This month’s creative breakfast theme was “Stories wot could only have been told through digital”. Everyone was able to interpret theme as they wished, submitting a link (art or commerce) for discussion. Here are the highlights.
Apple’s one billionth app download is not a classic “story” but it’s certainly one that could only have happened via digital. We discussed why apps have only been popularised by Apple and not one of the other handset manufacturers years earlier. It’s a hard one: the apps work and they are useful.
Penguin’s We Tell Stories is a collection of 6 stories from 6 authors that have been written by authors to capitalise on the interactivity that only digital can bring to a reader. This one caused great debate. What was this trying to achieve for Penguin? Is it the future of publishing? The consensus was that the written linear story is a long way from dead. The hardback we are not so sure about. However the traditionalists amongst us are having nothing of the Kindle.
The Blair Witch Project is 10 years old this year. The daddy of word of mouth marketing. It’s hard to tell now if the website was deliberately crap or whether the internet was just crap in 1999. Either way we still admire how high it set the bar for story telling.
My Damn Channel is what happens when writers create stuff without the studios riding them like ponies. We love You Suck at Photoshop. This feels like the future of comedy story telling. Short form. Timely. Script over production.
The Whale Hunt has been much lauded by creative folk. It’s hard not love the beauty of the gore. Skip to the blood and guts, then wonder at the download speed for those images.
The Sopranos in chronological fuck order. Who needs the bits in between really?
Obama’s first 100 days in a Facebook stream. The media dissected this every what way. But none had the, humor, cut through and modernity of this piece.
Susan Boyle: she is the global story of the internet for the month of April 2009.
Cisco Fatty. We love it when the internet attacks. It used to be emails of sexual office liasons. Now it’s Twaux Pas.
One Red Paperclip One of first “Hey I’m doing something random, help me out” events to capture an online imagination.
The Disposable Memory Project is capturing the images from over 100 disposable cameras left around the world. Proving that sometimes people will make an effort to be involved in something that makes life more interesting. But mostly not.
AOL search results A few years back, AOL made public a stack of user search requests. Compilations were created that revealed some very interesting human stories. You can still find them floating about online if you dig.
Bryony Makes a Zombie Movie One of Teddy’s mates AKA Paperlilies. Is this the future of movie making?
Steve finished the session by writing a story completely in analogue form with nothing but a pen and paper. It’s too long to transcribe and besides, it’s already lost. But the story ended with the word “Google”.
