User Generated & Wireless & Social Media & Mobile Dave on 15 Oct 2007 11:44 am
Digital Cityscapes Are Social Media
Last year in Tokyo during the Holidays, a group called Semitransparent Design completed their ninth installation of unique, interactive architecture using lighting. Of course, standing out is no easy task in the electrical circus we know as Tokyo. In this new installation, users were able to interact with light columns using their voice either through mobile or over the Web.
Semitransparent’s Ryoji Tanaka explains: “Akarium as an illumination project has been going on for eight years. When we joined the project, the light design had already been fixed and the lights were going on and off just through time-based programming. We enhanced the project with interaction, and by placing an interactive devices in a public space, we wanted to observe the changes in people’s communication.
Take a look:
Clearly, this is artistic excellence but it also raises some important questions. Should we be looking to expand the interactivity of our social media tools beyond the tools themselves? How can brands utilize mobile and Web based tools to create consumer participation beyond uploading videos on YouTube or passing around a new application on Facebook? And, can consumer participation in the digital space shift the thoughts, moods and brand perceptions of ‘passer-bys’ on the streets of our cities? If so, can we be sure to make these experiences meaningful?
Via: Ping Mag
on 17 Oct 2007 at 12:23 pm 1.morduun said …
Comment on the specific clip: I’m thinking that ‘Clearly, this is artistic excellence’ may be a slightly overenthusiastic comment. Clearly, the only people who care are the people the producers asked to film talking, because everyone else walks by and ignores the columns. It’s a bit like the tree/forest/sound paradigm: if you make something interactive and nobody uses it, does it actually do anything?
Comment on the more general blurb: sure, good rhetorical question, but it’s the same one we’ve been asking for a few years now, and I don’t think the needfully general answer has changed. People want to be given to, not taken from; advocates are created by perceived generosity or excellence, not insistence. If you can create a branded [Thing] that kicks ass and gives instead of takes, you’re in the right zone.
on 18 Oct 2007 at 10:34 am 2.jeff said …
wow…ditto what both of you said. (Meaning, you both said a lot and I agree with your overall sentiments). The only point I wish to make redundant again (yes, easy to do AND annoying) is the last word of the post, “meaningful.” The funny thing is what is meaningful to me who grew up in the 70’s, 80’s and 90’s is very different from what is meaningful to someone who will be using a variety of media with to which we in our generation were not privy. It seems perhaps the type of media may even shift what is meaningful. The rules of meaning and media may be evolving.