Transmedia and audience segments

I was discussing a transmedia project I’d been advising a bit on with my wife today, when she – in the quite brilliant way she has of hitting the nail on the head – pointed out that transmedia, should the mythology and story world allow for it, could be a brilliant tool for reaching not just one target audience, but a number of target audiences in a way that engages them on their own while still keeping them loosely knit together through the common narrative superstructure.

A simplistic example:

Targeting the 65+ segment, television, magazines, books or radio or less complex web based offerings might be the best way to get through, with a storyline that engages them the most. Will try not to be prejudiced, but probably something along the not-too-fast-paced but drama based might do the trick?

Targeting the 35+ segment, i.e. the children of the aforementioned segment, a more quick-paced drama, played out on mobile/tablets, television or VOD and online, based in the same world as the drama for the 65+ is based in, perhaps even overlapping, so that the generations have something to talk about and compare when they meet?

And targeting 15+, the grandchildren of the 65+ segment, a youth drama, perhaps mostly on YouTube, perhaps character-driven to a large extent; could end up a television series as well. But yes, this also based in the same story world as the two above; also overlapping and crashing into the other storylines from time to time. Much like real life!

This would take a bit more planning and a bit more funding than just the one tv-series would do, of course. We are essentially looking at producing three productions, connected to each other. But the end result could be pretty neat indeed. I'd love to try to give such a thing a go.

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The Avatar

I got an idea yesterday and I’d be mighty glad if someone told me if this exists already.

See, I’d like to be able to place myself as an Avatar on different places on the web. On my own home page or blog, on blog articles where I’ve been interviewed or where I have contributed etc.

I’d want this Avatar to be a bit sentient. The Avatar is displayed on the page I put it on and people can talk to it and ask questions  about how I look at things and what my opinion is.

The key thing here would be to have the Avatar constantly crawl the net to find if the real me has written, commented, blogged or been interview about anything on any given subject since the last time. These comments or opinions or facts are then added by the Avatar to its repertoar of answers, complementing or erasing already existing opinions.

So, anyone want to build this with me? Hit me up J

Not this kind of Avatar