SUFFICIENTLY ADVANCED TECHNOLOGY

Former Hollywood Reporter editor Anita Busch said, “Hollywood is a small town filled with sociopaths.”

NCSoft’s MMO City of Heroes is dealing with a conundrum that will become increasingly common. Its 14th expansion is called Mission Architect, a feature that lets players take their in-game characters into a subsidiary world where they can create and play their own adventures. Social networking and rating tools are part of it, too. Joe Morrissey of the City of Heroes team wrote an essay for Gamasutra about how they’re trying to manage this feature without publishing inappropriate user-created content. A highly recommended read. [Title lyric by Gene Simmons, Paul Stanley, Bob Ezrin and Lou Reed.]

Here’s definitely one to watch. President Obama announced the appointment of Aneesh Paul Chopra to the newly created position of Chief Technology Officer. “In this role, Aneesh will promote technological innovation to help achieve our most urgent priorities – from creating jobs and reducing health care costs to keeping our nation secure,” Obama said in his weekly address. The video can be viewed online at www.whitehouse.gov. [Title lyric from Jesus Jones.]

I was struck by a particular detail in a recent and tragic search for a little girl in Tracy, a small town some people would consider to be within commuting distance of San Francisco. The Community Emergency Response Team found out the hard way that their official radios didn’t work, so they called upon ham radio operators to provide communication between the command post and the five field locations. That keeps my technophile world in perspective somehow.  [Title lyric courtesy of  Porter Wagoner, photo from Yaesu.]

Tony Hawk is a great example of someone who knows how to manage his own personal brand, using every method that is available. On Easter, the skateboard legend hosted an international “Easter Egg” hunt by having autographed skateboard decks hidden in several different countries. Fans were led to them via clues Hawk disseminated via Twitter. For example, Hawk hid the last deck in Southern California and Tweeted the clue, “Last one is for hardcore old-school skaters: Del Mar Skate Ranch, where the snake-run used to be. Do that ollie over the fence if you get it.”
This project had a worthwhile payoff for participating, rewarded loyal fans, showed respect for the fans’ intelligence, enhanced the Hawk’s image as being associated with youthful fun, and remained true to the Tony Hawk lifestyle and identity. A win for all concerned. [From Shred or Die via Digg, title lyric by Suicidal Tendencies]

British tabloids, never known for their understated good taste, are treading in new and unpleasant territory: copying things from personal blog postings and presenting them as though they were from interviews gathered in the practice of journalism. Case in point is what the Scottish Sun did to a humorous young writer named Jamie Ross. He has been keeping an entertaining blog about his life as someone with the type of cancer called Hodgkin’s lymphoma. One morning Jamie’s father told him there was an interview with him in the Scottish Sun, a story that Jamie describes as, “2000 heavily-edited and copyrighted words of mine in a double-page feature, complete with photographs of me that I’d never seen before. This was without asking me, notifying me, paying me, or consulting me.” Read more and follow developments at Bloggerheads.
This follows a reprehensible and pointless story [PDF] in the Sunday Express that looked up the online profiles of students who survived the 1996 school massacre of 17 people in Dunblaine. It then presented these typical young peoples’ Facebook and MySpace entries as some sort of insult to those who died. Bloggerheads is on that case too. [Title lyric by Dolly Parton, photo of Jamie Ross from The Independent.]

I’m usually okay with product placement. When it’s done poorly, the sponsor company deservedly suffers. But when it’s done intelligently, it adds authenticity and even a kind of shorthand. Think about it: a thirsty character who chugs a Red Bull is a much different person than one who downs a V8 juice.
So I was interested to learn about the relationship between the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and Viacom to further integrate the charitable organization’s philanthropic messages into the story lines of entertainment programming. It’s a variation on the same concept of ensuring authenticity, only this time in the public’s interest.
It’s not a new idea. The hugely popular BBC radio series The Archers began in 1950 as a way of using interesting stories to subtly educate farmers in a country still subject to WWII food rationing. The Kaiser Family Foundation has delivered information about public health issues via “America’s Next Top Model” and other programs’ story lines for many years. Some feel a little creepy about this, but I’m okay with it as long as it’s done with all-around integrity. Accuracy is important for authenticity, but it’s even more important to be accurate when the plot deals with health and medical issues. [Title lyric by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, Bill Gates photo from the Gates Foundation.]

Simon on No Rock and Roll Fun wrote an impassioned and logical deconstruction of an editorial U2’s manager Paul McGuinness wrote for Le Figaro (that was picked up by The Guardian newspaper). In it, McGuinness declares his love for the new French law that ultra-criminalizes Internet-enabled piracy. This legislation mandates ISPs to police their content and provides tiered penalties that begin with a warning email, then a letter, and then completely disconnects the miscreant from the Internet for between two months and a year. McGuinness warns against thwarting the stadium-sized aspirations of rising musicians; Simon sees a digitally-enabled world in which, “You might not have the sort of career where you wind up with so much cash sloshing about in your pockets you can buy luxury hotels and massive ranches in LA. But you can make a decent living, and provide for your family.” [Title lyric by Bruce Dickinson.]

Remember how a number of Authors Guild members were very unhappy about the Kindle’s text-to-speech capability, contending that it infringed on their rights? Well, a number of book lovers are equally unhappy that the authors’ stance caused the option to be hamstrung.  The Reading Rights Coalition whose members include the National Federation of the Blind and the International Dyslexia Assn., held a public protest outside of the Authors Guild’s New York offices earlier today on behalf of the 15 million Americans who cannot read printed materials. The Coalition noted that the Kindle 2 made it possible for those they represent to “purchase and enjoy books like everybody else, adding:  “The Guild’s position is contrary to the principle of equal opportunity for all and discriminates against millions of people with print disabilities.” [Title lyric from the Bookworm on Sesame Street.]

Trent Reznor is my favorite example of the artist and the artistic career in the digital age. Frank Rose has a good article about Reznor and NIN’s new iPhone application that adds geolocation and tagging to music, photos, videos, message boards and other stuff.
Also, Nine Inch Nail’s new album The Slip can be downloaded for free, completely legally, by clicking here – in your choice of quality and formats, complete with artwork, and without DRM . If you’ve rather, you can stream it from iLike or pay $9.90 to get it from iTunes. You can even purchase physical product, an option more than 250,000 fans have chosen so far – for perspective, HITS (via Idolator) reported not a single album released during the first quarter has yet hit the million mark in year-to-date sales. I sincerely doubt Reznor misses being on a label.
Reznor brilliantly markets his music using every app and widget you’ve ever heard of, and probably a few you haven’t. But that’s far from being all. NIN’s site encourages you to remix and share the album however you wish. You also can download an EP promoting the band’s tour with Jane’s Addiction and Street Sweeper, songs that also have been made available as multitrack audio downloads on remix.nin.com.
In honor of April Fool’s Day, Reznor posted an item and a Tweet announcing that Nine Inch Nails had a new album called Strobe Light (pictured) that was produced by Timbaland and featured collaborations with the likes of Coldplay’s Chris Martin and Bono. Even funnier was the explanation of how to buy a download: “Your credit card will be charged $18.98 plus a $10 digital delivery convenience fee. Your files will arrive as windows media files playable on quite a few players with your name embedded all over them just in case you lose them. You will also receive an exclusive photo and a free email account with our partner Google’s Gmail service. Your email will be kept confidential and will not be used for spam, unless we can make some money selling it.” [Title lyric by Soul Asylum.]