It had to happen. It get’s my vote for the first essential app of 2012. Check it here. And it riffs nicely with what I was chatting about back here too.

There is a list on my bookshelf that was put up by my wife to ‘gamify’ domestic chores. I’m the first to admit that I’m pretty poor at this kind of important life stuff but it was a last resort.

It’s pretty low tech our list but now thanks to high score house this experience has been gamified.

Primarily set up to help parents motivate their kids with the chores – it’s also being trialed to help wifes manage lazy husbands.

It’s fun, interactive & rewarding. Check it here.

Simple as this may seem – it’s actually an extremly powerful lesson in how to drive emotional content for the multiverse. The like button not only turns information into communication at the touch of a button – but ‘emotes’ the social layer of the web. I really hadn’t thought about it in those terms  before & as soon as that connection was made I started seeing not just ‘emotional content’ but ‘emotional interactivity’ pretty much everywhere.

Check this:

It’s from the same dudes that brought us this awesomeness:

What can cooler (or more emotional) than having a song written about you. Or connecting through a social network to inspire a real life interaction over coffee or lunch.

It also strikes me that emotional content is becoming the defacto product for connecting through social layer – the what but not the why of the multiverse.

The why seems to be more about being in the relationship business & it’s something that the guardian wrote a great article about this week here. As ever with the relationship business it’s about not just being relevant but staying relevant. Or better still – staying interesting & relevant. Without relevance your not going to be talked about.

This means that if you’re not part of the conversation then you basically don’t exist.

So what’s the secret? It used to be that brands had to have control over their look & feel. But today – with the social layer – it’s got to be about influencing the character of a brand through a connected experience. Sure – managing more emotional content is one tool in the kit bag – but it’s just one aspect of being able to influence brand character in the multiverse. Without an organizing thought or an idea there is no bonfire. There are no fireworks. And there is no emotional content.

But – and this is the important learning for me this week – without understanding the relationship between brands & their customers the idea & therefore the emotional content will always lack relavance & be less powerful at affecting the coversation.

Obvious? Maybe. But in trying to think through these hyperconnected times sometimes stating the blindingly obvious isn’t a bad reminder of where to put the focus.

And these services become increasingly smart & part of your own social ecosystem:

And this type of art get’s even easier to make, share & promote yourself:

And the new Tay Zonday’s & Rebecca Black’s are born, remixed & reborn to infinity. Where garage studio’s in Hollywood are full of micro-content producing web tv stars. These guys are even more at the mercy of a disposable celebrity culture than ever before. But are they papped & breaking news on TMZ? Are they getting tables at the best restaurants in LA? Are they making money to go along with the 85m hits gained after the last comedy short? Will we pine for Clooney? Or wonder where the real stars actually went rather than just another You Tube clip that made us laugh. Is this phase of ‘social stardom’  a Bieber bubble – the same trend that Facebook is allegedly tapping? What follows this group? Is it self sustaining? Can we continue to produce, remix & recreate original output? Sure – we’ll still get angry about the Star Wars prequels but have we all really got a stake in what we’ve paid good money to actually watch? Will the cultural mash up machine start making real money or will be left looking at the George Lucas’s of the world who told us they were right. That it’s their ball.  Can we really rent culture & then mash it out of all recognition? Or is Lucas actually correct when he says that they are his movies & he’ll do what he wants with them.

It’s an interesting one & with the pace of change accelerating, platforms/tech converging & with agencies/advertisers grappling with where ‘the value’ is – surely there’s an industry debate to be had about what the boundaries are between creation, interaction & authorship. Or maybe we’ll just ‘lean back’ & wonder where all the real movies, stars & quality entertainment went? Is it a cultural doom loop? A black hole that’s eating all the quality content & spitting out disposable, user generated ‘stuff’.Or is the most creative time to be around with a hyper connected network of creators, critics & curators.

Would Truffaut or Goddard ‘lean back’? What would they make of the kind of home brew, bedroom superstardom? Will the auteur rise again? Probably – yes. Remixed – certainly.

More here. 

And with remix culture in full effect it’s only natural that we’d want to remix & recreate our 8bit memories using an open world platform like Minecraft. How many other games can take design elements so recognizable that you’d pay for a Tshirt with it’s game art to show that you understand this highly creative tribe.

And if proof of our love of hanging out on the web, socialising, remixing & sharing were needed then check this out. Not available to European’s yet but it takes game theory, social music platforms & mash ups to a whole new dynamic. A seriously fun waste of time:

And then the implications for combining SynBio with the infrastructure shown below are just mind-boggling. WIthout doubt this will be the next tech revolution & it’s probably even close than any of us dare think.

And a sign that Red Bull are moving into branded TV content. Probably some of the most awesome in camera work you’ll see:

But I actually think that you can learn more about evaluating creativity from remix culture. It’s not what your agency says it is – it’s what they’ll tell you it is. We say this about brands & consumers all the time. So why not ourselves? How many ads get the same remixing as some of the examples below. There’s definitely something cool about creating a transmedial ecosystem. But what about fueling this with re-mixable content? Surely that’s cooler?

Even better – turn that re-mixable content into fireworks & promote it with a nice bonfire:

Hats off to Leo Burnett in Riga. These guys have made Latvian bread baking cool. It was also the creativity on line pick of the day last Thurs.

http://www.facebook.com/IfYouLikeLatviaLatviaLikesYou

It’s not the real time interaction that coke were after with the polar bowl but it’s pretty cool none the less. Coke are reporting that their real time experiment was more successful than they expected which is a promising opportunity for next years Superbowl!

http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL0D74B5C94759942A

Last week saw two phrases ‘stick in my craw’ & the first of them popped out of this preso.

Transmedial ecosystem. Nothing new really. But as something where an idea exists as ‘the centre of gravity’ it’s kind of a future proof thought in the multiverse.

The second phrase was ‘NARB’ or an academic composite of ‘narrative’ & ‘bit’. It’s a term that explains why facebook has made it mandatory to organize via timeline. And why new boy Path is getting the critics swooning (despite the security issues last week which may shaft it’s credibility).

Basically a NARB is anyform of status cast that pops out in realtime & forms part of your personal, digital narrative. This bank of personal content is what we’re starting to create highly personal campaigns around & is a really interesting extension/space for communicators to look at connecting with. NARB targeting anyone?