Transmedia concepts dan_biddle_bbc_sept11

Editor's Notes

• #3: There’s a lot of platforms, a lot of tools, a lot of communities. The temptation to throw everything at the wall and try to be everything, everywhere… But to manage multiple platform offers is to divide your attention, often double up your message, or dilute it. Opportunity is like noise. You have to filter it out to make sense of it.
• #5: 90% of users are the “audience”, or lurkers. The people tend to read or observe, but don’t actively contribute. 9% of users are “editors”, sometimes sometimes modifying content or adding to an existing thread, but rarely create content from scratch. 1% of users are “creators”, driving large amounts of the social group’s activity. Important to consider with any social networking activity. You should include something for everyone. Facebook has its most basic like button. MoonZoo has the very simplest of entry-level engagements – drawing circles around craters and lumps. You can get a lot deeper than that – evaluating shadow, highlighting debris, messageboards etc. But at its basic level a person can get involved. So to your social media activity should consider the 90% of lurkers as well as the 10% of workers.
• #6: Talking of television… Digital Revolution wanted to tap into the new, enabled audience to create the BBC’s first open source documentary. About the World Wide Web. Tim Berners-Lee. The CERN web memo – Tim Berners-Lee’s boss wrote on it ‘Vague but Exciting’. That’s a good way to describe the early days of the Virtual Revolution project. Series about the immense changes the web has brought – the democratisation of communication, information and broadcast – without doubt a disruption to the old world order. Maybe not actually toppling governments – cf Malcolm Gladwell in the New Yorker – but BILL THOMPSON said – it hasn’t stopped us killing each other, but it has made it harder to get away with it. There was no history to the production. It didn’t exist in the public conscious. We had to build the brand from the ground up. So we had to use the web. We had to get the web involved. To add value to the programme. We used:
• #7: This was our home during our BETA period. All we had to start with was theory and we wanted to get that out there and active without delay. We used the blog to put forward our developing production’s ideas / themes and theories Great Levelling? theory From pioneers to Tim Berners-Lee to today’s masters – Jimmy Wales, Steve Wozniac et al. And this was where we let guest contributors reply – Jimmy Wales, Feargal Sharkey, Nicholas Carr, Andrew Keane… And of course this was the main place the users replied with their thoughts, ideas for the series, the stories we should tell. More women – Marissa Mayer was suggested and found Stories about hidden secret servers to control the Net Namestorming for the series title Checking facts – whether graphics sequences were making sense…
• #8: Twitter was invaluable for: a quick spread of the message (although gathering followers took time) Quick questions – phatic interactions – a human voice Sharing links / getting things spread Namestorm – what would the series eventually be called VITAL to the conversation around TX of programmes Tweeting at the BAFTAS was a bonus  Maintaining a sense of fun and activity – this production was alive and constantly in a state of conversation and discovery Hashtag games, little memes
• #9: From the very beginning we knew we wanted to allow as much access as possible Even considered open Google docs for scripts, shoot schedules etc. But there was a limit to how much we could throw online. But all the programme teams did their research on the web and we tagged and saved all of that data according to episode and topic. This allowed a greater transparency but also allowed us to create our taxonomy tag-based 3D Documentary explorer. Of which more later… It’s also an outstanding research resource in itself, if you build a network of trusted / interesting friends across delicious it’s very much the kind of human search and discovery tool that Twitter is now heralded to be, only with far greater search functionality!
• #10: We used Flickr in two ways: 1 – an attempt to create a group for people to add abstract images that they felt represented the Web - thewebis… 2 – far more effective: presenter Aleks Krotoski was able to take and upload nearly 600 images across the course of the series development and production. Not only did this provide valuable visual content in a very word and theory heavy process, but people could see behind the scenes and comment on the process as it unfolded in this pictorial diary.
• #11: We used youtube in two ways: 1 – to spread our clips 2 – to bring in clips from users – in the same vein as the Flickr group. These ranged from the poignant to the downright bizarre We also accepted submissions for competition through YouTube
• #12: We let users watch and download our rushes from the production teams. Users had access to the series content before we’d even gone into edit. We ran a competition to inspire people to use them. This proved essential to motivate the uptake and use of these rushes.
• #13: 3D Explorer – incredible, if a little clunky. Thanks to the web research taxonomy created by the Delicious social bookmarking disciline we were able to attribute and create an actively linked narrative through the programmes.
• #14: BBC Dig Rev #tag The first programme to ever display a hashtag on screen (UK) This represented a sort of in-joke. If you know Twitter (as many of our audience was likely to), then you’d know what this meant – you’d know to tag your tweets #bbcrevolution. If you didn’t – no harm. You weren’t on Twitter anyway, so you weren’t likely to be participating.
• #15: The Code – 3 part 1hr docs on mathematics Massive multiplatform ambition – transmedia puzzles deep-integrated into the programme, web and real world. Aim – to make mathematics more exciting, interesting, accessible; to create a buzz around the programme BBC worked with Open University and Transmedia specialist agency Six To Start (Perplex City, We Tell Stories…) Blog had maths puzzles Facebook Prime number image search – 305 primes – provided a challenge, a group activity and, ultimately a clue for the puzzle Twitter was the games master, a cheerleader, a point of comment and reply for the transmedia production
• #16: 4 embeddable mathematical flash games Every show had a game released synchronously. Each game revealed another clue to the puzzle
• #17: 3 code breakers Clues everywhere – onscreen, in trailers, blip idents, in the games, on the site, on Open University pamphlets… Final booklet for those who cracked the code that far 84 pages of puzzles!
• #18: Wiki – created independently by fans working collaboratively to solve the puzzles – some of which could only be solved by group work
• #19: The Facebook page The unofficial facebook page The wiki page 800 unique postcards sent out to individuals to share and they uploaded them These images eventually were realised to be segments and clues to the eventual prize. Which one clever guy even worked out and created a computer simulation of it. He was BLOODY close!
• #20: Being Human: began with a pilot and a blog. Fans’ activity built a groundswell of commissioning support. Blog now gets 1000s of comments. Facebook and Twitter very active. The live event for season 2. Live action – Secret Cinema style The key to the transmedia success – an established mythology deep-seated in users’ psyches. Werewolf, Vampire, Ghost – all eaily understood – the universe is established enough to then play with and allow fans to indulge and explore. New dramas, new fictions – especially those that seek to create NEW universes (aka storyworlds) have a much harder job to break into the imaginations and HEARTS of the audience.
• #21: A spin-off from a character in the 3 rd series 8 part, 7 min webisodes / mystery all based on the blog. 10,000s comments Helmed by community managers with a stock of content to eke out the mystery, throw red herrings, reward puzzle-solving…
• #22: Massive online proposition. BBC site hub, Flash games, mysteries and extra narratives, complemented by off bbc.co.uk web expansion – hidden sites, dispersed mystery. Benefits to this project – 100% buy in by psychoville writers and talent. Established reputation of the League of Gentlemen team. Audience of passionate geeks.
• #23: Being on the second screen that users are increasingly splitting attention with. Expanding the brand and engagement with fan activity. Tapping into the fun and the audience’s behaviour. Million Pound Drop is the absolute pinnacle of this kind of transmedia / 2screen cross-over to date.
• #24: Call and response transmedia. Breaking the fourth wall. Engaging with engagement across platforms – Twitter, YouTube, Facebook, blog…
• #25: Web chats in character
• #26: BBC has done location-centric work; audio walks; tagging FourSquare locations with contextual content; QR codes are often discussed as a new opportunity – so far we’ve used them on screen and pamphlets.
• #27: Channel Four transmedia innovation. A bold interactive observational docu-drama that didn’t quite work. ‘ I sat at home last Wednesday, watching my TV with my laptop, watching someone else reading about themselves on a laptop, whilst thousands of other people were doing the same. This is the world we’re in now, and Seven Days is an innovative and ambitious attempt to represent this world. Like Big Brother 10 years ago, it’s probably not right yet, but it does feel like the first step on a very interesting journey. ‘ Matt Locke C4 Source - http://test.org.uk/2010/10/06/life-inside-seven-days/ XFactor does similar connection. Again with the limbic resonance. Again a brand atuning to the conversation around its activity and realising there’s MORE activity it can share and engage with.
• #29: Misfits Twitter accounts – in character, expanding narrative and characters, engaging with audiences – staying within canon.
• #30: Twitter is being heralded as the saviour of appointment to view TV. The interactions with the live TX are about the only thing that will defend an authoritative release date against on-demand.
• #31: Like Dr Coop from Nurse Jackie a few years earlier. These fictional accounts attract up to 150K followers; the @GleeonFox is just shy of 500K. Of course many more can be watching and lurking on the hashtag #glee – That magic 90% of the social media engagement pyramid - still watching, still engaging, just not producing extra content themselves. BUT note that Facebook’s Glee page has 11MILLION fans!!!
• #32: When planning a social media campaign, consider the necessary presence of the following: Resource – YOUR TEAM – do you have the staff resource, the staff skills (community management, platform know-how, storytelling, copywriting, brand understanding?)
• #33: Audience – WHO WILL YOU BE REACHING? Build it they will come only works if there are people already waiting to engage. Check that your brand, your programme has some conversation on that platform before launching headlong into a campaign on it, where you spend far more time on user acquisition than you do on creativity and real engagement. Outreach will be vital. 60% content; 40% marketing and UA.
• #34: Awesome – CONTENT THAT PEOPLE LOVE – be it just being responsive to complaints / questions that people will recognise, respect and tell their friends about positively, right through to tremendous content – video, images, questions, challenges, real world cross-over. Prof Henry Jenkins – if it doesn’t spread it’s dead. Viral is an inappropriate term – viruses spread without users’ knowledge or permission – content only spreads by action, by sharing, by user choice. If people don’t want everyone else they know to see your video / hear your story / play that game on your site then you’re not doing it right.
• #35: All this is necessary to success. PLUS TIME. Time is vital.