Conversational Writing – Defined

We’ve always referred to our platform as “conversational…” – Which has lead to discussions about how we define (primarily) mobile text based engagement.  Our apps are “conversational writing” based.  i.e. “conversation” does not require voice/speech.

It was terrific to read a NY Times story about “Conversational Writing” here:

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/04/23/talking-with-your-fingers/

Where the author defines “Conversational Writing” as being different from “writing.”  There are some great quotes, one take-away is:

 Not surprisingly, then, the earliest writing was based on the way people talk, and that meant short sentences with a direct logical throughline. Researchers have found that even educated people today speak in word packets of 7 to 10 words a pop.

 

How does this related to “connected TV” experiences?

Nearly 1/2 of the Audience are engaged in “conversational writing” on their 2nd Screens while consuming television.

http://econsultancy.com/us/blog/9685-the-five-cs-of-connected-tv

So, how about directing their “conversational writing” to include the on-screen characters?

Prime-Time is Multi-Screen Time. . .Extending Story…

We were asked to summarize some thoughts on 2nd Screen experiences and extending story, and emotional engagement, between screens.

Here’s the ‘in a nutshell’ version. . .

The studies are now in…audiences now participate in concurrent, multi-screen experiences – Prime-tme is multi-screen time — But, that doesn’t mean the content, stories and brand stories are migrating between screens to create seamless and deeper engagement.

How to naturally engage and extend television to digital-device-on-the-couch?

Extend the reason television remains the First Screen to 2nd Screen content applications:  Extend the story.

Whether extending a :30 second television spot, a children’s animated series or a Prime Time drama, creating interactive narrative experiences taps into and deepens the audiences’ emotional connection to the First Screen.

2nd Screen experiences should be seen as a remarkable opportunity for television advertising and content production ventures…not to get clicks and Likes…but, to involve the audience within a personalized, conversational interaction.  This is why we built the contentAI studios’ platform.

Chat with Gossip Girl to uncover hidden clues and story material?

Chat with Astral from Yu-Gi-Oh for advice?

Chat with Mr. Clean, the Skittle’s Rainbow or a myriad of other Brand Characters?

Next time you talk to a television character, they should also talk back to you.

Because the Audience is doing a lot more than just listening.

 

UPDATE:  In addition to the Forrester Reports (Links in Post below), here is additional supporting evidence of the growing dual-screen phenomena:  http://www.screenmediadaily.com/news-viacom-tablets-tapping-into-tabletomics-study-television-consumer-behavior-tablet-user-experiences-airplay-0014001843.shtml

Mobile & Responsive Experience Design (Emphasis on Experience)

Yes, everyone needs a technically responsive web design or a dedicated mobile site, in order to reach the ever-increasing percentage of consumers who find you on mobile and tablets.

But, after listening to numerous developer and developer service discussions on this topic, the over-emphasis on the technical tends to diminish the heart of the issue:  Mobile experiences are DIFFERENT than desktop.  I’d include the expanding ultrabook engagement format in this as well…

When someone finds you on a smaller screen, even if 50% of the prospects do this from their home (on the couch, while watching TV; see blog posts below), that consumer inherently has a different ENGAGEMENT FORMAT they are expecting.  They don’t need to access 100% of your data…they need to quickly pull up the data they want…

The experience needs to be controlled by the User…and responded to by the data/design (the User’s in control).

Small screens — Even medium screens (and virtual keyboards) — Are increasingly reducing “time on site” for Consumers.  Delivering ONLY the desired “experience,” quickly and efficiently, is paramount.

Therefore, the phrase “responsive experience design” – Where the User’s input shapes the data/content experience (intuitively, not through complex navigation) seems to be the Holy Grail of mobile design…Let the User define “context,” and then let the data flow specific to that context.

Obviously, we believe that natural language processing plays a big part of allowing the User to shape their content experience…Navigating and acquiring content through a User’s input…not forcing pre-set navigation…results in “responsive experience design.”

 

Our Android Apps on Google “Play”

For those who weren’t watching, Google’s Android app store is now “Play.”

We’re in the process of updating meta-data and launching additional apps — And wanted to make sure anyone looking here, knew where to find us there. . .https://play.google.com/store/apps/

Version 1.2 of our Platform Now In Release — HTML.5 Audio

Over at our subsidiary mLearning venture:  http://eslAI.com, the first release of our Ver. 1.2 of the platform’s enhanced UI is now available to kick tires and also LISTEN to the sound of tires being kicked!

We’ve added pre-recorded Audio to the applications which is cross-browser and cross-device compatible (OK, there are some lingering platforms we’re still tweaking to achieve playback on), but, in general, most mobile devices are testing Positive (Android, iOS, Windows/Mobile).

Where this gets really interesting on the mobile marketing and mobile entertainment front is where we extend this to be a Sound design and audio story design to accompany the interactive text chat.   We love sound FX.  Now we can add them into the chat.

At some point we’ll also incorporate text-to-speech, but the upside of pre-recorded audio is that it carries more emotion and style to it.  So, not all segments of the ESL apps (where there is personalization) include audio; but, an awful lot of them do (nearly 100 clips are included in ESL1)

Easy listening…

Origami Towel Creatures, Toys, Personalized Mobile Experiences & Delight

It was nice to see Portland, OR host last evenings talk:

Jared Spool Presents: Mobile & UX – Inside the Eye of the Perfect Storm – Portland, OR

Last night at the UoO building in Old Town.

We’ll post Links to his Deck when it’s available (Now available Here).

He’s been giving this talk for the past year, and a video is here:  http://vimeo.com/25547105

While there were 4x elements in Spool’s presentation that create this “perfect storm,” the over-riding metaphor for much of the presentation was a SIX FLAGS v. DISNEYLAND:  ”activity” v. “experience” paradigm.

Basically, SIX FLAGS offers a pretty straight forward activity-based flow, while DISNEY’s design encourages a more “experiential” flow for the End User.  The parallel was basically how online web sites are data/feature driven, while mobile (when successful) is more experience driven.

The natural extension of this, while not discussed, seems to us to be how a DISNEY-experience is “personal,” while a SIX FLAGS-activity laden day is more generic (everyone has nearly the same experience).

One slide in the presentation Deck were pictures of the origami towels that magically appear in someone’s “resort room” at the end of the day — sometimes surrounded by the visitor’s children’s toys (Toy Story with Origami towels).

The illusion is that this is a deeply personalized, memorable touch (even if 20,000 other rooms are nearly the same), in part, by adding the visitor’s toys to the tableau does make it “personal.”

Let’s extend this to “mobile thinking and UX.”

Mobile is a far more “personal” engagement format than “online.”

It’s in someone’s pocket, purse or bag.  It’s in someone’s hand.  It’s a one-to-one EXTREME CLOSE UP engagement.

It’s not just “experiential.”

It’s personal.

And, the UX, along with the programming, needs to fulfill “personal” engagement — Whether that is through deeply complex algorithms or smoke-and-mirrors fancy tricks (User’s will suspend disbelief and go along for the ride if you do it well), “personalization” of mobile experiences is what delivers:

Delight.

Which was another theme of the evening.

The contentAI studios conversational mobile platform is predicated on personalizing each and every engagement. Sometimes deeply, sometimes lightly.  But, it’s been a Prime Directive in the development of the platform since our focus went to Mobile, nearly 2 years ago.

We’ve been thinking about personalized mobile experiences for a long time.  Which is why the idea of putting someone’s children’s toys around a bunch of origami creature shaped towels, resonated so deeply.

AI, Robotics & Improvision…

Very interesting article in CNN today:

http://www.cnn.com/2012/02/03/living/creativity-improvisation-intelligence-heather-knight/index.html?hpt=hp_c2

About a person’s research into robotics and conversational improvisation.

It’s a tricky subject.

The quote in the story that really popped was:

“I think that robotics has a tremendous amount to work with from theater,” she said, her speech alternately full of girlish enthusiasm and steady with technical detail. Theater, she adds, is focused explicitly on character interactions — and her research is engaged in how to help robots “read” people and vice versa.”

Now, she is absolutely looking in the right direction (in our opinion), but, where we differ is that the contentAI platform is equally focused on the “audience” within the theater (or cinema, which is an easier analogy).  The audience (i.e. “end user experience”) within a dramatic/narrative can, and expects to, undergo a certain level of “suspension of disbelief.”

When you factor that into the equation, fast tracking conversational AI, including what “passes” for improvisation, becomes achievable in a different form.

But, for the End User, it’s about satisfying them…it’s about engaging them emotionally…it’s about them wanting more.

Pretty Trees, but it’s the Forest that Fascinates – CES 2012

Thoughts on INTEL @ CES

27 JANUARY 2012

contentAI studios | Portland, OR | http://contentAI.com

 

True Story:  Once upon a time, a major motion picture Studio had one person assigned to traveling to their global offices to see if the films in development or production had any World Wide Web needs or if there might be any cross promotion potential?  The Distribution, Production and Development executives all said, “no.”

Which happened to be at a time when we were tapping into an online (remember Compuserve!) fan base for a series of novels that were being developed for a motion picture property (which we’d already licensed Electronic Game and merchandising Rights to) – The absolute hub of our activity was our Property’s URL and it’s Forums.  For us, all of the pieces fit together into one large User experience to dip in and out of from various locations.  The term “transmedia” hadn’t been invented.  We didn’t know what we were doing, other than knowing that the Whole Enchilada was a lot cooler than the individual ingredients.

Fast Forward +/- 15 years into the Future.  Today.  OK, technically  a couple of weeks ago at CES in Las Vegas.

The most exciting space for us was the INTEL® booth – OK, “booth” is used loosely, it was the INTEL Command Center at CES.

Featured were INTEL’s “trees” that we saw set up around the Command Center at their disconnected workstations.  Typically, it was different divisions and technologies and their team members focused on their silo of interest, including:

  •  Ultrabooks– OK, we love them.  We use them for coding and building our apps (picked up an Asus U21 the first day it shipped)
  • AppUP – Desktop apps for Windows machines; with an amazing team working behind the scenes to make the process rapid and enjoyable (See:  Encapsulator).  What an amazing platform and reach – Whether for Enterprise or for Education – Or, for home…(more on that in a minute)
  • WiDi – Huh?  Wireless HDMI to bridge between the devices on your couch and your big screen
  • Ultrabooks & Nuance Deal:  Lost in the press releases was a remarkable partnership announcement to advance speech recognition on Ultrabooks (yes, that Nuance, the one that really does a lot of the heavy lifting for SIRI).  No mention of this on the floor.
  • Smart TV: Formerly the Digital Home Group, the device(s) to bridge from big screen to on-the-couch interface continue to expand.  While we saw competitors such as Panasonic (Vierra) and others all migrating to the “television app store” experience, the INTEL group, when coupled with other offerings within INTEL is what creates the groundwork to cohesively extend television to handheld devices.

You see, we at contentAI studios are really “content people.”  We’re storytellers.  We’ve worked on motion pictures, television, internet television and interactive television…oh, and mobile experiences.

Why is INTEL® massively exciting for us?

Because the “future” we thought was 2-5 years away is already here today.  If you just connect the dots.   If you envision how those silos all interconnect at a content experience level. ..

Our contentAI studios platform was originally created to produce emotionally engaging, personalized interactive experiences with film and television characters on hand held devices.

It looks like this:

This is an image that’s been in our deck for over a year.

 

But, looking at INTEL during CES, we realized this could exist now.  We can deliver this experience today – BRIDGING THE SCREENS.

The idea that the Audience can engage in one-to-one, personalized “conversations” (text or voice) with a character on television (Pause the linear show and engage in a one-to-one chat); where the consumer discovers new and alternate storylines…where Brands have all new interactive real estate (in someone’s hand).  All possible.  Now.  Today. #wayCool

When we looked around at INTEL’s “trees” at CES, we saw the forest.

We feel that in order to make this truly exciting, the content that is offered needs to be more than games or fancy new, intuitive cable menus.  The content needs to connect on an emotional level.   After all, “television” was always a storytelling device in our homes.  Tapping into that engagement level is what will both sell devices and also satisfy the new interactive audience.

And, what about the opportunities for retail solutions with these same tools?  Absolutely possible.

Where does will it start?

With the question:  Why doesn’t every Saturday morning cartoon allow kids to directly engage with the characters via a conversational interface?

We know the issues from the Television production side.  Someone needs to slap the Unions on the upside of their head so they don’t prohibit Writers and Actors from participating in these new storytelling formats.  Union contracts need to be “living” documents that can be changed year-round to adapt to emerging technologies (rather than showing up 5 years late to the party).  But, that’s another blog post…for another day…

But, the “forest” is much wider and deeper than Saturday morning television – with the contentAI studios’ platform solutions alone, we see ESL schools in China using these tools to improve conversational English.  We see in-store Retail “intelligence” also being delightful and intuitive. . .and more. . .because there’s always more. . .

So, now we need to figure out how to tie the pieces together as a Developer.  Heck, I can’t even tell if my Ultrabook has WiDi?  Or, what device I need to make it so?  Or, if the Smart TV group have an App Store, or if they will be leveraging AppUP?

To navigate through the forest path at INTEL, we are fortunate to have a Senior Community Relations executive who can help steer us.  That kind of one-to-one relationship between INTEL and the Development Community is remarkable – We’ve been extremely impressed with their AppUP team since early 2010 and look forward to weaving our way through more branchs of INTEL in order to realize the potential, from a content Developer’s point-of-view, of their astounding technologies.

While HTML.5, Ultrabooks, WiDi and other technologies all link to one another, it’s the human component within INTEL® that serves as the Pandoran Neural Network…it’s humans that glue it all together…fortunately,  corporations have evolved in the past 15 years compared to  when different motion picture divisions ignored each other (especially digital divisions; and, um, Motion Pictures studios are now paying the price for such early ignorance).

Seeing INTEL’s forest, as an outside Developer, made the trip to Vegas worth every long line, worn out pair of shoes, over-priced everything and endless package of mints that were required for the trek.  For next year’s CES, seeing these devices all playing nicely together and creating all new content experiences is what we’re looking forward to and hope to be a part of.

 

#CES2012

UI Ver. 1.1 Launches at CES 2012

We’ll be at CES this year for meetings and to introduce our enhanced User Interface (1.1) that now includes adaptive and responsive design features to deliver the best user experience across all devices with a single build.

Please CONTACT US if you’d like to meet during the show.

Hello 2012!

Goodbye 2011, Hello 2012 (almost)

We’re getting ready for a short end of the Year break, but wanted to make sure there was one final post inviting our friends and colleagues to our MY SANTA TALK mobile web (and app); which also runs as a desktop app on Windows from the AppUp store:

For direct access to the mobile URL:  http://m.MySantaTalk.com

For additional access, the main site has links out to the various platforms:  http://MySantaTalk.com

Looking forward to the New Year (Teaser:  our new UI is continuing to evolve with all new responsive/adaptive features…check back in January for updates)