Anjali Ramachandran's posts

164 posts

All about Beckinfield

Author: Anjali Ramachandran

Given our collective interest as a company in social TV, I was mildly interested recently when I heard about Beckinfield, a show that claims to be the first 'mass participation' TV show, a new form of science-fiction web series. 

Essentially, what happens is that anyone can create a character and join in on the plot. The Beckinfield platform takes you through character creation and video submission. Each week the actors are emailed the plot twists and encouraged to post their videos. All of the videos are then combined to create a trailer of what happened in "Beckinfield" that week.

I got the creators of the show, Theatrics LLC, to answer a few questions - here you go:

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Big or small screens?

Author: Anjali Ramachandran


Yesterday I was at 2-Screen 2011 organised by Mint Digital.

One of the key things that stood out for me was what Russell Davies said about big screens being for sharing and small screens being personal.

Big screens

Dextr, one of RIG’s ‘second screen’ projects, for example, is meant to be big; it could be a great accompaniment to what you’re watching on the telly even. It’s quite pointless if you try using it on your phone, though (I’ve tried).

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Friday links (4)

Author: Anjali Ramachandran

Image by Flickr user laihiu courtesy a CC license

Here is a list of stuff that I thought was interesting that I sent round the office today. Perhaps some of you will find them useful too:

Will Amazon's Silk browser really prove a threat to Apple? The company also says privacy isn't a concern with Silk's new split architecture. 

The iPhone 5 is set to be announced on October 4th - Wired has a few predictions for what the event will hold.
 
Yahoo! this week unveiled the first official Android app for Flickr, the first Yahoo! has ever released. 
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Introducing new features to Skype in the classroom

Author: Anjali Ramachandran

As some of you know, we’ve been working with Skype on Skype in the classroom, a community for teachers and educators, for a few months now. In the time since it was launched formally in April, it has grown by leaps and bounds: we now have more than 16,500 teachers who are collaborating on more than 900 projects across the globe.

Yesterday, we released the most recent set of new features to the service, which we are very excited about.

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OH at Made by Many (7)

Author: Anjali Ramachandran

Time for some Friday fun from us folks at Made by Many - you can thank us later :-D

OH: "So say you've done 500 fish..."

Thu Aug 18 14:00:58 +0000 2011

Tara

OH: "It's going to ring whenever an event happens, like Stuart goes to jail."

Fri Aug 12 11:21:00 +0000 2011

Paul Battley

OH: Moron was hip-deep in hacking.

Thu Jul 28 16:26:07 +0000 2011

Nicki Sprinz

OH: You need to be able to rollover the cat, and get the vajazzle.

Wed Jul 27 13:32:48 +0000 2011

Nicki Sprinz

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Slideshare presentations of the week: lean UX

Author: Anjali Ramachandran

This week, we look at 3 recent presentations on lean startups and customer development. 

To start off,  Janice Fraser, entrepreneur and founder/CEO at Luxr, a residency programme for lean startups in San Francisco, covers the basics and then goes on to explain how lean UX can change the way we do business. Some good sketches and quotes.  

Ux for lean startups london
View more presentations from Janice Fraser
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Made by Many apps of the week (3)

Author: Anjali Ramachandran

Are you one of those people who look at your phone in frustration every now and then, with the knowledge that there must be thousands of fantastic apps you're not making use of because you don't know about them? Fear not - here's Made by Many's list of the apps we're using more often than the rest at the moment:

Games/fun

Death Rally: This is the app for you if speed’s your thing.

Toca-Boca Hair Salon: Tim was the one who first introduced us to this super fun app that allows you to change a character’s hairstyles as if you were a (slightly warped) barber. Definitely one that kids will enjoy too, even if that last bit sounds a bit counter-intuitive!

Toca Doctor: In Charlotte’s words, ‘anatomical educational fun’.

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Friday links (3)

Author: Anjali Ramachandran

Here's a collection of links that went round the office today, perhaps you'll find them interesting too:

For the parents, Backseat Driver is an app that let's your kid - ermmm - do what the game says: be a backseat driver!
 
Channel 4 is partnering with Get Glue to offer viewers badges and stickers to attract views for their latest show Beaver Falls.
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Slideshares of the week (7)

Author: Anjali Ramachandran

This week, I've put together a motley collection of 3 presentations that are all quite interesting from the point of view of the changing ways of interaction in different contexts: within communities, between agency and client, and mobile commerce.

Researchers at MIT in the US and the University of Southampton in the UK look into anonymity in online communities, using 4chan as a case study. This is particularly interesting given Fred Wilson's recent blog post on Google's clamping down on anonymous IDs in Google+ and the discussion on whether real IDs are required online, as long as the quality of discussion is good.

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OH at Made by Many (6)

Author: Anjali Ramachandran

Here are some things that have been mentioned in the office lately. Happy Tuesday!

OH: "no, I DO NOT have Internet Explorer"

Wed Jul 13 14:31:36 +0000 2011

James Higgs

OH: I like the front end much more than the back end

Tue Jul 12 15:58:05 +0000 2011

Cath Richardson

OH: I want to be the IA and UX department on this project

Mon Jul 11 16:30:29 +0000 2011

Cath Richardson

OH going to start talking about HTML6, see if it catches on. "Can you do us something in HTML6? Need this to be really cutting-edge. Thanks"

Thu Jul 07 10:41:18 +0000 2011

Andrew Walker

OH Don't do that again, we don't want another proteinsplosion

Tue Jul 05 15:31:31 +0000 2011

Isaac Pinnock

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