Media Tonic

Winner of an Emmy Award for Interactivity, The Truth About Marika is perhaps an early example of where interactive TV is headed. The video below talks about ‘fiction without limits’ and where it gets interesting is the blurred line between story and real world. For example, part of the program mix was a TV debate about a fictional conspiracy. The debate was full of actors but seems to have been presented as an actual debate. I know what your thinking; Parliament.

In effect, they are not presenting a single program but different format programs which all carry a narrative.

Other interesting elements include the creation of web sites which offer clues to viewer/detectives who use their search engine skills to find them. Amateur detectives were also able to place markers in real locations, photograph them and upload them to the site, presumably adding to the clues.

So they started with a conspiracy drama, made it the subject of an interactive online game and added in a faux debate about the conspiracy. When I was a lad, you just stood on stage with a guitar. Source.

The banners were attached with natural wax and eventually dropped off by themselves. So no flies were harmed in the making of this commercial. Summer. Outdoor Advertising. Talk to us. Source.

Here at Media Tonic, we’ve been augmenting reality for years. Esquire Magazine’s David Granger gets his Media Tonic debut spruiking the AR edition of Esquire Magazine. It’s a gimmick but it’s clearly the beginning of new levels of interactivity.

Coke and McDonalds are using similar technology in their promotions for the launch of Avatar. If you follow that link you’ll see the extended trailer, which pretty much ruins the plot completely.

Congrats to the WA Museum and Equilibrium, who on Friday won the Australian Web Award in the Most Outstanding category for their Nick Cave site.

Other winners included a web usability testing site Loop11, the news monitoring service WotNews and the photographer Peter Dancewicz for WeddingLiteRoom.

The awards were created by the Australian Web Industry Association.

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