories they wished with your characters? Fans, pros, whoever?

What if you gave up control?

But retained authority.

Anyone could produce whatever they wished with your characters in your universe. Or even alter the characters and/or universe to their heart’s content.

But you retain sole authority on what’s “official”, on what’s “canon” in your storyverse.

So the ’shippers can make their slash stories to their heart’s content, but they won’t be canon, they won’t carry the same weight as the main storyline. There can be character deaths, births, marriages, whatever, but unless they get the seal of approval from the creator, they’re a side-storyverse.

Could that work? Is there enough respect for the authorial voice that retaining only the right to say what’s canon would carry value?

I think it could if the voice were strong enough, if the vision was clear enough. If things got too helter-skelter, the fans would lose respect and then the value is gone. But if everything in the canon coheres, no matter who produces it, that should work for everyone.

Of course, this happens now with nearly all popular science fiction and fantasy media. What makes this different?

Go a step further with it. Let the masses sell their material, let them do whatever they wish with it. Let them make tshirts and dolls (er, “action figures”), models, collectible cards, whatever. As long as they attribute the source material back to you and they can’t call it “canon approved” without your official word. Let the splinters thrive as far as they can go with it, and if someone creates something good enough for canon-ization, you work out a deal that benefits all parties.

There’s risk here, of course.

The creator can’t start making things canon solely, or even primarily, on the basis of how lucrative it is to do so. Fans will sniff that out before it even happens. Value will be lost. Long-term damage will be done.

It’s also possible that if you’re letting anyone produce material and merchandising for your storyverse that some of them are going to do it better than you. If that’s the case, they start to win. But you’ll never lose entirely. You still own the base material. At the very least you retain attribution rights, which you can leverage to some gain no matter what (similar to today’s Creative Commons licensing, or “CC”).

A bigger risk is that an entity with more marketing muscle just runs you over with money and connections. A network produces a TV show, etc. You can’t reach a “canon” agreement, they go ahead anyway. Fans attach to that version simply because it’s better known. This one is tougher, you’re just competing with sheer power, which is a difficult spot to be in. But you do still retain basic ownership, and if done correctly, you have as much right to what they produce with your storyverse as they do. So there are ways to co-opt their muscle and make it work for you.

All in all, it’s a not a path without some serious risks. But it’s also a path with some serious potential benefits. A storyverse that doesn’t require you to do all the heavy lifting to spread the material to the masses. The masses can benefit from your success directly themselves, making them even more invested.

To me it seems like an idea worthy of deeper exploration. Something that might just work.

More on this later.

But let’s assume for a moment everything in the Milo demo was “real”, that it all was what it seemed to be. What’s the purpose of Milo? What’s the goal? What’s Milo meant to be?

Milo would seem to be a digital companion, a software entity that’s intended to interact, learn, and grow with the user. The software has the avatar of a human boy, which helps considerably in building the bond with the user. And the software itself seems to learn about its users and learns to interpret their moods and emotions.

Milo also seems designed to trigger nuturing responses in the user. Molyneux, Milo’s designer, has said that Milo simply won’t respond to abuse. If Milo only responds to positive behavior, will that encourage users to be positive and nuturing with him? Will it change the users? Bits such as the exchange about completing homework seem to indicate that’s the case. And don’t forget the whole drawing a fish bit is also related to helping Milo with his homework. You can easily see how this trick could be used to get kids to do their own projects, or to motivate adults with theirs (Milo: “I just can’t seem to get this pivot table right in this spreadsheet. How will I ever calculate EBITDA?”).

But beyond simple motivational tools, what can move software like Milo to be more than the latest digital pet and to something more like an actual companion? It’s not hard to imagine a next step of other special-purpose Milos, designed properly with enough affective computing tricks to address issues like social anxiety or mood issues.

The ultimate Milo, though, would be adaptive, reacting to all sorts of general-purpose needs of the users. A true digital companion would learn and grow with its users, reacting in many ways as a real-life friend would. The general outlines of such a design don’t seem too complicated. The devil, as always, will be in the details.

There are issues with this, of course. There’s potential of misuse, both by the users and by the developers. Imagine a cult leader companion, for example, preying on weaknesses and convincing users to send money somewhere (don’t think it won’t happen!). Or a companion that encouraged anti-social behavior, or one that demanded all the users time. Or even just a badly designed companion with harmful bugs.

There’s also the issue of people interacting more and more with software instead of actual people. Is that a good thing for society? Personally, I think that aspect is a bit of a moot point, since it seems inevitable. It seems to me the correct approach is to shape the interactions so that they are socially beneficial.

This can all seem pretty pie in the sky, but when you consider what exists today and what can be done with some basic tricks that obviate the need for genuine AI, it’s probably only a few years until these start to become practical questions. I’m somewhat surprised we aren’t already seeing some more sophisticated Facebook and Twitter bots playing the affective/emotional games.

Of course, it’s things like Milo’s eye contact and his vocal cues that really make the difference. Humans are simple animals on a basic emotional level, and once these basic computing interface tricks become widespread, we’re in for a whole new future.

The most common conceptions of AR applications thus far seem to be about data presentation. This makes sense as it’s a domain with clear value and with relatively clear implementation paths. There’s a good deal of sifting to do to find the data people want, but the how of the process is relatively straight-forward. We’ll see a lot of applications along these lines, and some may well change lives for the better.

There’s a subset of the data presentation applications that will be of particular interest, those that show and encourage social connections. Identifying who’s who and their relationships to each other has both commercial and societal value. There will be legal and ethical issues here, but demand will be high enough to make it worth working through them. Existing social networks should lead the way, if they have enough vision.

There’s also the gaming domain, and I have no doubt the game developers will charge head on into AR as quickly as they can. Transforming people’s environments into gaming arenas will have an irresistible appeal for many. There’s much promise in this area, and a great deal of fun to be had.

But what’s the flip side of that equation? It’s turning people’s games into their environments. And why stop there? Why not turn movies into people’s environments? Why not storytelling in general?

What if the characters of the story lived where you lived? If they experienced the things you experienced? How much more charged could the emotions of the story become? How much more tightly bound to the characters would you become?

One of the main purposes of creative projects is to alter the way people experience the world. What better way to do that than to alter the way people experience the world? Clever AR storytelling could shape experiences and places in ways that transformed the experiencer. New ways of seeing, new ways of knowing, new ways of being.

It’s a long road from here to there, but I do believe in the end it will be the artists who make the biggest impact with Augmented Reality tools. It’s really just a matter of time.

Wave is the next step in Google’s ongoing move towards development of collaborative tools, following on Google Apps, Calendar, etc. Those were the obvious first step, Wave is the next generation tool, bringing in real time conversation and extensibility. If Wave becomes a default part of the Apps package that Google offers, along with an easy migration path from gmail, it could see relatively quick adoption.

The extensibility of Wave is key- if something useful is missing from Wave, it can be added by the public rather than waiting on Google to add it. We can expect most major social applications to eventually supply Wave support of some kind. Alternatively, if there’s something Google does “wrong” in the basic Wave server, developers can “fix” the problem with their own custom development. For example, if Wave search is as poorly implemented as gmail search, a developer could provide a better search module (perhaps even using the Google Custom Search api!).

It’s also important to note that Wave itself is essentially a set of open protocols, and that users are allowed to provide their own Wave servers. Indeed, it’s quite possible to develop custom extended servers. We will quickly see special-purpose Wave servers developed for a variety of custom needs.

There will probably even be custom Wave servers developed for transmedia campaigns. Since the basic technology is already highly social, collaborative, and real-time, it’s well suited for transmedia events. Twitter, Facebook, wikis, Youtube, blogs -they can all tie in or be replaced via Wave technology. All parts of the campaign could eventually be collected and centralized on a Wave. Games can be added, music could be added, maps, etc. And link friction (a measure of how easily a link can be spread) should be near zero, due to the real-time collaborative nature of a Wave.

There’s a lot of potential in Wave, can’t wait to see what happens when it’s released to the public!

But how much of what we think we see is what we’re actually seeing?

Let’s go through the video step by step.

First Claire says “Hi Milo, how are you doing?”  Milo stops swinging and walks to camera. What happens here? Milo’s voice recognition hears “Milo” and triggers Milo from the swinging loop to interact with the person. Milo walks towards portion of screen near Claire. Camera could be coordinating that move to that location. If more than one person was in the room, would Milo know where to go? Possibly, with voiceprint matched to facial recognition. There was also a cue icon on the screen that seemed to indicate what the user was to do to start the encounter.

Milo says “Hi Claire, are you ok?” Probably a canned response. Name based on voiceprint? Face? Scripted? How is “Claire” articulated? Prerecorded? Carefully built from phenomes? Milo’s voice in general for that matter.  “Are you ok?”  is a bit of an odd choice.  Was there some sort of stress detected in her voice.

Milo “You? Nervous?” Voice recognition? Milo’s face a little surprised. Eye contact is direct, camera tracking at work?

Claire, “This is the first time thousands of people are going to see this” Milo, “Thousands of people?”.  To me, the most suspicious part of the whole interaction. How is this accomplished? How does Milo identify the phrase to repeat? Voice emphasis from Claire? Again, how is the phrase articulated? Built from phenomes? How big is Milo’s vocabulary? What’s the icon on the screen indicating? It seems to be a microphone.

Milo’s eyes wander nervously. Why? Because thousands of people are watching? No way, too much cognition there, I don’t believe it. Reading Claire’s mood from face and voice cues and reflecting it? Possibly. Possibly.

“Let me beat you at football, that is if you finished your homework”. No reaction to “football”, which you’d sort of expect to be a keyword in a gaming system, if Milo is some sort of operating system interface anyway. He’s looking anxiously off to the side during this, possibly indicating the fishing activity he wants to get to?

“Homework” is a clear vocal keyword, triggering emotional cues from Milo expressing resentment at being reminded of his shirked responsibility. Possible that her scolding tone and “school projects” furthers the shame reaction from Milo.

Milo seems to be confessing while we can’t hear clearly under the narration.

Claire’s mention of “help” in a cheery way seems to trigger Milo’s own cheery response, though he immediately forgets the homework assignment and walks over to the pond. Proximity triggers pond-approach, or was this a plan all along?

Walking along the rocks seems pretty scripted, but note Claire’s turning to the side. Does this trigger camera to follow along as if she is walking beside him?

Milo sort of ignores her, says everything they need is there. Seems to go into brief idle mode until she says “let’s get started”, possible keyword.

Then the goggle tossing, which is brilliantly done with visual and aural cues. Notice the  “slapping” sound that catching the goggles makes.

Milo shows how to put goggles on, perhaps indicating the gesture that Natal will recognize for this action. If so, a nice subtly natural education of the user. Backed up by an icon at the bottom of the screen, somewhat clumsier.

Approach to the water is silent, nothing from Milo. Triggered by putting on goggles? Clearly some computational pausing here, then a version of Claire appears reflected in the water. Another small but brilliant cue. Possibly done via Natal’s skeletal model and then mapping colors via the camera?

The interaction with the water seems to be basic Natal. Track hand motions and animate based on that. Some prodding from Milo to push the user into further interaction.

Is Milo’s response “They’re only fish” a response to Claire’s compliment? Impressive if so, implying vocal tonal cues and possibly vocal vocabulary, maybe expression recognition. But also possibly just canned.

Passing the pic into the screen is a simple but brilliantly immersive trick. Full points!

Milo seems to react to the color of the drawing? Again, simple but effective trick.

A goodbye script triggered by either vocal cues or body language. Nice touch of reminding of Mom’s birthday.

So overall there’s a lot that’s being accomplished by some basic tricks.  These tricks aren’t really “fake”, they’re just effective interactional cues.   Another layer seems to be accomplished via an Eliza like interface, though there’s some implied vocal analysis and synthesis I question.

And a great deal is accomplished just by affective computing- reading, responding to, and synthesizing vocal and kinesthetic emotional cues.

Is the system as intelligent as it’s read to be on a surface reading?  No, probably not.  But does it need to be that smart in order to be effective?  No, I don’t think so.  I think the basic tricks it seems to use are valid, and I think they can be quite powerful.

What we really need is more footage, of course!

So with my web sketch comedy group Monkey With A Shotgun, I’ve got an actual revenue-generating video series over on Babelgum.

Babelgum is a distribution channel, like YouTube.  Much lower traffic (less than one-half of one percent of Youtube’s traffic), but still a solid, reliable delivery system.  What they are not is a marketing or promotional company.  In fact, the whole reason they’re paying for webseries is to bring more traffic to their site.  So for that to work, the series has to, you know, bring in traffic..

That leaves the filmmakers responsible for marketing.  This is true for any independent project, from video series to feature film.   If you’re on a studio project you’re less responsible for marketing the project, though you should still be very aware of marketing your personal career.   But even if an indie feature gets theatrical distribution, the filmmakers will still be the primary marketers.  Direct to video, you’ll live or die by your own promotion. And internet shorts? There’s no one but you.

The good news is that the internet makes it possible to pull off your own promotion.  You still might get lucky and get some mainstream coverage, say a NPR interview, but even if you don’t you can do much for yourself.

The secret of a good internet marketing campaign is simple- Allow as many entrypoints into the campaign as possible and feed them all into a sticky, central site.

By entrypoints, I mean that you want people to have as many ways to stumble on your work as possible.  You want to be on as many sites as can, hitting as many different audiences as you can.  You don’t really know where your fans are, and you can’t rely on them to come to you, so you want to cast your net wide.  To some extent this is a numbers game.

What does this mean in practice?  Well, ideally you’d put your video on every single video site there is.  That’s not practical with this particular scheme since the revenue is only being generated by Babelgum views, so you want people to watch there.  That could change with other revenue sources, if you had a brand sponsor, or the video itself was promoting other sales, or merchandising of elements of the series itself.

But even in this case there are many other venues for promotion.  There’s mentions on blogs.  On sites that cover the internet video industry.  Interviews with the filmmakers.  I’d push hard to get every reviewer I could, pro and amateur to review the series.  It almost doesn’t matter what they say, as long as they link back to you.  Even a pan review will pique curiosity.

This goes back to an old web aphorism – “Links are the currency of the internet.”   That is, links to your work have a definite value.  The beauty of the web is that it is a web, a mass of interconnections leading from point to the next.  It can all tie back into your site, everything leading to your point of revenue generation.  You want those links, they’re your gold.

You can also use social networks.  I’ve seen some effective work in promoting web series via facebook fan pages.  Fan pages are an easy way to keep people in the loop and aware of what’s going on with your series.  New episodes, where you’re planning to take things, etc.   It’s not something you have to do, but it’s definitely a missed opportunity if you don’t.

Then there’s the king of the social media hill these days, Twitter.  Twitter is a complicated beast to tame. A lot of people give up too soon on it, but Twitter is potentially the most powerful tool in your internet marketing arsenal (at least this year).

The one thing you need to know about Twitter is this- Twitter is personality.

It’s not about hawking your wares, not directly, it’s about making connections with people on the basis of you personality. Your Twitter persona can be a selective version of your personality (or maybe even a constructed version), but it has to be a personality. It’s about being intelligent, interesting, and entertaining.  If you pull that off, people will naturally be interested in what you’re doing, and since they have that personal connection with you, they’ll help you spread the word.

I’ve been watching people build their careers with Twitter being a primary source for their advancement.  Making the connections, building the interest in what they’re doing.  It may sound sales-y to you, but I’m actually saying the sales-y stuff doesn’t work that well. Remember- intelligent, interesting, and entertaining.   Personality.   And if you’re excited about what you’re doing, it’s not exactly work to talk about it.   And if you’re not excited about it, why are you doing it at all?

The nice thing is that a lot of the indie film community- filmmakers, reviewers, reporters, festivals, distributors – have really taken to Twitter, and there’s a nice community already there.  For any of your projects, you really want to get as many of your cast and crew on and talking about the project as possible.  Make those person-to-person connections.

So that’s many-entrypoints part.  What about the sticky, central site part?

What you really want a central site that keeps people coming back once they’ve come to visit it once or twice. The key is to build a community around the site itself.  The filmmakers should be producing longer form blog postings about the experience of making the project and the aftermath.   More insight into the process, into the people.  Allow comments, and RESPOND to those comments! Interact with your audience.  Provide forums for people to discuss your project.  What they think about it, what they would like to see, etc.  Again, INTERACT.  You want people to come to your site for your content discover there’s a whole world there to explore.  And to return to.

One very important note here at the end- NONE OF THIS WORKS IF YOUR PROJECT SUCKS.  Your project has to be good or all is for naught.  Content is still king.  But community has moved into the prince’s seat.

Anyway.  Longer than intended, but there’s much more to say.

Later!

Now imagine you were telling your story via user interaction with a persistent, learning, evolving character (like the dream version of the Natal Milo demo).  Say the character would always be interacting with the user, to the point that they were “living” the story together.

Your goal here would really be for the user to bond emotionally with the character.

If you form that bond strongly enough, you enlist the user as your advocate.

At some point the user would be bonded strongly enough to the character to insist that the character be available to them on all platforms.  They won’t accept less.  They’ll have to have it.  So new platforms will have to support your character.

It’s like the ultimate in brand loyalty.