Casino Royale – Official UK Website

http://www.sonypictures.co.uk/movies/casinoroyale/

Interactivity
• Can vote online for Eva Green for BAFTA’s Orange Rising Star Award
• You can play the Casino Royale strategy game
• You can register for updates
• You are given the option to play poker
• You can read the Yarbrough Blog which shows you behind the scenes and a closer look of the film itself.

Market/promoting film
• You can watch trailer for film on website
• You can read about the film and find out information such as storyline, cast, crew and soundtracks for the film.
• It tells us that film is out in cinemas now, which would promote the film to the audience.

Attracting the audience
• Site tells us that it had 9 BAFTA award nominations, showing that the film was successful leaving audience wanting to watch film
• Interactive features will attract an audience with options to watch film video clips and vote online, as well as play games.

Fansite: Neighbours

Website link: http://www.ramsay-street.co.uk/

This is the longest running neighbours fansite in the world. The website is targeted specifically to fans of neighbours. It offers latest news about the programme, epsiode guides, information about the characters, magazine and newspaper articles, videos and still screen shots, as well as links to kylie minogue and holly valance mini sites, both of who were previous stars of the show. The audience is offered the chance to contact the site via email and express any issues they want to.

Vlog: Alien vlog 1 - The first contact

Website link: http://www.thedailyreel.com/videos/alien-vlog-1-first-contact

Undoubtedly the first of many, this animated vlog follows teenaged Nerk as he travels the universe to Earth with the 'rents. The vlog can be seen on YouTube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=73ofXQf3xcM.

YouTube is a popular video sharing website where users can upload, view, and share video clips. Videos can be rated, and the average rating and the number of times a video has been watched are both published. Similarly to MySpace, an online community can be created whereby you can view, comment and rate over people's videos. YouTube can be used by anyone for free, and is therefore a great example of personalisation and interactivity.

New phenonomenon: PS3

The Playstation 3 is a gaming console produced by Sony Entertainment. It was released at the end of 2006 in Japan and the USA and by spring 2007 in the UK and acts as a direct competetor to rival consoles; the Wii by Nintendo and the Xbox 360 from Microsoft. It is the third console made by Sony and replaces the Playstation 2, the most successful games console ever greated. The Playstation 3 is a next generation console. The processer chip used to run the PS3, running at over 4GHz is up to ten times faster than curent home computers. This makes PS3 the most powerful games console ever created. TThis new technology feature allows real time processing. Something that has not previously been possible and allows graphics, sound and physics to be processed near instantly by a supercomputer like chip. The PS3 also uses Blu-Ray disks. These are the latest technology set to replace DVDs, and can store as much as 50GB on a dual layered disk. This allows designers to produce the most creative, in depth and graphically excellent games possible. It also means that future capabilities are inbcreased as designers have the storage space to make dramatic advances to games, lengthening the potential lifetime of the PS3. The PS3 allows Playstation Portable owners to link up the two machines. The PSP can access the internet through the PS3. Data can also be transferred from one to another, this wireless function opens possibilities for more entertainment on the go. The Playstation 3 has embraced the 21st century and has made a bold step in front of any other console producers. The vast range of new technologies used by the PS3 make it the most technologically advanced console ever made. New goals will be set for the standards of games in the future change. High definition graphics and huge processing powers allow designers to produce games which will impress users beyond any expectations.

Music downlading: Limewire

Downloading music off the internet has become extremely popular in recent years, with downloading figures having affects on the position of songs on the music charts.

Limewire, is a programme that can be downloaded for free and can be used to download any song you could possibly want and transferred you’re your own computer to listen to. This is extremely convenient, as you do not have to get off your seat to do this, with the stress of going out and buying/ordering a CD not a problem. You can choose to download songs and listen to them whenever you want; all you need is access to internet and a computer/lap top. The process of downloading the music will only take you a matter of minutes, making this method of consuming music far more efficient and easy then going around looking and buying CD’s.

Audiences that most commonly use programs such as Limewire are teenagers and young adults, who enjoy listening to music, but cannot go out and buy CD’s as they simply do not have the money. Also, these are the kind of people that are more likely to explore the internet and find out new information and ideas, such as coming across programs such as Limewire.

A Disadvantage of programs such as Limewire is that the sales of big record labels have slumped dramatically, due to the fact that their music can now be downloaded for free over the internet, therefore making small profits from CD sales.
There are currently 300 legal digital music websites, three times as many as existed a year ago. Digital music services have registered 2.2m subscribers around the world, which is up from 1.5m in January. The two most popular are iTunes, offering 1.5m tracks and Napster, which offers 1.2m

Blog of my choice: MySpace - Max and Barry

Website link: http://www.myspace.com/wearemaxandbarry

MySpace is a popular social networking website offering an interactive, user-submitted network of friends, personal profiles, blogs, groups, photos, music and videos internationally.

Profiles contain two standard "blurbs": "About Me" and "Who I'd Like to Meet" sections. Profiles also contain an "Interests" section and a "Details" section. However, fields in these sections will not be displayed if members do not fill them in. Profiles also contain a blog with standard fields for content, emotion, and media. MySpace also supports uploading images. One of the images can be chosen to be the "default image," the image that will be seen on the profile's main page, search page, and as the image that will appear to the side of the user's name on comments, messages, etc. Flash, such as on MySpace's video service, can be embedded. Images and videos can also be commented on by your MySpace “friends”. Also there is a "details" section which allows the user to provide personal information on the user such as his/her race, religion, and sexual orientation. The User's Friends Space contains a count of a user's friends, a "Top Friends" area, and a link to view all of the user's friends. Users can choose a certain number of friends to be displayed on their profile in the "Top Friends" area. By clicking on other users’ profiles you will be directed to their own individual profile where you can also comment them. Below the User's Friends Space (by default) is the "comments" section, wherein the user's friends may leave comments for all viewers to read. Users of MySpace also have the option to edit the appearance of their profiles by pasting HTML onto their profiles. MySpace profiles for musicians are different from normal profiles in that artists are allowed to upload up to four MP3 songs onto their page. Also, MySpace users can choose to have music on their profile, which they would have to add from a band or artists own page. MySpace also allows users to create their own individual blogs, for their friends to view and comment, as well as being able to post individual bulletins for all their friends to see.

MySpace also promotes things such as various bands and artists, as well as things such as books and comedy shows.
Overall, MySpace is an excellent example of personalisation, in terms of how users can create their own profile with endless of features on them which are specific to them. There is also a sense of an online community, where people can interact with one another. Something else key to MySpace is the huge variety of media experiences that can be obtained, such as videos, photos, music and more.

Podcast of my choice: Ricky Gervais Show

Website link - http://www.rickygervais.com/podcast.php

The Ricky Gervais Show is a comedy audio show in the UK starring Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant from world famous comedy series The Office, and Karl Pilkington. The show started as a weekly show until 2005. In November 2005, Guardian Unlimited offered the show as a podcast series of 12 shows. Throughout January and February 2006, the podcast was consistently ranked the number one podcast in the world; it may appear in the 2007 Guinness World Record for the world's most downloaded podcast, having gained an average of 261,670 downloads per episode during its first month. The show became increasingly successful as Gervais and Merchant spent much of the air time mocking Karl Pilkington. He was little known before but througout the series became an increasingly important part of the show. His general opinions and ideas on life came across as totally ludicrus and Gervais and Merchant constantly talk him into situations where he can only reply with insane and hilarious suggestions.Features such as Karl's Diary and Monkey News were essentialy, stories beased on nonsensical ideas and thoughts from Karl's somewhat twisted mind.

The podcast uses new media technology to obtain such a wide audience. The podcast is essentially an audio program that can be downloaded from the internet and listened to on a computer or mp3 player such as the Apple iPod. The iPod is a multifunctional piece of equipment, it can be used as a music player, a movie player, for games and even as a portable hard drive storage device. The ability to download a podcast onto hardware such as an iPod means that people can listen to and enjoy the show wherever they are; at home, on the way to work or even whilst doing the weekly shopping.

The target audience for the Ricky Gervais podcast is extremely broad. Mostly for those who understand or appreciate a more mature or sophisticated sense of humor but it is accessible to anyone and the limits of who may enjoy this technology are endless