WELCOME You have found yourself in the terrific treasure trove that is Matmi's magical world of digital musings. Here is an ever growing collection of stories on digital media matters found while mooching through the web. Ranging from info on the latest games to new media design to trends in the digital marketing stratosphere (and the occasional post that just makes the Matmians' smile). - (curated by the eclectic tastes of the Mini Matmian ^SL...and a little help from his Matmian friends)
Sick and tired of staring at Van Gogh’sStarry Night and being unable to manipulate it with your fingers? Enter: Greek digital artist Petros Vrellis and his interactive Starry Night animation.Using openFrameworks, Vrellis transformed Van Gogh’s masterpiece into an interactive painting capable of rearranging itself through touch-sensitive gestures. Additionally, background music responds to changes in the animation’s flow.You can learn more about it here.[colossal.]
Samsung is embracing a business trend called gamification, which takes elements from games and applies them to other settings.Companies like Recyclebank, for example, use game incentives, like points and rewards, to prompt consumers to perform eco-friendly activities. Other businesses offer awards like virtual badges to induce their employees to embrace corporate goals and increase productivity. Meanwhile, a number of well-known retailers and brands, including Samsung and Warner Brothers, are employing point reward systems as a way to engage customers more deeply.For companies, the premise of gamification is that it engages people in the kind of reward-seeking behaviors that lead to increased brand loyalty, not to mention increased profits. By tracking the online activities of people who sign up for such programs, companies can also amass more detailed metrics about each user — the better to identify the most active customers.“People use gamification to measure and influence user behavior to meet their business goals,” says Kris Duggan, the chief executive of Badgeville, which designs game-based programs for companies, including Samsung.Game techniques, Mr. Duggan says, prompt consumers to spend more time on company Web sites, contribute more content and share more product information with Facebook and Twitter adherents. One of his clients, he says, uses a gamification program to collect information about 300 actions — like posting comments or sharing with a social network — performed by several million people.Read the entire NY Times article here
“Imagine this. You could be watching a clothing show, a signal is sent to your mobile device via sound waves (audio watermarking) which triggers an event. The peice of clothing being discussed on the TV all of a sudden appears on your mobile. You can then apply it to a virtual manikin of yourself to see how it might look and then share this with friends, asking their opinions or to vote on it. You could have the option to click a link which would use GPS to locate your position and show you where you might be able to buy the item.”
![Half of consumers use a second screen while watching TV - [via siliconrepublic.com]](http://www.siliconrepublic.com/fs/img/news/201111/digitalmedia-1.jpg)