April 15, 2024

Emerging Trends & Market Opportunities in Storytelling - part 1

Emerging Trends & Market Opportunities in Storytelling - part 1

The following was updated in January 2021

Welcome to an experiment. I’m teaching a New Media Producing Class at Columbia University and I’ve decided to open the teaching process. Over the course of the semester myself, the class, and a number of guest speakers will be sharing thoughts, projects, tech, and ideas that explore storytelling in the 21st Century. You can follow along here on medium, via the class tumblr and/or the living breathing syllabus on Hackpad.

Last week I gave a lecture on Emerging Trends & Market Opportunities in Storytelling. With the advancement of technology comes opportunities to tell stories that harness code in new and exciting ways. The following is a collection of interesting trends and market opportunities that I referenced during my lecture. Feel free to share anything that we may have missed. One of the goals for the semester is to help build a series of open resources that focus on new forms and functions of storytelling.

“Where are the opportunities for growth and potential challenges for telecommunications, media and entertainment companies? There’s no shortage of trends to watch in 2020, from the continued growth of streaming to new technologies like 5G and augmented/reality.” — Read More

Artificial Humans

AI Art at Christie's Sells for $432,500

Last Friday, a portrait produced by artificial intelligence was hanging at Christie's New York opposite an Andy Warhol…

www.nytimes.com

An AI generated novel

Technologist Ross Goodwin takes his creative writing, artificial intelligence robot car across-country to write its version of the American literary road trip. What does creative authorship mean for A.I.?

AI Storytelling

Frankenstein AI experiments with those formerly known as the audience

Frankenstein AI at Sundance 2018

Marking the 200th anniversary of the publication of Mary Shelley’s seminal work, Frankenstein AI: a monster made by many reimagines the Frankensteinnarrative through the lens of a naive, emotionally aware, and highly intelligent “life form” — an AI. This multi-year project challenges commonly dystopian narratives around artificial intelligence, and seeks to provoke and broaden conversation around the trajectory of this rapidly emerging technology.

Amazon Echo Glasses

Amazon Echo Frames preview: trying on the Alexa smart glasses

We've just gotten some brief time with Amazon's first smart eyeglasses, the Echo Frames, at the company's Seattle…

www.theverge.com

Here Come the AI Bots

AI is rapidly improving and as a result it is finding its way into many aspects of our lives. 2017 was a landmark year for AI and things are expected to rapidly accelerate over the next 5 years. Computers are starting to open their eyes.

Jolly Roger — AI bot pranks telemarketers by keeping them on the line

Today’s Hero Made an AI That Annoys Telemarketers For As Long As Possible

Hanging up on annoying telemarketers is the easiest way to deal with them, but that just sends their autodialers onto…

gizmodo.com

Deepfake

MIT deepfake video 'Nixon announcing Apollo 11 disaster' shows the power of disinformation

The time is July 1969. President Richard Nixon hurriedly takes his seat in the Oval Office, perched in front of an…

www.newsweek.com

I created my own deepfake-it took two weeks and cost $552

Deepfake technology uses deep neural networks to convincingly replace one face with another in a video. The technology…

arstechnica.com

Augmented Reality

Bose AR / spatial audio glasses

HaloLens 2

Magic Leap

Magic Leap finally ships it’s AR headset in late 2018

Facebook’s AR glasses — code-named “Orion”

Facebook is working on AR glasses

Apple

Apple is rumored to be developing AR glasses that will be released in 2020?

Snapchat struggled with the release of their first & second generation wearable

Snapchat Spectacles 3 released

Snapchat Spectacles 3 review: Pretty, pricey

No one's going to pay $380 for decent point-of-view video glasses and some trippy filters. But that's kind of the point…

techcrunch.com

StoryMaking

Storytelling and Maker Culture give rise to new opportunities for stories to become physical

The Raspberry Pi is a tiny computer about the size of a credit-card, the board features a processor, RAM and typical hardware ports you find with most computers. This means you’re able to do most things a desktop computer can do such as document editing, playing HD video, playing games, coding and much more.

Escape the Room

Stories become location aware

Lichen Beacons - Raspberry Pi

We see Raspberry Pi changing the way people teach, the way people make things, and the way they run their businesses…

www.raspberrypi.org

Sensors & Objects

Changing the face of retail experiences

Hardware boom via crowdfunding — commoditization leads to faster, smaller and cheaper technology

Wearable Stories

watches, sensors, fabrics, and skin become canvases for storytelling

A storytelling adventure for the iWatch

A book that can sense your emotions

Sensory Fiction is a prototype that lets you feel a book's emotions

Over the past 50 years, wind, water, fog, 3D, and even Smell-O-Vision have graced our theaters in the name of cinematic…

www.theverge.com

Fabric that is AR enabled

Tattoos that are bio wearables

Personalization & Agency

Moving beyond cat vids — those formerly known as the audience are looking to see themselves and their decisions reflected in things they watch, play and listen to.

A pen that unlocks an experience

Branching Narratives in Black Mirror

Bandersnatch is just the start - the next big thing in interactive media is AI storytelling

The fifth Black Mirror season - made up of a single episode called "Bandersnatch" - represents the latest mainstream…

theconversation.com

War Games and a platform for branching narratives and choice

Eko

Welcome to Eko, your new home for interactive video. Step in to the story and discover original interactive comedy…

company.helloeko.com

POSSIBILIA: An interactive love story.

What if you could influence someone else’s breakup? From acclaimed director duo Daniels. Starring Alex Karpovsky and…

helloeko.com

A book with 1,000 possibilities

A Story Generated Object

When The Quantified Self Gets Creepy: Turning David Cronenberg's Science Fiction Into Reality

Biotechnology startup BMC Labs recently offered famed filmmaker David Cronenberg a staggering eight-figure sum to…

www.fastcocreate.com

Humanizing the Story Data Tells

A new wave of storytellers and artists are experimenting with humanizing the data that we’re swimming in.

Network Effect — you have 7:50 to experience this

“The Internet is said to show our common humanity. Through its data, it is said to provide a kind of omniscience, and through its social networks, a deeper sense of connection. For those without access, it holds the promise of a better life. For those of us who use it a lot, its power to affect our lives is clear — but what is the nature of that effect? How does it change our behavior? The way we see others? The way we see ourselves?”

Network Effect

Network Effect explores the psychological effect of Internet use on humanity. Like the Internet itself, the project is…

networkeffect.io

In Limbo — What will become of our individual and collective memory in the digital era?

IN LIMBO Interactive | ARTE AND THE NFB

What will become of our individual and collective memory in the digital era? IN LIMBO, a film personalized with your…

inlimbo.tv

BRETT is a robot that can think

Why 2015 Was a Breakthrough Year in Artificial Intelligence

After a half-decade of quiet breakthroughs in artificial intelligence, 2015 has been a landmark year. Computers are…

www.bloomberg.com

Collaborative Stories

Collaborative Storytelling challenges the notion of the auteur. It shakes the foundation of the authorship and ownership of stories in terms of how they’re created, told and sold.

Survival Guide to High School — co-created by high school students

What’s It Really Like To Be 18 In America Right Now?

This spring, Matter worked with a class of high school seniors in the San Francisco Bay Area to find the answer to that…

medium.com

Sherlock Holmes & the Internet of Things — 2,600 collaborators, 60 countries, 180+ events, 1 massive connected crime scene

The Alchemy of THINGS

When Story, Play, Design & Collaboration Collide

medium.com

http://sherlockholmes.io

In part 2

Branded Storytelling, Virtual Reality, Augmented Reality, Narrative Gaming, Digital Discovery, Digital Influencers and Multi-channel Networks

Continue onto part 2

About

Welcome to an experiment. I’m teaching a New Media Producing Class at Columbia University and I’ve decided to open the teaching process. Over the course of the semester myself, the class, and a number of guest speakers will be sharing thoughts, projects, tech, and ideas that explore storytelling in the 21st Century. You can follow along here on medium, via the class tumblr and/or the living breathing syllabus for the course.

Digital Storytelling II —Building Storyworlds: the art, craft & biz of storytelling in 21c

Columbia University School of the Arts

Professor: Lance Weiler

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