Exploiting the red hot user customization trend, M&M’s has an incredibly cool web offering to create custom printed M&Ms. You can select the colors, and custom printing of up to 2 lines with 8 characters each. 4 bags costs $40. M&M’s has also launched a limited time selection of exotic flavors, including “All that Razz” (creamy white chocolate + milk chocolate +raspberry shell), “A Day at the Peach” (peach flavored shell), and “Cookie Minister” (crispy center and mint flavored shell).

P&G’s Pringles has also launched a line of a chips with printed themes, including jokes, world records, Daytona 500 trivia, and Survivor Trivia printed right on the chip, which creates an innovative experience of entertainment fused with crispy, snack enjoyment. Pringles is also soliciting ideas from consumer for future printing themes.

London’s free daily business newspaper, CityAM, has launched a free, mobile version of its daily afternoon podcast.  Titan’s Transvision screens at Liverpool Street and Waterloo stations will display a CityAM commercial prompting commuters to enable bluetooth on their mobile phones and download the MP3 podcast.
[via paidcontent]

There are several interesting entertainment concepts emerging that offer an embryonic glimpse into next-generation entertainment. Street Wars, for example, is a week long water gun tournament where the objective is to squirt your assigned victim before you get squirted by the player who has been assigned to squirt you. Entering the game costs $35. Whoever gets squirted is out of the game, and the last person left dry gets a cash prize.

Another innovative entertainment concept is being pioneered by 5W!TS (five wits), which produces elaborate, interactive, walk-through adventure games at their building in Boston. 5W!TS’ first show is TOMB, a 40-minute adventure set in a realistic rendition of an archaeological dig site in Egypt. In groups of 2-15 people, and accompanied by a guide, participants try to make their way to the pharaoh’s burial chamber. Unlike regular, boring haunted house attractions, the path and story of the adventure aren’t fixed, but depend on whether participants are able to solve challenges and avoid traps along the way. Not every team makes it to the burial chamber, and losers are faced with a faux death experience before leaving the game.

I propose that interactive, choose your own adventure type games that exist simultaneously online, possibly on TV, and real world — true convergence — is the future of entertainment. The traditional 90 minute movie format will be akin to stage “plays,” an artsy experience. Video games are already integrating movie-type narratives, and this will accelerate and also integrate more real world experiences in the future. In 2002, Electronic Arts launched a very innovative game called Majestic, which utilized IM, phone and fax, in addition to online elements, to create an experience that aimed to blur the line between fiction and reality, but the game failed, because there was no objective or ending, the gameplay wasn’t compelling, and the characters that called players were just voice recordings, so the interactivity was very limited.

Imagine a reality show that takes place on tv, online, and real world where the contestants on TV are either voted on by players online, or achieve certain objectives online thereby qualifying them for the television element. It would be true convergence, and democratization of gameshow participation. Mark Burnett, the producer of Survivor and The Apprentice, is working with AOL on a related concept for an online reality treasure hunt, as well as Lloyd Braun at Yahoo who has tried to develop an Internet-based show called The Runner, but apparently, Yahoo doesn’t seem to believe they can recoup the $5-$10 million or so production cost. Perhaps not with simply an advertising business model, but what about also generating revenue via pay to play (with a cash prize for the winners, which is legal since the game would presumably be one of skill and not of chance)?

Last Saturday, Japan launched digital broadcasts for mobile phones equipped with special receivers. Unlike Sprint Vision and Verizon VCast streaming services in the United States, thie programming is not broadcast via an Internet connection, but TV towers. Mass adoption is predicted, because the service is free, and the image quality is very good. Masao Nakamura, CEO of Japan’s top mobile operator NTT DoCoMo, says he expects the service to spawn an entirely new genre of programming.

Most mobile phone screens are rather small, so I could see mass adoption of digital video eyewear, which replicate a “big screen” home theater experience in a device that connects the A/V port of a mobile phone and can fit in your pocket. The Icuiti DV920 digital eyewear device retails for $549.

[Update 5-3-06: The Sharper Image today announced that it will the first U.S. retailer of the Icuiti DV920.]

[thanks, Gary]

In an innovative convergence ecommerce play, New York-based Entertainment Media Works launched Star Style this week, which is helmed by former CBS President Jim Rosenfield. For years, companies have paid for product placement in television and movies, but it’s a marketing strategy that’s increasing in importance, as a result of ad-skipping technology, and Star Style aims to be a central place online where viewers can purchase things they discover via television or movies. American Idol and The Real World - Key West are among the first shows featured, so you can dress like your favorite American Idol, or buy a couch from the Real World, for example.

Ferrari announced this week that they will open the first Ferrari Driving School in North America. The school will be located at Le Circuit Race Track in Mont Tremblant, Quebec, and will be modeled after the Ferrari Driving School in Italy, so apparently nothing truly innovative here. However, Ferrari has licensed its brand name to Aldar Properties, a Middle Eastern development company, which plans to open a Ferrari theme park in Dubai. The park will have a racetrack, driving instruction, rides, and other attractions, including displays of Ferrari history. Surrounding the park, which is expected to open in 2008, will be hotels and shops.

Elsewhere in the exotic car world, there are private road-course clubs, high-end storage garages, and timeshare car options opening. The Autobahn Country Club in Illinois charges a $25,000 initiation fee and annual dues of $3,000 for use of the club’s driving track and clubhouse. And the Classic Car Club Manhattan, a luxury car-share service with 20 cars available to members, charges a $1,500 one-time signing fee, and annual dues that start at $7,000.

[Thanks, Autoblog, WSJ]