2010 API Developers’ Conferences Round-Up

By Ron Callari

This year API developers’ conferences are flourishing as Web and Mobile Platforms are expanding the playing field. From well-attended repeat events like MacWorld and Apple’s WWDC to first-time events like Twitter’s Chirp event, official conferences for third-party developers will cover mobile devices, OAuth, geolocation, enterprise applications and much more.

In layman’s terms, to understand Application Program Interfaces (API) in its simplest form - it’s analogous to relying on others to perform functions that you may not be able or permitted to do by yourself, such as opening a bank safety deposit box. Similarly, virtually all software has to request other software to perform some functions to extend its usage potential.

The practice of publishing APIs has allowed web communities to create an open architecture for sharing of content and data between communities and applications. In this way, content that is created in one place can be dynamically posted and/or updated in multiple locations on the Web.

This year’s round-up of developers’ conferences is listed here chronologically.

360|iDev
April 11-14
San Jose Convention Center
San Jose, Calif.

360|iDev started in San Jose, March of 2009, and will be back in April of 2010. The Silicon Valley is exploding with iPhone development companies and iPhone related startups. After the initial success of their first 360|iDev, 360|iDev San Jose plans to build and expand on that momentum this year. The intent of the conference is to bring the best and brightest minds in the development community together for 3 days of intensive sessions, social interaction, best practices and innovative new ideas.

TWITTER Chirp
April 14-15
Palace of Fine Arts Theatre
Herbst Pavilion, Fort Mason Center
San Francisco, Calif.

Twitter’s first official conference for developers, Chirp was just scheduled for April 14-15 and will cost developers $469. It’s a two-day event with a conference covering OAuth, geolocation and streaming, among other topics, and then a 24-hour hack day for first-time developers to work with seasoned pros. There are only 800 seats available, so developers who have not signed up yet, are encouraged to do so at the earliest.

FACEBOOK f8 2010
April 21-22
San Francisco, Calif.

According to their fan page, on May 24, 2007, Facebook launched their Facebook Platform alongside 800 developers and entrepreneurs at their first f8 conference in San Francisco. Many developers built the innovative applications which paved the way for future development. Today, there are over 500,000 applications on Facebook.com, and over 300 of those have more than one million users each.

This year will be Facebook’s third f8, to be held in San Francisco on April 21-22, 2010.

Become a fan of their f8 Page on Facebook to get updates and information (including how to register) as they make these announcements. Check out the videos and photos from prior f8 conferences and developers can also share their stories and experiences from the past.

GOOGLE I/O
May 19-20
Moscone West
San Francisco, Calif.

Google I/O brings together thousands of developers for two days of deep technical content, focused on building the next generation of web, mobile, and enterprise applications with Google and open web technologies such as Android, Google Chrome, Google APIs, Google Web Toolkit, App Engine, and more.

I/O will feature over 80 sessions ranging from introductory talks to deep dives on the nuts and bolts of a particular technology or product. Fireside chats will also return this year, where you can ask questions to Google engineers in an informal, intimate setting.

The Developer Sandbox, first introduced at I/O 2009, returns this year. The Sandbox will feature over 100 developers who have built applications based on technologies and products featured at I/O. These developers will be on hand to demo their apps, talk about how they built them, answer questions, and exchange ideas.

WEBAPPS ‘10
USENIX Conference on Web Application Development
June 23-25
Boston, Mass.

Since 1975, the USENIX Association has brought together a community of engineers, system administrators, scientists, and technicians working on the cutting edge of the computing world.

Join them for the first USENIX Conference on Web Application Development. WebApps ‘10 is a new technical conference designed to bring together experts in all aspects of developing and deploying Web applications. Web-based applications are revolutionizing both the features that can be delivered and the technologies for developing and deploying applications.  The full program will be available at their Web site some time in March 2010. Check out their Web site for announcement details.

APPLE
World Wide Developers Conference 2010
Moscone Center, San Francisco
June 28-July 2

According to a Wikipedia listing, the WWDC 2010 venue is unknown at the present time, but the conference will, in most likelihood, be held in California as an Apple “corporate event” has been scheduled at the normal WWDC venue, the Moscone Center, for June 28 through July 2.  Information on last year’s event can be found at their 2009 event website.

MICROSOFT
Microsoft Professional Developers Conference
(No venue or date scheduled at the time of this posting)

Microsoft’s Professional Developers Conference (or PDC) is a conference for Windows developers.

It covers new and upcoming technology from Microsoft, and so only occurs in the years when there is something new to talk about. The conference is typically hosted by the Los Angeles Convention Center in Los Angeles, Calif.

The Professional Developers Conference (PDC) is Microsoft’s premier gathering of leading-edge developers and architects. Attendees come from around the world to learn about the future of Microsoft’s developer platform, exchange ideas with Microsoft technology experts, and network with fellow professionals. This is the conference you need to attend if you want to stay ahead of the curve, and get a head start on planning your company’s products and technology investments.

Microsoft’s PR department has indicated that interested parties can learn more about the future conference dates, industry-leading speakers and registration info by visiting their website.

BLACKBERRY Developer Conference
September 27-30
Marriott Marquis
San Francisco, Calif.

Stay up-to-date on what’s coming up at the 2010 BlackBerry Developer Conference. The conference is a dedicated forum for the developer community to immerse itself in all aspect of creating consumer and business applications for the BlackBerry platform.

What you’ll take home is some of the following:

• The inside scoop on developing for the BlackBerry platform and the very latest in software, hardware and tools from RIM and its partners
• Invaluable information directly from RIM experts who will personally share their expertise
• First-hand experiences from developers who have successfully created, integrated and managed wireless applications
• Best practices from industry leaders to shortcut development cycles and drive new applications to market

For readers who have been involved with any of these conferences, feel free to provide us with your feedback. And if there are any Developer Conferences not listed here that you feel are significant, please comment on that as well.

CROSS MEDIA NYC CONFERENCE LAUNCHES WITH MAJOR MEDIA INDUSTRY SUPPORT

Media Mogul Bonnier Fuller, Ubisoft’s Mathieu Ferland, Digitas’ Ashley Swartz & RIM BlackBerry’s Alistair Mitchell confirmed speakers for inaugural media event

New York, NY February 9, 2010—The first annual CROSS MEDIA NYC (www.crossmedianyc.com) conference was announced today and has confirmed a heavyweight list of media industry executives to headline the event taking place on Wednesday, March 10, 2010, at the Scholastic Theater in New York from 6pm to 9:30pm. The line up for the event includes magazine innovator and President of HollywoodLife.com Bonnie Fuller, Ubisoft’s Cross Media Group Senior Producer Mathieu Ferland, RIM/Blackberry Vice President of Multimedia Integration Alistair Mitchell and global interactive agency Digitas’ Senior Vice President Ashley J. Swartz. The event’s organizers have partnered with the Government of Canada and NATPE (National Association of Television Programming Executives), and will bring together executives from the worlds of media, entertainment and publishing to examine and explore the current state of the media business in a cross media world.

Founded by veteran digital media executive Gavin McGarry and event producer Jennifer Harkness, CROSS MEDIA NYC, will provide a forum to discuss perspectives on how the industry will be produced, distributed and consumed in a cross media environment, specifically looking at ways to incorporate cross media into business models. CROSS MEDIA NYC has a strict agenda that will focus on providing attendees with real tangibles on how to monetize cross media opportunities in the various sectors.

In addition to the super panel, other scheduled events at CROSS MEDIA NYC include two industry focused case studies and four demonstrations of emerging cross media technologies, all designed to give attendees a more direct and personal understanding of how cross media can be implemented successfully.

Presenting one of the case studies is transmedia storytelling expert and CEO of Starlight Runner Entertainment Jeff Gomez, who works on some of the biggest entertainment franchises including Disney’s Pirates of the Caribbean, Hasbro’s Transformers and Coca Cola. Gomez will present a special transmedia case study on Coca Cola’s Happiness Factory, demonstrating how an entertainment IP can successfully be distributed and monetized across multiple platforms.

David Kruis President and CEO of Metranome, a leading mobile applications production company, who recently launched the first ever animated Dilbert and New Yorker Magazine “Cartoon a Day” integrated calendar applications for BlackBerry phones, will also join the conference to conduct a special demonstration of the company’s unique technologies, applications and services for the mobile media market.

Founder of CROSS MEDIA NYC Gavin McGarry said: “We are excited to kick off the first annual CROSS MEDIA NYC conference with support from these top media executives, each offering insightful perspectives on the state of the business from their own industries. Our goal is to host an annual event where thought leaders from all media can come together, share ideas and learn how to monetize their business through cross media.

CROSS MEDIA NYC 2010 will feature participation from senior executives in such industries as Video (web video, TV, Film, DVD), Internet (websites, podcasts, social media, marketing, music, email), Gaming (Social Gaming, Virtual Worlds, Console), Publishing (magazine, books), Mobile (apps), Advertising and Merchandise. CROSS MEDIA NYC 2010 takes place Wednesday, March 10, 2010 from 6:00pm 9:30pm at the Scholastic Theater: 557 Broadway, Prince Street.

CROSS MEDIA NYC 2010 has also aligned a number of prominent sponsors for the event including the Government of Canada, NATPE, Mashable, C21 Media and the New York Television Festival. CROSS MEDIA NYC’s board includes a roster of industry heavyweights including:  Vidar Brekke ,  Emerging Media Strategist, DefinedLogic; Nicholas Butterworth , CEO, Diversion Media/HD Cloud; Bill Chamness, Account Director, Hanft Raboy + Partners; Anna Gecan , VP Original Programming, HGTV; Chris Pfaff, CEO, Chris Pfaff Tech/Media LLC; Ava Seave, Principal, Quantum Media; Yaron Samid, Founder, NYVideo.org; Tania Yuki, Director, Product Management, comScore.

Conference founder Gavin McGarry is a veteran digital media executive. He was part of the global content team at web video start up JOOST and former head of Cross Platform Business Development for ENDEMOL. Currently McGarry runs Jumpwire Media, a cross media agency that helps companies profit from the emerging digital platforms.

For tickets, sponsorship or to submit speakers, please contact Jennifer Harkness 917-209-9797, info@jumpwiremedia.com.

Follow us on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/crossmedianyc

Follow us on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=295597191619&index=1

###
Press Contacts:
Miller PR
Dawn Miller / Theo Dumont
T. 323 648 4151

Get Augmented in Person: AR Event Scheduled

By Ken Liebeskind

You may have seen augmented reality used as an online advertising application and thought about utilizing it to promote your own product, but didn’t know how to do it. If you attend the Augmented Reality Event June 2-3 at the Santa Clara Convention Center in California, you’ll get a few ideas. The conference is not just about how to create augmented reality online advertising apps, but how to utilize augmented reality in the mobile space and as a way to demonstrate how to use your product.

Ori Inbar, CEO of Ogmento, a publisher of augmented reality apps and president of event sponsor, Augmented Reality Consortium, says the two-day show will focus on the business side of augmented reality, not the scientific side. The show will attract companies in the space, developers and agencies.

A year ago, General Electric was one of the first to use augmented reality to promote its Smart Grid technology with digital holograms that appeared after a paper panel was flashed in front of a computer screen. Inbar says the GE execution and subsequent efforts unleashed a “wow factor,” but augmented reality is expanding now. “Mostly we’ve seen webcam-based executions but it gets more interesting when you use mobile devices. When Apple opened up the ability to do overlay graphics, a new set of apps and games came to the Apple Store. You can point the iPhone in front of you to see what’s going on around you.”

To view augmented reality on a computer, users flash a paper panel in front of the screen to activate the content. Mobile phone cameras, GPS and sensors generate mobile augmented reality content that is overlayed on top of other content on the screen. A wide variety of mobile augmented reality apps are now available that show the locations of nearby restaurants, subway stations, tourist attractions and even the location of Twitter users.

Another new use of augmented reality is to demonstrate how products are used. Lego stores invite visitors into kiosks where they see 3D graphics super imposed on video footage that shows them the contents of the toy package. Topps has utilized augmented reality to show avatars of baseballs players from their playing cards that actually bat, catch and pitch on the screen. “Augmented reality injects new life into traditional games and it’s a great tool to teach customers what’s in their products,” Inbar says.

Inbar says the Augmented Reality event will focus on three key themes: the business side will help start-ups learn how to fund their companies, license their products and understand the legal issues; technology will be covered to understand the latest innovations; and product and design issues will be discussed with case studies to help agencies learn how to incorporate augmented reality in their campaigns.

Inbar is one of the scheduled speakers at the Augmented Reality event. Bruce Sterling, a science fiction novelist and Wired columnist is the keynote speaker. Bruno Uzzan, CEO of Total Immersion, an augmented reality software firm and Robert Rice, CEO of Neogence Enterprises, will also speak. For additional details on the show, please visit the site.

Ken Liebeskind is a freelance reporter and copywriter who specializes in digital advertising.

The eBook Revolution: Innovation Saves Book Industry

By Moria Byrne

[New York] One innovation of the future will be real-time novelists who craft their stories online as readers interact with the writer and each other, commenting, questioning and pleading for their favorite characters to achieve deserved greatness or avoid gruesome death, says Jonah Hurwitz of Coral Springs, Fla., winner of the Google Books challenge.

If Google Books and other eBook distributors bring the reader closer to the writer and the stories, publishers should be confident that the book industry has been saved by technology and the eBook revolution. Right?

This was the one of the many questions posed to publishers and electronic publishing innovators at MediaBistro’s eBook Summit held here last week.

After publishers, agents and writers tackled the future of digital publishing both the business opportunities and challenges, Steve Wasserman CEO of Keerim & Williams, only found one option — wait and see.

“I don’t think we fully know where our customers, in this case, your readers, are going to want to read. I don’t think we necessarily want to narrow it down to one technology,” says Brendan Badger, product manager of Google Books at the Summit.

Greater innovation and variety could create more competition. “There’s a lot of innovation happening right now,” Badger says. He cites the use of smartphones in accessing and downloading information, Sony, Amazon and Barnes and Noble’s eBook readers, and the new innovation of E Ink devices, or high-resolution digital text without the eye-searing white screens. Border’s has a contract with a third-party content management company and eBook distributer, Kobo Inc. He also predicted that there are will be even more eBook designs launching next year.

“We must do everything in our power to uphold the value of our content against the downward pressures exerted by the marketplace and the perception that ‘digital’ means ‘cheap,’”  says Simon & Schuster CEO Carolyn Reidy.

In the digital era, all things may be possible, says Brendan Cahill of Open Road Media, a content marketing company, but he wasn’t convinced that they may be necessarily be profitable.

If innovation doesn’t necessarily mean added value, can growth and diversity in the market place create greater competition? Steve Wasserman of Keerim & Williams, sent a Twitter message that explains publishers’ overall outlook about eBooks. “I suppose we could sum up this entire two-day conference under the headline ‘too early to tell,’” he says.

Fourth Story Media, an interactive publishing company for adult and children’s literature, combines books, Internet, multi-media into the reading experience. The website describes it as “soap operas, role-playing games, books” all in one.

Recently, Fourth Story Media launched The Amanda Project. This is part of an eight-book series that allows girls, ages 13 and up, help the other main characters find their missing friend, Amanda. By signing up and participating, the reader has a chance to have her writing featured in one of the books or in the online magazine, Zine. Fourth Story Media provides authors and publishers with an opportunity to market books and brand them through reader participation. Allowing the reader to contribute to the conversation about a book and using her voice as a marketing tool is possible through eBooks.

What’s also different about eBook publishing is that eBook companies offer online, digital, video, audio marketing and often an opportunity for eBook users to read excerpt from books before purchasing.

“We believe the technology has to be married with the marketing services,” says Andrew Malkin, vice president of Book Content, Zinio. “We can’t put something very shiny and dynamic up on their website without driving the consumers to it. We are promoting it through their website, their e-newsletters, through our source of media.”

Zinio had great success with a craft book recently and all because of the book contributor’s blog. This was before Zinio launched a formal marketing campaign. The contributing writer decided to embed a link to Zinio on her blog.

Her blog “contributed to a lot of (the) traffic,” according to Zinio tracking reports.

A more traditional marketing approach for online books might be to provide a free companion piece online. Daily Lit, a free serial content management and distributor, ran a collection to tips taken from the book, The Organizer for the Disorganized Child. The author wrote this companion piece in the form of daily tips sent to Daily Lit subscribers.

eBook companies also use interaction with the audience to help publishers sell books. Open Road Media plans to market heavily through social media channels. Susan Danziger, Daily Lit’s CEO, found Twitter a fruitful approach in gaining users. Members of Daily Lit can link their account to Twitter. The account sends automatic updates through Twitter whenever the member starts a new books or posts comments on a book. ” It’s a great way to virally get the message out,” she says.

Another way to create buzz is to create contests for customers. Borders posted an excerpt of Michael Stanley’s new novel online for the purpose of prompting online readers to continue the story. The five top entries will receive one of five signed copies of Stanley’s new book.

As Daily Lit doesn’t charge for its content, the company’s goal is to gain an audience and the participation of top writers. The month of December, Daily Lit is running a creative challenge with Anne Rice, who is promoting her upcoming book, Angel Time. The challenge is about an encounter with an angel. Participants submit a 50-word essay on an encounter with an angel and Anne Rice picks the winner. Daily Lit received 51 entries so far. Contests are a common marketing strategy to engage customers, but aren’t the only way readers can engage with authors and other readers. Publishers and content management companies are actively using social media channels to sell eBooks. Scribd has an eBook store with more than 150 publishing houses including Simon & Schuster and O’Reilly Media. PDFs downloaded from Scribd can be read on a Kindle, Sony eBook reader, or directly from the Web in Scribd Flash viewer. Other top self-publishers include: Smashwords, Lulu and iUniverse.

Although only time will tell whether eBooks succeed in bolstering the publishing industry or forces it to sink. The eBook summit buzz suggests that publishers should keep up with the eBook trends but be wary of unknown challenges. In the end, the reader decides the path publishing takes next.

Moria Byrne is a freelance journalist and editor. Her work has been featured in: Baltimore Business Journal, Maryland Daily Record, The Jewish Times and The Narragansett Times.

Social Media Connects Middle East to the World

By Ron Callari

[Paris] For the last two years, the Swedish Institute in Stockholm has hosted the Young Leaders Visitors Program (YLVP), as an intercultural leadership program to bridge divides and strengthen understanding among the nine countries represented, i.e. Algeria, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, Syria, Tunisia, West Bank-Gaza and Sweden.

At this year’s program, held Nov. 15-18 in Paris, program founder Javeria Rizvi Kabani noted that “the aim was to strengthen young opinion leaders to realize synergies in emerging cultures within civil society and the new media sphere working for openness, freedom of expression, human rights and social change.”

One country not represented in the YLVP in ‘08 or ‘09 was Iran. When discussing the obvious absence with Kabani, she indicated that she is entertaining applications from Iran for future events. “However, the situation in terms of human rights and freedom of expression is not unproblematic for opinion leaders in Iran to travel abroad for such meetings.”

At the November conference, the YLVP extended an invitation that was accepted by Saeed Kamali Dehghan, who is The Guardian’s correspondent journalist based in Tehran. According to Kabani, Dehghan is a “brave journalist who has spoken widely on social media and social mobilization in Iran.”

During the Iranian Election Protests in June, Dehghan highlighted the fears of many bloggers reacting to the Iranian government barring the media from leaving their offices to report on the street protests. “The Internet has been a very important social function in Iran in comparison to Europe and other countries. We are one of the top 10 world’s active blogging communities because of the level of censorship inside the country and now the government is cracking down on the Internet as well,” he says.

Dr. Tal Pavel, an expert of Internet and technology in the Middle East indicated that “the Internet penetration rate of 35 percent in Iran,” is one of the highest in the Middle East (”Yemen, for example is only 1 percent.”) “Blogging (versus mainstream media) is the main tool in the Middle East to share information, communicate and indicate events,” Pavel notes.

From a US perspective, when Kabani was asked if the United States could do a better job vis-a-vis social media in communicating with the people in the Middle East, she indicated that “from what I have witnessed, the US State Department seems to be progressive in their use of social media to connect with people in the Middle East.”

However she also noted a marked contrast with how the UK versus US interacts with the Arab world. “Downing Street has direct RSS feeds and real-time media results from social media channels such as Twitter and YouTube on their official website.” In so doing, “they have chosen to open up the conversation rather than just using the social media to communicate with the citizens,” in a one-way communication channel. “The US could perhaps learn more from the UK in communicating with the Middle East, since the blogosphere is so expansive in the MENA [Middle East and North Africa] region,” she says.

While there are a handful of organizations similar to the Young Leaders Visitors Program like Soliya.net based in New York City, to date governments have not been as involved. Kabani affirms that “the focus on social media skills, human rights … and long-term network building done by a government are rare.”

As the YLVP program continues to build on its successes, Kabani feels there is a lot more to do. Looking toward the future, as information becomes more and more accessible and “people are becoming their own media,” the program will continue to address “the shifts in these societies … based on the belief that change comes from the people.” While social media presents these young leaders with the tools to achieve some of these goals, its programs like YLVP that give them the forum to “realize their ideas, scale them up and share them with others,” Kabani notes.

Ron Callari is a freelance journalist and editorial cartoonist whose work has been published on AlterNet, CounterPunch and the Sacramento News & Review. He is currently a social media blogger for InventorSpot.com and the author of two graphic novels.

The Economist Media Convergence Forum: Evolutionary, Not Revolutionary

By Ned Smith

The Economist held its third annual Media Convergence Forum, “The Moment of Truth: Consumers, Technology and Commerce,” in New York City on Oct. 20 and 21. The goal of this gathering of thought leaders, technology experts, media and marketing professionals and boldface presenters and panelists was to examine how new technologies and social media innovations will rewrite the rules of the road for navigating the media landscape of tomorrow.

Featured speakers included A-list digerati such as Craig Newmark, founder of the eponymous Craigslist; Michael Lynton, Sony Pictures CEO and chairman; Jack Dorsey, chairman of Twitter; and Jeff Jarvis, proprietor of influential media blog BuzzMachine and author of What Would Google Do?

The audience was dutifully brought up to date on the changes that are coursing through the consumer marketing universe and furrowing the foreheads of the best and brightest, including the rise of ubiquitous media in an always-on world, the new-found muscle strength and market power of the consumer, the burning need to gain further insight into the consumer psyche and the meteoric trajectory of social media. All of this change taking place in an environment of declining brand loyalty. That’s a daunting agenda.

What many looked forward to with high anticipation was the demonstration competition on the second day, which Digital Media Buzz previously mentioned. The competition was designed to showcase media innovations and game-changing technologies that will revolutionize the way marketers think about reaching consumers. The results of the competition were true to the overarching themes and trends explored by the forum, but the technologies themselves were more evolutionary than revolutionary.

The winner, social gaming website OMGPOP, which lets users play online multiplayer games, chat and make friends, is a poster child for convergence, bringing together both online gaming and social media. Available both in free, ad-supported and pay-for-play, ad-free flavors, OMGPOP exhibits world-class stickiness; average users log in 100 times a month to play games such as Hover Kart Racing, Hit Machine, Balloono and Dinglepop and participate in blogs, forums and chat rooms.

The best of the rest included DecisionLab’s multi-criteria analysis and decision-making software that enables researchers to measure and analyze the impact of marketing stimuli such as online video clips, images or a website on emotions using only a browser and Web camera. This could help marketers gain insight into that hoary old advertising conundrum first put forth by Lord Leverhulme when he reportedly said, “I know half my advertising isn’t working. I just don’t know which half.”

If trying to woo the customer where she lives isn’t paying off, marketers might want to consider a solution by YCD Multimedia. YCD’s Proximity Sensor integration allows marketers to serve in-store digital content based on a consumer’s proximity to a screen. Stores may display engaging content to attract the consumer’s attention and then serve more specific product information when a consumer is close enough to read the screen. The company’s Facial Recognition Demographic Targeting takes it a bit further, allowing marketers to fine tune their messaging based on the specific demographics of the person viewing the screen. A small camera embedded in the screen frame reads the distinguishing facial features of the consumer and sends a message to the content player indicating the sex, approximate age and other demographic characteristics.

Some of the demonstrators were more of a mystery, like Finagle, which is a search engine for advertisements that turns ads into content. Currently operating in stealth mode, this offspring of Sprout, an incubator launched by serial entrepreneur David Repas to “cultivate unconventional ideas into marketable seed-stage companies.”

The social component of the Web and the increasingly significant role it plays in consumers’ lives was well represented in The Economist competition. One cool gadget in the demonstrations was Poken, a small keychain accessory that functions as your social business card. By touching two Pokens together, users can share their contact details and online social networks. Pokens come in a wide range of designs, personalities and colors and can be purchased individually or in 12 packs.

The one high-ticket piece of technology hardware to make it into The Economist finals was the Ovei. Representing the apotheosis of how digitally centered our lives have become, the Ovei  is a personalized media pod that allows the user to access, experience and interact with any digital media source. It features 5.1 surround sound, ambient lighting, climate control and an HD flat screen display. This private space can be used for computer gaming, Web browsing, watching films or videoconferencing. Available options include Dell Alienware gaming hardware and Healthcare Therapy functions. It represents ubiquitous media writ large. And it carries an equally large price tag, starting at £1,950 for a base model Ovei Esp and beginning at £26,500 for the top-of-the-line Ovei Original.

An augmented reality demonstration from Munich, Germany-based Metaio rounded out The Economist competition. It doesn’t take much stretch of the imagination to see how this technology will become an integral element in the media convergence taking place and the newly evolving ecosystem of marketer and consumer. Marketers take heart; here is one more tool that can be used to take a deep-dive into the consumer’s psyche. And, eventually, the consumer’s pockets.

Perhaps the fourth annual Media Convergence Forum will demo the technologies that will pave the way.

Ned Smith is a New York-based writer who reports on business and technology. He can be contacted at nedsmith@gmail.com.

Next Page »