Fourth Story Media

On the heels of Forbes’ proclamation that Hipsters (or “walking dollar bills”) will save the economy, Burger King is promoting its latest hipster-kid candy – Burger King Studio.

Part art gallery, park think-tank, with a dash of mad scientist’s experiments thrown in for good measure.

The physical studio (replete with skate park) is in Chicago, while the online studio has a blog with emerging artist interviews and profiles, and a store where users can customize sneakers and tees.

In a similar vein, Urban Outfitters announced last week that they are opening Space 15 Twenty this Friday, November 21st, in Los Angeles. Trendcentral is describing the space as “Part shopping mall, part gallery, part event space, part community gathering spot:”

Not just a hipster mall, the retail space will also serve as a community gathering place. Surrounding each retailer is a courtyard which will be utilized for both commerce and performances. Space 15 Twenty will be supporting local art schools, museums, radio stations, and businesses, including Art Center, MOCA, KCRW and Amoeba Records, and will be highlighting content from these sources. The courtyard space will also host flea markets and live events such as concerts, art shows, and film series. In addition, a permanent gallery space will host difference collections ranging from fashion and photography to paintings and independently-published books.

UPDATE: Kitsune Noir has posted a bunch of pictures from the just opened Space 15 Twenty!

I had the honor and privilege last week of speaking at a cross-media conference for Dutch publishers.  The conference was run by inCT, a magazine, website and publishing company focusing on technology innovation within the publishing industry.

It was a blast.

For starters, the conference was held in Utrecht, which should translate into “heaven.”   Not only is it filled with cobblestone streets, picaresque canals, divine cafes and a community that bikes everywhere, but this is the statue in the center of the village.

The conference featured a variety of cross-media projects including a documentary filmmaker who was using Google Earth to extend the film’s exploration of the history of the Netherlands, and an executive from MTV Europe who discussed a TV/online property for kids.

I met some wonderful people, all exploring interesting ways to merge print and online media.  Piero Stanco, who runs Kluitman, a successful children’s publishing company based in The Netherlands, particularly impressed me.

Unlike many other children’s publishers who create sites for multiple users, Kluitman decided to devote most of its site to children. As a result, it is chock full of great games, activities, and book-related information for kids. Piero is a true visionary; I look forward to watching how he evolves his Internet business.

One of the most interesting people at the conference was David Huijzer, the man who ran it.  A dynamic entrepreneur, David is passionate about publishing, digital technology, and the great dialogue taking place between them.

I urge everyone to check out his site, brush up on your Dutch (or use google translate), and get inspired by David and his vision for a digital publishing future.

And if you are ever in the neighborhood, make a side trip to Utrecht—you won’t want to leave.

On Teens Today has a great post about The Mashup Syndrome:

Mashup Syndrome n. A disease often specific to millennials where they have the constant urge to take-apart, change and combine separate ideas into one.

From IKEA hacks to DIY fashion to Lipdubs to Video remixes to album sampling, teens love to interact with and redesign the content they consume.

So why not in publishing? Why not let kids help tell and retell the story?

(via Next Great Thing)

A few weeks ago, I wrote an article for Publishing Trends about my obsessive love for Google in general, and my somewhat tempered love for my new T-Mobile/Android phone.

For now, one of my favorite party trick apps is the barcode scanner. Hold the phone over a barcode and in a few seconds you get a picture of the product, user reviews, best online prices with links to buy, and local stores with directions on how to get there. It works less well with random items (it told me my US Weekly was a pair of Ralph Lauren boxer shorts, and that my Aquafina was Fuse water), but with books it’s a thing of beauty. Which made me wonder why Google didn’t bother optimizing Google Books for Android…

Teleread responded that it’s “time for Google to be thinking about a reflowable format like ePub,” and that FBReader is already gearing up for the GPhone.

Now Google’s Booksearch blog is noting that Barcode Scanner (one of the three main scanner apps – I downloaded ShopSavvy) allows you to instantly search the contents of books through Google Book Search as soon as you scan it.

For students, this could be an easy way to locate that critical passage that the professor was talking about in lecture. Or if you’re browsing through the shelves of a bookstore, you could use this application to easily determine whether a book contains the information you’re looking for.

So far I’ve mainly been using ShopSavvy to save my bookstore browsings to a wishlist (rather than writing the titles up the inside of my arm), but I’m interested to try this. However, with it I fear that my last real world search capabilities will finally die out.  Oh well.

Katalyst Media (Ashton Kutcher’s company responsible for shows like Beauty & the Geek and Punk’d) recently announced that their latest project, Blah Girls, will be distributed by MySpace TV. The short webisodes, that run anywhere from 45 seconds to 2 minutes, feature the adventures of three gossip queen teenagers – Tiffany, Britney and Krystle.

The shows are a little South Park, a little Powerpuff Girls, a little random YouTube meme. The first show I watched featured the trio crashing a sweet 16 party they weren’t invited to only to discover it was lame until a photo-real Miley Cyrus floated in on a unicorn to spice things up.

The webisodes have generated pretty paltry traffic so far on MySpace – garnering on average between 700 and 1,300 views – with the most popular hitting 16,000 +. For now the comments are fairly negative (with users especially slamming blatent product placement for companies like Vitamin Water).

It will be interesting to watch how the show grows. Although internet video is huge, made for web TV series from major producers – like Michael Eisner’s Prom Queen and The Burg – have yet to take off in any serious way.

Fred on the other hand…

(via Tech Crunch)

Rubicon Consulting recently conducted a broad survey of US web users and found that about 80% of user-generated content online is produced by about 9% of users. 65% are passive readers that contribute only about 20% of the content. And 9% are “pure lurkers” who never contribute any content.

The most frequent contributors?

• Younger than typical web users. Half of the web’s most frequent contributors are under age 22.
• More ethnically diverse
• More technically skilled
• More likely to be single
• More likely to work in technology, entertainment, or communication companies
• More likely to be Democrats

(via Media Post, registration req.)

The internet is all aflutter with today’s historic election:

• Almost 2 million people have declared they’ve voted on Facebook, and YPulse is reporting that as of this morning over 1.2 million of them have donated their Facebook status to one of the candidates
• Facebook is also providing polling location information to all of its users
• Twitter, along with Setfive Consulting, is parsing tweets to see if users are supporting one candidate over another, and live mapping the results
• Seth Godin comments that stories are what really matter
  
• The New York Times has some amazing graphics like “Your State of Mind on Election Day” and What to Watch for Tonight
• A number of sites are calling for voters to take pictures and videos of their voting experiences. For the Times, send your pictures as an attachment to caucuspix@gmail.com, or post them on Flickr with the tags “newyorktimes” and “electionday”

If you’re in New York, and looking for a place to watch the results come in tonight,  there are plenty of places to go.

Happy Election Day!

Zelfi, a German mobile gaming start-up, recently released JOYity - a new app for Google’s Android that “let[s] you play games and go on adventures based on your location in the real world.” They’re referring to the interaction as “Massively Multi-Player Trans Reality Games” (MMTR) versus “Massively Multi-Player Online Games” (MMO) since, as JOYity puts it, “There is no save key or a reset button in the game. You are in the middle of what is going on, and you have to get along with anything because you are not alone in the game!”

When you download the app you can play one of three games (YouCatch, Roads of San Francisco, City Race Munich) or design your own. In Roads of San Francisco, for instance, you have to go around the city picking up clues. When you get to a destination, a text or picture message tells you where to go next. It is a Scavenger Hunt with a story line. You can also design your own Scavenger Hunt games and play them with large groups of people.

Another game that comes with JOYity, YouCatch, is a version of Manhunt. Players in the same city sign up for a game. Everyone acts as both hunter and hunted at the same time. The game assigns you a player that you are hunting, while assigning you to someone else as a victim. Everyone’s location is periodically flashed on the map. When you get within 25 feet of your victim, you press the scrollball on the phone for the kill. But every time you press the button, your location is shown to all the other players as well. The last person standing wins.

The games remind me of Pac Manhattan as well as Rhizome’s QueRy This. Great to see it becoming a bit more mainstream.

(via Tech Crunch)

Jason Santa Maria showed me this awesome new iphone application.

From MacWorld: When you first launch Classics, the interface looks like a bookcase with the book covers facing you. You can double-tap on a book to begin reading it or tap and drag to rearrange the books.

Classics features animated page turns and sound effects, so you get the feeling of actually reading a book. Swiping your finger to left advances the page and going right turns the page back. The interface also includes a home button and a button to list the chapters of book.

If you are reading a book and exit the application, a visual bookmark is placed on the page where you exited, making it easy to pick up where you left off.

Just take a book off the shelf and settle down for a nice quiet read…

No longer limited to catch phrases and mini alligators, 2d code is reporting that the world’s first multimedia novel as a t-shirt has just been published:

“Winksite have teamed up with author Alexander Besher to publish his latest novel “The Manga Man”, not as a book but as a T-shirt . The “Manga Man” T-shirt (photo below) displays a QR Code that links to a mobile site from which a prospective reader can display the narrative directly. There is much more to this than appears at first sight and you can read more on Winksite CEO David Harper’s blog.”

Although the design and tag line are a bit lacking (what is that climbing thing? “sayonara you’re about to be digitized”???), I love the idea of using QR codes in innovative ways. Especially in support of a larger narrative.

Check out 2d’s site to find out more.