X-prize founder Peter Diamandis is developing The Rocket Racing League, an aerospace and entertainment organization that will host Nascar-style rocket racing in three-dimensional tracks in the sky. [via TED blog]
I was up in San Francisco today for the Red Bull Air Race, and Blue Angels exhibition. Someday soon I hope to have the capability to post video on the site - I captured some good footage, but in the meantime here’s some YouTube footage of a prior Air Race.
The Red Bull Air Race is really an amazing experience to watch live, and an incredible and very innovative brand building effort. The Jumbo-Trons, soundtrack, and commentary really add to the experience. They also had booths where you could play flight simulators, so you can experience the thrill of piloting a high performance aircraft through a Red Bull race course.
Something I’ve been thinking about for quite some time is the potential to assist brands create innovative branded entertainment at live events. For example, at hockey or arena football games etc., they have the dance cam, a half-time show etc., and I think there’s a lot of untapped potential here. For example, imagine seeing this girl and other circus de soleil caliber performers at basketball game halftimes, as a show presented by [choose your brand]. Or, there could be a team of fans playing against a “professional” team (of women in bikinis) in bouncy bounce volleyball, as a competition presented by [choose your beer]! Remember closely following the Bud Bowl during Super Bowl game commercial breaks? Now imagine watching during halftime — instead of generic commercials — real live branded entertainment from the venue! It would be great for brands and fans and sports franchises.
While working at CAA, I assisted with integrating the Coke brand into American Idol, so when David at Ironic Sans suggests that there should be reverse product placement, it really resonates with me. Wouldn’t you buy Dunder Mifflin paper, the fictional company from NBC’s The Office, if it existed, for example? What other fictional products would you buy? This is essentially a derivative of movie merchandising (ie Star Wars toys), but there’s potentially a big opportunity here for design firms to collaborate with production companies and license fictional products to real companies.
Amie Street, a Rhode Island-based company, is developing a marketplace for music where the price per song is determined by market demand. This makes so much sense! Why should songs cost 99 cents regardless of whether the band is new and unkown, or well established. Such a model would be a huge boon for emerging artists, because people may be more willing to pay 10 cents for an unknown artist vs. 99 cents, and as interest in the artist rises, so does the price people are willing to pay.
[thanks, Eric Olson]
[UPDATE: The winner will be determined Friday, September 15 at 12:00pm PT. If I win, I will donate the $50 to the Boys & Girls Club of the Peninsula.]
[UPDATE 2: Poll results: Noah - 2, Glenn - 6, WM - 12, congrats to BGC. Thanks for participating.]
Cool and imaginative entertainment and casino and hotel and retail concepts abound in Las Vegas. Future developments and entertainment options are only limited by imagination, which has no limits. To mix things up here at SHARKRIDE, I propose a little competition: I will accept submissions for imaginative hotel, casino, restaurant, show, or entertainment venue Vegas concepts via email, or comments and will select what I believe to be the 5 best to be voted on by SHARKRIDE readers - feel free to submit as many ideas as you want. The submission deadline will be Sunday, September 10, 11:59pm PT. I will subsequently figure out how to do that blog voting thing, and will paypal the winner $50!
To foster imaginative thinking, here are a few of my own concept synopsis samples:
1) A James Bond fantasy laser tag game played in a casino complex - perhaps there could even be a mission - such as an Oceans 11 inspired heist challenge!
2) A Space Hotel and Casino with midget alien servers, weightless simulators, rooms with planet shaped beds that hang from the “space” ceiling, a virtual UFO abduction experience, a space station replica etc.
3) A “heaven” themed Hotel and Casino, which features famous artist and celebrity sponsored visions of heaven - there could be different visionary concepts within the hotel - perhaps even a feature where you can select your favorite things from a list of available options, and a semi-custom heaven experience can be created for you. Bikini clad women serving warm chocolate chip cookies, and margaritas under palm trees, for instance.
4) Underwater restaurants and Ice Bars and rock and roll and Hollywood and jungle themed restaurants have been done, but what about a restaurant where you need to catch the fish you want to eat, or catch a chicken with your bare hands, or a simulated hunting game, or pick vegetables in a real garden, and then master chefs prepare you a gourmet meal with your selected elements as you watch, or perhaps there could be a conveyor belt type floor that travels through different themed sections, where the menu options can be presented via various themed shows hosted by theatrical chefs.
5) The ultimate putt putt golf experience that goes way beyond the ordinary “gypsie” theme. Perhaps there can be cars won for holes-in-one, and other organized wagering. Instead of spinning windmills, there could be pong-like robots, and the course would exist on multiple levels, so you would need to climb up and down volcanoes or over ravines with crocodiles, and you can challenge “pros” employed by the course who are basically comedians, or dressed up animals - and there would be laser shows, and really cool water hazards that spray water etc. — whatever, you get the idea.
Let’s have some fun!
USC’s Institute for Creative Studies and AnthroTronix have developed a scent collar, as a means of augmenting emotional connection in a simulated environment. The research was funded by the US Army, and the scent necklace releases a variety of scents recently introduced during virtual reality training for military applications.
Yasuyuki Yanagida at the Media Information Science Laboratories in Japan is developing a scent projector that delivers localized odors through the air without requiring users to wear any special devices, and because the projector emits only a small amount of scented air, different scents can be delivered within a short time. Commercial applications for this kind of technology are numerous, including heightening the realism of movies, television viewing, and video games.
I’m intrigued by the success of infomercials as a vehicle to sell products. Infomercials are a $256 billion-per-year industry (including its business-to-business component), according to the Electronic Retailing Association. The fame and success of the Foreman Grill, numerous exercise machines etc. etc. is clear.
The reason? The infomercial and the entertaining theatrics of the man behind it.
WMJ entrepreneurial idea of the day: what about an e-commerce emporium, where via video blogs people sell one or two products a day. It would be like a daily cool hunting site meets digg meets YouTube meets the infomercial. The best sellers would rise to the top of the listings, and there would be a daily top ten listing of sellers. It would be Internet-enabled democratization of the infomercial and seems like something YouTube.com could do to generate revenue, or an interesting opportunity for eBay.
This week, I received a beta invitation for MOOLA.com. You start with a free penny, and if you can double it 30 times by playing simple, two-player games, you will win over $10 million. Nearly 700K has been won to date. You are automatically matched against players competing at the same level, and although the games you can select now are limited (a ro sham bo game and a gold rush bidding game — they will be adding more over time), the play is quick, and marginally exciting. You can cash out anytime for real money, as you can on Deal or No Deal or Who Wants to be a Millionaire. Moola is free to play, ad supported entertainment, and is another promising baby step in the sphere of Internet-enabled gameshow democratization.
I believe there’s a big opportunity here to create an immersive , interactive gaming experience like Everquest, but compress the experience from a 50 hour/week time commitment to an easily accessible quick and episodic gaming experience that appeals to the casual gamer, and offers the potential to win real money. Personal WMJ trivia: In second grade, I wanted to be a gameshow host, and I designed a gameshow concept, a card game, which featured an elaborate set with a glass elevator to access various levels.
