Stylish and funny advertisements and signs from Lusaka.
At the Photo Space 2000 they do not only take your wedding picture, they also provide a wedding dress (for free)!
Nice report from Nokia: Future of Entertainment - global study.According to an NPD Group study, 63 % of the US population plays videogames. HC gamers are still males ages 18-34 although "casual games" are somewhat changing the focus.
"Of the people who said they played videogames, 30 % claimed to have played more frequently this year than last, with 40 % spending about the same amount of time playing games each year. The majority of gamers claimed that they saw playing videogames as a way to relieve stress. Both "light" and "heavy" gamers valued gaming as a family activity". (From Gameindustry.biz)I wonder how the definition of a game has changes within few years due to SNS and other internet-related trends, entertaining game-like applications, advergames etc. How should we define or sort games into various categories? Who defines a game; the player or the designer/industry? Hard core or casual gamer? Is this relevant anymore?
When I was reading Tuija’s blog I remembered Business 2.0 magazine’s cover from March 2007. I bought the magazine from SF airport on my way back from GDC where Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo talked about communities, game3.0 and stuff related to the web2.0 hype. Still it was visibly hard to foresee what was about to hit us all some months later.
Experience economy has been topical since the beginning of 90s. In 1992 professor Gerhard Schulze wrote about Erlebnisgesellschaft (experience economy) and noticed the rising importance of 'experiences' in our society. In 1996 Michel Maffesoli in his book "The Time of the Tribes: The Decline of Individualism in Mass Society" linked the discussion of neo-tribes with postmodern time and described what he perceived to be the transient, spontaneous and affective communities that make up late modern consumer-based societies.
games (19% / 35%,) events (15% / 14%)... etc. That was something current Netari-environments Habbo or IRC-gallery could not provide. It seemed difficult to think of any service which would combine all these things together.
I get to see a bit of Ruska (autumn colors) while wisiting Rovaniemi (near arctic circle). Unfortunately I lost my luggage and did not get it back until in the evening. Due to which my presentation ("Music as play" >> response is the medium -- music, rhytm and/or sound as a way to interact with a game or other kinds of interactive software) was not the best I can offer but people seemed to get something out of it which is of course the most important thing.
I also met some of my fellow students from the dawn of media studies. We had fun when listening artists like Desert Planet, Huoratron and Dj Scotch. Before Tivoli (the bar) we did some exercise. Asko Alanen from Smartus was kind enough to give us a tour at the Smartus Playground. This was the first time I actually got to test the playground and I was pretty excited. There were not that many variations of games but it has a lot of potential. There were still a number of issues to consider starting from usability to interestingness (longevity) of the play. Anyhow we went back to the playground on the next day 
and talked with the kids playing at the yard. They were really excited even though --evidently-- they had played the games for a number of times already. Motivational factors were similar to other digital games -- to beat one's own record, to top the high score and to have fun. At the moment the most obvious target group is junior level kids but with a bit different approach, design and placement I am sure this could work well with a bit older youth, families or other groups as well.
Stick Trampoline