Stories will spread cross-platform whether we want them to or not. Content creators need to be paying attention.

dmtrendsonline:

Watching television while also using a smartphone or tablet is one of the most popular leisure activities of the mobile era. The mobile industry is working hard to create mobile apps and sites that relate to what’s on TV, in order to capitalize on this behavior.  

This approach is often referred to as the “second screen,” the idea being that the tablet or smartphone becomes a TV companion device, allowing for added levels of interactivity— whether on social networks or dedicated second screen apps and sites that complement on-air content. 

In a recent report from BI Intelligence, we examine how second screen apps, social networks, and mobile sites will ultimately succeed in drawing significant audiences, analyze how they will begin to see some advertising dollars, and detail the opportunity represented by audience analytics and second screen commerce.

Here’s why the second screen industry will ultimately succeed:

• Usage is growing rapidly:85% of smartphone users reported second screen-linked behavior at least once a month, over 60% reported doing it on a weekly basis, and 39% did so daily. Over 80% of 18- to 24-year-olds told Pew they used their phone while watching TV, and 60% of Americans with annual incomes above $50,000 use their phones while watching TV.
• And mass acceptance isn’t even necessary: All that matters is that a significant minority of viewers develop this habit (especially if they are highly engaged viewers). In the U.S. alone, TV ad spending was $18.4 billion in the third quarter of last year, a $74 billion annual run rate. If mobile can carve out even a small share of that pile of dollars via second screen channels, it would boost the mobile industry tremendously.
• Second screen isn’t really a new activity: It’s a natural update to the old ways of engaging with TV, like the old office water cooler conversations about last night’s football game or popular TV drama. Moreover, second screen-type behaviors were already popular on desktops and laptops, before mobile came along and made it a lot easier to participate. 
• Second screen apps and sites are bridges: They bring together the powerful but increasingly fragmented world of television media, and the fast-growing but still undeveloped digital realm. For TV-centric advertisers and content producers, second screen provides a channel through which to test out digital strategies while still remaining tied to familiar territory. 

(via dhcontentsummit)

The above link brings you to a great overview of the Disney’s Living Worlds initiative to cultivate transmedia projects, by Michael Andersen at ARGNet. The article further clarifies the “a fully paid-up, transferable, non-exclusive, perpetual, worldwide, irrevocable, royalty-free license” language in the Terms & Conditions section and should be read by anyone thinking of applying by the December 1st (midnight PST) deadline!

The buzz at YALSA’s YA Lit Symposium? Fandom and transmedia, people. Let’s say it again, fandom and transmedia.

The deadline is approaching for Disney’s Living Worlds, a program to develop collaborative, transmedia projects. Have your entries in by 11:59 pm PST, December 1, 2012 and make sure to read carefully the Terms and Conditions before you apply.

“Teaching’s primary purpose should be to ensure that every student graduates ready to tinker, create and take initiative.” Lance Weiler

Insights from a literary agent trying to keep his company and his authors out in front of a trend. Jason Allen Ashlock of Movable Type Management talks about the necessity of experimentation and the importance of having the right partners in the digital age of publishing (from Digital Book World).

We might embrace a less straightforward representation model, bring on the capable partners, and launch ourselves into a more networked management role, but we need the authors to bring their ideas, their insights, and their bravery. We need all the eyes on the market that we can get, all the ideas that we can produce, all the hands we can get on deck, and all the fearless enthusiasm we can muster if we’re going to experiment enough to stretch toward confidence and eventual expertise. We need our authors to be educated, curious, willing sometimes to lead and sometimes to be led.

“Children’s books make money: a good amount of money,” stated Jeff Gomez, CEO of Starlight Runner. “And the expectation on the part of publishers is that they won’t make that much money on the digital format. That’s a big stepping on the brakes for a lot of publishers.”

Over at the Good E Reader blog, Mercy Pilkington gives us a great overview of the panel discussion that opened the London Book Fair, stating that it “seemed to raise more questions than it answered.” The biggest hurdle? The cost, as in the price tag that comes along with the team of designers and programmers (and lets not forget the author, the creator of the actual content) needed to make an interactive book app.

Also of concern, and something I feel should be in the forefront of every children writer’s vision when utilizing new technologies, is how to keep the app from becoming a “robot nanny of science fiction stories.”

Still, the panel’s message to publishers was clear: “embrace digital or be left behind…”

Oh, I think this must make Sheldon and Leonard, Howard and Raj very, very happy.