Hugh Garry

SXSW: 6 Webcomic Interfaces

One of the final panels of SXSW talked about how the Comic Book industry is using online tools to rethink the medium and the meaning of "graphic novels". I thought I'd share some of the user interfaces talked about ranging from simple panel-per-page ones through to some really experimental deep zoom like comics.

1. Diesel Sweeties

Diesel Sweeties is a webcomic and newspaper comic strip written by Richard Stevens III. The comic was originally hosted at robotstories.com and later picked up for newspaper syndication in 2007. It's now available on the iPhone

2. Watchmen - Motion Comic

Motion comics take the traditional comic panels and play them in a Quick Time player with audio. It's less like a slide show of original comic panels and more of the comic book “brought to life” with rudimentary animation techniques.

3. Shadows Never Sleep - Explore the art.

Shadows Never Sleep allows the user to zoom in and out of the story, exploring the art and narrative at will in an really innovative way.

 

4. Balance and Grace - Scan and Flipping

Linear story telling using virtual page flipping techniques. More often than not these are simply scanned comics.

5. about DIGITAL COMICS on deviantART

What I love about this is the simplicity of the idea. It's a one panel comic inwhich elements of the panel remain the same as the changing parts of the story move around. 

6. The Zoom Quilt II - Deep zoom

Surreal art project with over 80 images laid on top of of each other to create an amazing deep zoom effect.

SXSW: Chris Anderson on 'The Power of Free'

The final keynote of SXSW09 saw Alltop founder Guy Kawasaki sit down with Wired Magazine editor Chris Anderson to discuss the power of ‘Free’. Following the Sarah Lacey debacle last year Kawasaki was brilliant in extracting some interesting insights into financing models for the 21st century. 

Anderson talked through a range of subjects including the power of 'freemium', publishers facing the some problems as record companies and what China can teach us about capitalism. Quoting French mathematician Joseph Louis François Bertrand, Anderson claimed that in times of recession market prices naturally gravitate toward margin price and the internet is a massive driver in making this happen.

On his book?

“The digital forms with marginal costs should be free. Free is the best way to maximize your reach. If you believe in physical books people will buy the books, even if it’s for someone else.”

“I reserved the audio book rights to myself.”

“Writers and publishing companies might have a similar relationship in future to what is happening in the music industry with record labels and artists.”

“Each one of us has to figure out our own way to convert our reputation into money.”

“It is easier to achieve popularity than to monetize popularity?”

On free models

“Free will be the predominant pricing model in the future.”

“Twentieth century free meant you were going to pay sooner or later e.g. buy one get one free.”

“Twenty first century is really free. It’s based on the economy where they more you sell the cheaper it gets. It’s really free because the costs are close to zero.”

“If you can convert 5% of your users to pay then you’ve covered your cost. Everything else is profit.”

“Thanks to the internet  this is the first truly competitive market in history and first market where the price is falling to the marginal cost.”

“Barriers to entry in digital economy are so cheap. Free becomes the natural price for things.”

“Online video games are the best example of fermium users. They let you play the games then charge you for various bits you want to add.”

"Once you install a price you find out how much "stickiness" there is.”

“Paper still matters. Some paper adds value to the internet.”

On Piracy

“The music industry is fine apart from one small part of it, the sale of recorded music.”

“If you do not make your product free piracy will do it for you.”

“Don’t expect to make money off your CD. Monetize the celebrity you make from the piracy.”

“Chinese pop stars make money, not off music sales but from making personal appearances, starring in advertisements, etc.”

“What can we learn from China? Ironically China will teach us capitalism.”

Trusting Free

“In the physical world people might be suspicious of free. In the digital world people aren’t.”

"In the digital space waste is a good thing because it has zero cost. You don't think less of Google because it's free.

“Your expectation of free is based on your last interaction with it.”

“Open-source is free as in kittens: you have to look after them. A lot of the free stuff we have is because we support it communally.”

“New York is driven by institutions, San Francisco isn't driven by institutions, it’s driven by individuals. Driving start-ups. People don't seem as threatened as in New York.”

SXSW: What We Can Learn From Games

This was one of the best sessions of the conference so far. Partly because all three men know their stuff, and secondly, they were having a real conversation. Someone on Twitter described it as like watching a jazz trio on stage such was the meandering flow of the conversation.

Experts on stage, including Henry Jenkins (MIT), James Gee (Arizona State University) and Warren Spector (Disney Interactive Studios), talked about game design, learning theories, collective intelligence, transmedia entertainment, and the value of play in a participatory culture.

Rather than trying to summarize the session I thought I'd post some of the best quotes from the panelists. Apologies for not attributing them to each speaker but my note taking is isn't the fastest.

Quotes

"Games are forcing us to depend on others for strategy and problem solving."

"What we are learning in games is to work together. Schools only recognize individual learning. Collaboration is cheating."

"Games have taught a generation that failure is not bad and collaboration is not cheating."

"The truth that dare not be spoken: Games are work. Masking the work is something games do really well."

"Games force you to think about choice and consequence in a different way."

"I wish we taught science to kids not by saying ‘memorise this stuff’ but by saying ‘model this stuff’."

"When I first started playing games, I did what boomers do, I tried same thing 300 times until my six year old said, 'Why not try something else?'"

"We can’t put games in the classroom until we change the school system dramatically."

"Games are forcing us to depend on others for strategy and problem solving."

"Games change the world like books do, by exciting our imaginations and causing us to seek out others to discuss them."

"My first bit of advice (on how to build games in social spaces) is to hire some female game designers."

"The best games think about who they are."

"A new high school in NY was designed by game designers. Classes are based on games where students collaborate."

"Until we expect responsibility for learning to be on students at school, games will be seen only as a distraction at school."

"Most successful games ask players to learn about themselves. The game lives more internally than in the platform. "

"Lost makes sure that we don't all watch the same program, despite the linear nature of TV. With Lost we change our culture to design for ourselves what is the truth behind the island."

"New games are tapping the emotional intelligence of their communities."

I"nteractive narrative is not story telling. It’s about letting you play. That way and see the consequences. It's not about telling you how the world is, it's about giving you a setting & letting you play things out. That’s how you learn."

"Games present really hard problems and suck the players in."

SXSW: Dumb People Make Wise Crowds

People are often dumb, so how can crowds be wise? James Surowiecki laid the groundwork in his book, "The Wisdom of Crowds." In this solo presentation, Derek Powazek talks about creating the perfect environment for crowdsourcing wisdom.

For the first part of this session Derek went through the well told story of Francis Galton’s cow guessing contest from James Surowiecki’s book and laid out the 4 elelments of a ‘wise crowd’

The 4 elements of 'wise crowds':

1. Diversity. A group with many different points of view will make better decisions than one where everyone knows the same information.

2. Independence. People's opinions are not determined by those around them.

3. Decentralization. Power removed from one central location. Important decisions are made by individuals based on their own local and specific knowledge.

4. Aggregation. A way of pulling together all the views of the group into one shared vision.

Looking at these 4 elements of wise crowds Derek Powazek thought about them in the context of the web and came up with the following rules designing for Wisdom of Crowds. 

1. Small simple tasks: Make it easy for your audience. A comment form is an open petri dish where anything can grow (for example dumb Youtube comments) however a very simple ‘Hor or Not’ will gather the wisdom accurately because of the simplicity of the task

2. Large diverse groups: Groupthing is what happens when participants put the priority of the group first. Design your groups so that they encourage a diverse selection to join. A great example of this was the Chevy Tahoe campaign. No one spoke out or said inviting the audience to create ads for a petrol guzzling 4x4 was a bad idea through fear or repercussion. The results weren’t pretty. Members of a large diverse would have because they had no vested interest in keeping everyone in the group happy.
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3. Design for selfishness: People don’t participate unless they are getting something for it. Design for people’s selfish motivation or you will only get bad or no participation. A good example of this is the banner on Threadless which says “Submit an idea for Fame, Friends and $2500”.

4. Result aggregation: Aggregate the data without turning it into a game?  Once you display in a list that is voted for it becomes a game. When it turns into a game or contest it gets messy because people look for ways of hyping. Digg is playable. Favrd is a good example of how to aggregate in a non-playable way. It simply monitors ‘Favourites’ from Twitter.

The session got really interesting towards the end when he talked about 2 really fascinating experiments that demonstrated how important design was in creating a Wisdom of Crowds environment on the web. The first was based around colour. There was an advert for a camera place on blue and red backgrounds. When asked about the blue background ad people talked about the image in a more creative way whilst the people who saw the red advert talked in more detail. The reason being that blue is a soothing colour which creates a relaxing environment for users. We associate red with danger, as a result people become more alert noticing more detail for fear of messing up.

Our brains are good at taking diverse feedback – this is how we understand the world. If you takeaway some of the input our brains work twice as hard to fill in the gaps.

In the second experiment there were two groups who were asked sets of questions. The ‘in control' group were always made to feel their answers were right. The ‘out of control’ were made to feel like everything they answered was wrong. The groups were then shown photos of nothing but a cloud.

What happened next was remarkable. The ‘in control’ group found nothing in the picture. However the ‘out of control’ group found something in the picture other than the cloud. We fill in those blanks as a by-product of our insecurities. When you feel out of control, you make up stories that don't have anything to do with what you're being shown.

When you feel out of control the sense of insecurity and fear forces you to question things more, your senses are sharpened and you look for answers resulting in you making stuff up. They then went back to the ‘out of control’ group and asked them to tell a story about something they felt passionate about. After they spoke for a while about something they felt good about, their pet dog for example, they were shown the images again yet saw nothing.

These two experiments tell us a lot about how important getting the design for Wisdom of Crowds is. Colour, information and layout play a big part in preparing your crowd for providing wise data.

Design for the Wisdom of Crowds by Derek Powazek

View more presentations from Derek Powazek.

SXSW: Mapping the Future (and Past)

The simplicity of mashing date with maps has seen them popping up all over the place recently leading to "Google Map fatigue" amonst many of us.  This was a great session on how we can continue to be creative and innovate around map design. The panel looked at how we move beyond the simple pin-dropping style and demoed a compelling range of mapping innovations. Typically Michal Migurski from Stamen had all the best tricks up his sleeve.

One of the most interesting areas of discussion was around how we can deal with changes to location on maps over a period of time. Migurski showed off the London 2012 Olympic Map that he’s been working on. He dealt with the problem of mapping an area that will change dramatically due to construction by adding a timeline at the bottom. Dragging the timeline will show the stadium as it is being built with photos as and when they are added. Viewing the map in 2012 and and dragging the timeline back will show the stadium being 'unbuilt'.

There was also a really nice map on mysociety.org showing 20km round the BBC Television Centre. By adjusting the sliders you can see areas within varying travel times to work mashed with varying house prices then merged into zones in a way that you could never do with a load of pins. The dragging of the sliders and the merging of zones was a strangely pleasant experience when compared to many of the maps we see today.

I really liked the areyousafeatlanta.com iPhone app for it's simplicity. The app lets you see how safe you are at all times based on your location within the city. A quick tap displays a threat meter of your safety level along with hyperlocal crime data broken down by type. Great for getting up to the minute crime data (updated dynamically) visualised in a really simple but effective way. What I also like about this, which wasn't really mentioned is that it mashed location and data without actually displaying it on anything that resembles a map. I'm sure that you can but threat meter is cool alternative.

If you want more examples of maps discussed in this session you can find them all tagged sxsw+neocartology on delicious.

SXSW: Zappos Do Epic S**T

Yesterday I went to a panel on ‘being interesting’, an hour long conversation that could be summed up in one simple sentence, ‘Do epic shit and people will like you'. It’s not a new idea yet it still astounds me how brands just have not got it yet.

Today Tony Hsieh, a CEO that certainly does get it, delivered a keynote on how he has fostered a culture at Zappos.com whereby extraordinary customer service is the norm. Zappos is an online clothing store that doesn’t do advertising. No banner ads, no magazine ads, no TV ads, just $1 billion sales per year based on word of mouth and repeat customers.

He talked about how “good deeds can help you leverage the power of your audience to massively extend your brand”... Or in other words, he does epic shit.

To give you an example of Zappos ‘epic shit’ here are a few notes.

• To ensure that the people he hired want to be a part of the Zappos culture, he offers every new employee after training $2,000 to quit. Only 3% take the money.
• Shipping is free both ways with a 365 days per year return policy.
• With a free shipping both ways, 365 day return policy they encourage people to order 2 items if they are unsure of size and are happy to pick up double shipping costs.
• Twitter is part of Zappos' training. About 400 of their 700 Vegas employees are on Twitter because he believes it builds trust amongst colleagues.
• Occasionally they give their customers secret upgrades by giving them next day delivery (even if the order comes in at midnight).
• If they are out of stock they will find the customers request on a competitors site and talk them through the process of ordering from their competitor.
• View the telephone as a branding device.

What came across especially is how important the culture of the company is and how happiness for both himself and his employees plays a huge part in ensuring the culture is right. Hseis talked about Zappos’ 10 core values and outlines 7 steps to building a successful brand, both of which can be found below.

10 committable core values

1. Deliver WOW Through Service
2. Embrace and Drive Change
3. Create Fun and A Little Weirdness
4. Be Adventurous, Creative, and Open-Minded
5. Pursue Growth and Learning
6. Build Open and Honest Relationships With Communication
7. Build a Positive Team and Family Spirit
8. Do More With Less
9. Be Passionate and Determined
10. Be Humble

7 steps to building a successful brand

1. Decide if you are willing to build a long-term, sustainable brand.
2. Figure out your values sooner rather than later. Build a team whose personal vales are aligned with corporate values.
3. Commit to transparency.
4. Chase the vision, not the money.
5. Build relationships (as opposed to networking).
6. Build your team thoughtfully.
7. Think long-term.

Quotes

“People may not remember what you said or did, but they will always remember how you made them feel”

"Luck is about being able to see tasks beyond how they are presented"

"If you get the culture right the rest will just happen naturally"

"Whatever you're thinking, think bigger"

“If you want to go quickly, go alone. If you want to go far, go together” (African proverb)

“Zappos is about delivering happiness, whether it's to customers or to employees”

“The telephone is one of the best branding devices out there. You have the customer's undivided attention for 5 to 10 minutes”

“Employees to customers became missionaries for the brand”

“The plus side to being open is having 15,000 pairs of eyes working for you that are not on the payroll”

“I prefer just meeting interesting people than networking”

Check out this excellent visualisation of Tony's talk

SXSW: Games By The People

I went in to ‘Games By The People’ expecting more on UGC and games than I got. That takes nothing away from a great talk about the growing indie scene and how close we are to delivering simple game creation tools for everyone to use.

Gareth Davis (Facebook), Steve Demeter (demiforce.com), Boyd Multerer (Microsoft), Scott Steinberg (DigitalTrends.com) and Lee Uniacke (Kongregate) made up a good panel discussing everything from the risks of creativity to the speed in which games can be ‘tweaked to perfection’ thanks to Facebook and iPhone.

Though games like Little Big Planet and Spore have introduced the idea of UGC to games the reality is that your average gamer can not create games that easily just yet. Having said that sites such as Kongregate.com (youtube for games) has released Shootorials designed to walk gamers through the process of simple game making, and Kodu Game Creator (coming this spring to Xbox) promises to produce games making tools children can master.

Here are a few quotes from the session.

Players under 11 are platform agnostic. They to play all the time. While they're watching TV they'll be playing PSP.

People create games for the same reasons people write books or make movies - to connect with an audience, tell a story, share fun.

Just like movies such as Blair Witch and Sex, Lies and Videotape broke out of the independent film scene into the mainstream the same will happen with independent gaming.

We are seeing a new rise in independent gaming. The games industry started off as individuals creating games, now it takes hundreds of people, millions of dollars and many years to make some games.

The internet means there is no constraint on who can create and publish games. A lot of our developers are students in dorm rooms or lone programmers who are able to quickly create compelling game experiences, put them on Facebook and get millions of players very quickly.

We'll probably see a game released 'Blair Witch' style in the next 5 yrs. A game that cost pennies to make but blows everything else out of the water.

Expensive does not equal good. It's about the experience. Mobile is where it's going.

Kongregate.com is the youtube of games.

All creative acts require a leap of faith. You do have to put yourself out there naked.

The fastest growing demographic for pc games is women in their 30s.

Your game will find an audience if it's any good. There is a huge longtail out there.

SXSW: Minority Report is Real

Having recently blogged about MIT’s SixTH Sense I was looking forward to the first panel of SXSWi ‘Minority Report is Real’.

Panelists Jeroen Lapre (distant-galaxy.com), Ben Rigby (Mobile Voter) and Barrett Fox (COCO Studios) discussed the idea that the techology used in Minority Report is a reality rather than mere science fiction giving numerous examples of how holographic technology and gestural interfaces are in use today.

Holotouch is now being used in hospital theaters. By projecting holograms into space rather than against surfaces surgeons that aren't "scrubbed up" can use floating holographic keyboards without concern about secondary infection issues. Gaming could soon go to a whole new level as Neurosky lets users control electronic appliances with their minds by reading brainwaves, pulses or blinks of the eye. Holodeck allows you to control immersive environments such as Second Life with a simple hand gesture, whilst Microsoft Surface has lead to pinch and twist manipulation of interfaces in the iPhone and iPod Touch.

It doesn’t stop there. Augmented Reality, Facial recognition capture, QR Codes, Headspace on the iPhone, Piclens and Bumptop are all here and now, within the grasp of the man in the street and not just fictional MI5 Agents.

Virtually Nothing Has Been Invented Yet

I've just stumbled across this great TED Talk from from 2004 by serial inventor Woody Norris in which he demonstrates hypersonic sound technology that directs sound the way a laser beam directs light. Its an incredible talk and given that I work in radio had me thinking a lot about the postives to come from such as unique invention.

It really opens up the possibility for getting radio into public places without it becoming a public nuisance or having to provide headphones like they do on planes. Imagine being able to point directional radio at individual seats on public transport. Woody gives a great example of how this could be used in a car allowing the children in the back to listen to completely different music to what the adults are listing to in the front without either of them being able to hear each others. Sadly, the technology has been used mostly in war.

There's been much debate about the origin of the idea and the actual quality of the sound but that matters little when you consider Woody's comment that relatively speaking "virtually nothing has been invented yet". Taking the light bulb as an example did Edision ever envisage a time when laser technology was correcting poor vision? I doubt it. So the failings that exist now will be corrected and hopefully the uses in wartime will feed innovation in more worthy areas other than war.

MIT Working on a SIXth Sense

Before you even ask about uses for this just enjoy it for what it is... Bloody marvelous.

Designed by MIT's Pattie Maes SIXth Sense attempts to create a new digital sense for humans. The fantastic device augments the physical world around us with digital information using natural hand gestures to deliver and shape how the information is viewed. The framing of a view using only your fingers can capture a photo to be viewed on any surface, whilst the outlining a circle on your wrist will deliver a digital watch... Awesomeness.

It works by using a camera and a tiny projector mounted on a hat. The camera sees what you see and projects any surfaces or objects you are interacting with. The prototype uses an ordinary webcam and a battery-powered projector, connected with an internet enabled mobile phone. Apparently this prototype costs less than $350.

What excites me about SIXth Sense is that it pulls together multiple technologies to create something quite spectacular, the true definition of creativity. In the last couple of years we have been wowed by technological advances such as QR codes, augmented reality and Microsoft Surface and now along comes something that combines elements of each in a brilliant way.

It's all very Tom Cruise in Minority Report, futuristic, full of possibilities and probably closer to a reality than you might think on first viewing. Whist the idea of walking around with a projector on your hat may seem unthinkable one of the more talked about additions to the handset in mobile at this year's Mobile World Congress was a phone with a projector in it.