In August, MEDIA and online researcher InsightExpress conducted an unscientific poll of academics involved with media research and design, asking them to nominate the peers or institutions they believe are doing the best or most interesting work on the subject of media. Specific universities came up repeatedly on the topic of conducting media-centric research. For example, in response to, "Other than your own university, what other academic institutions do you consider to be the best in researching and defining the future of media?," several schools popped up frequently. They were: MIT, the University of Southern California, the University of …

Media Fabrics: Content and Context - A Storytelling Bonanza The four-sided table sits low to the ground and sports a plain glass top. It looks like any other coffee table; it is anything but typical. Dubbed the "interaction table," it uses LCD display and interaction technology to enable people to share photos, stories, games, and more. It is the creation of MIT graduate student Ali Mazalek, who's worked closely with Professor Glorianna Davenport, principal research scientist at the MIT Media Lab. The project is part of the Media Fabrics unit of the Lab helmed by Davenport, an accomplished documentary …

For generation Y, checking e-mail, the daily Weatherbug report, and friend-of-a-friend (FOAF) Web sites like the TheFaceBook.com have become as routine as getting an iced skim caramel macchiato every morning. The FOAF sites - also including Student.com - connect students through common social networks, schools, groups, and even parties. Advertisers range from Busted Tees to Vonage. In a symbiotic relationship, FOAF sites provide the target market and advertisers provide the cash to keep these sites afloat. Without this advertising, FOAF sites fight to stay alive (read: Friendster.com). This begs the question: Will advertisers trash other forms of …

Already a camera, a personal digital assistant, a portable game console, and soon an MP3 player, there is really only one thing left for the mobile phone to become - a credit card. Rest assured, with 180 million mobile subscribers in the United States alone, designers are working overtime to turn a cell phone into a direct payment device for everything from porn to convenience store purchases. As with most wireless developments, the approach is already de rigeur in Asia and Europe, where thirsty customers can use an SMS (short message service) message to buy a soda from some …

Whether or not advertisers should be faulted for muscling in on technical innovations that were never intended to accommodate them is the subject for a debate that won't be taken up here. The reality, in the case of Really Simple Syndication, or RSS, which was designed to streamline Web users' content intake, is that advertisers recognized a threat, and addressed it. "From its beginning, it was obvious that RSS was going to take more and more impressions away from sites as more users came to rely solely on headlines and teasers offered on RSS readers," says Bill Flitter, chief …

Movie ticket prices are up, attendance is down, and let's not even talk about the pre-movie show countdown, bombarding consumers with ads before movie previews. If that's not enough, enter Theater Advertising Solutions and its branded concession tray, aptly named Movietray. The company forged a multi-year agreement with Regal Entertainment Group making the branded trays available while Tom Cruise fights aliens and Johnny Depp plays with candy. The deal makes Theater Advertising Solutions the exclusive provider of Movietray in all Regal Cinemas, United Artists Theatres, and Edwards Theatres. "Movietray can be purchased on a monthly …

Soon there will come a day when we will sit back on our collective couches and reminisce about the time when our trusty television remote controls were used simply to change the channel. Because in the very near future, the remote control will take on a whole new role in the lives of the American consumer, thanks to the ever-expanding world of television commerce. Advances in technology will soon allow lazy consumers to use their remote controls to purchase items featured on television without picking up the phone or surfing the Net. Abbreviated as t-commerce, this new frontier in …

With movies like "Spider-Man," "X-Men," and "Batman" making up some of the most popular and profitable Hollywood franchises these days, it's clear comic books are no longer child's play. As established characters from traditional comic books expand their audiences, another area of comics is working to find its niche: Webcomics. Although Web-based comic sites are aplenty, finding a profitable one is rare. In fact, few make a living off their webcomics sites, says T. Campbell, editor of GraphicSmash.com, which is part of a network of sites known as ModernTales.com. Despite the affiliation with ModernTales, GraphicSmash.com does not …

"We believe this is the next step in a natural continuum," proclaims Marqui, a Vancouver-based communications management software service, in its Web site FAQs. "First there were the blind banner ads. Next, contextual ads...embedded ads, and embedded contextual ads." The next step? Marqui hired 15 independent bloggers to insert mentions of the company's services into their blogs. The bloggers were free to write negatively about the company. Some were skeptical about this ad form, so to help refine the program, Marqui recently hired Marc Canter, the co-founder of Macromedia, as an advisor.

If imitation is the highest form of flattery, what do you call an imitation of an imitation? Earlier this year, the magazine industry unveiled a three-year $40 million consumer ad campaign to breathe life back into a flailing medium. The centerpiece was a series of mocked-up futuristic covers of actual magazines. One of the ads, created by Fallon for the Magazine Publishers of America (MPA), featured a Sports Illustrated cover showing the Chicago Cubs winning the World Series - in 2105. Interestingly enough, an online publisher designed its own version of the ad campaign to parody the …