social-creature

If you have been digging what I write and do and think about — or if you’re simply lost on the internet and wondering what to do with the next 30 seconds of your life — Please vote for my panel at SXSW Interactive 2011! There’s a quickie little account setup first, but IT’S EASY, [...]

A month before the premiere of True Blood’s third season earlier this summer I wrote a post about the first 21st century superhero. The new Iron Man, as reimagined by Jon Favreau and portrayed by Robert Downey Jr., had broken the mold constricting the superhero archetype since its inception back in the late 1930’s, and [...]

Image: Jordan Chesney
I wrote a post recently about how Your Life Is A Transmedia Experience, which included the example of Bret Easton Ellis’s latest novel, Imperial Bedrooms, the 25-years-later sequel to his debut, Less Than Zero, which creates a sort of closed-circuit loop by bringing both the original novel as well as the 1987 [...]

For the past two years, Espresso has taken a stab at answering a simple, compelling question: “What The F**k Is Social Media?” The answer has turned into a series of presentations that have been viewed over 750,000 times, translated into about 10 languages (including Russian, so I’ve finally been able to explain to my parents [...]

The ‘Source’ in the Distance
Last week, my friend Kris Krug flew down to the Gulf of Mexico on the TEDxOilSpill Expedition, a week-long project to document the crisis in the Gulf and bring a first hand report back to the TEDxOilSpill event in Washington, D.C. on June 28. Kris, a photographer, web strategist, and self-described “cyberpunk anti-hero [...]

You know those movies about characters trail-blazing the business of some terrible vice? They’re always set in a not-too-distant past, have trailers full of period-specific songs, and include the words “inspired by a true story” on the poster. There’s the initial meteoric rise to power and wealth, followed by a period of unbridled excess — [...]

A year ago I wrote a piece called “Your Lifestyle Is An Alternate Reality Game.” An ARG, for short, is an interactive narrative that uses the real world as a platform, often involving multiple media and game elements, to tell a story that may be affected by participants’ ideas or actions. Lifestyle, I suggested, [...]

Last month, we at Espresso launched “Connect or Die: How to survive in a Music 2.0 World,” the first in our “2.0″ thought leadership series exploring the challenges and opportunities facing various industries as digital and social technology dramatically alter the consumer landscape.
This month, I’m excited to share the second installment, Drink 2.o: Anything But [...]

In 1938, on the eve of the Second World War, a relatively new medium called the comic book unleashed a new kind of character into the consciousness of American youth. Created by writer Jerry Siegel and illustrator Joe Shuster, this character possessed superhuman powers and a dedication to using those powers for the benefit of [...]

Aerial shot of the Coachella Arts & Music Festival (photo: Jazmin Million)
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“God is alone — but the devil, he is far from being alone; he sees a great deal of company;
he is legion.”
- Henry David Thoreau, “Solitude,” Walden, 1854

Standing on the field at Coachella 2008, the endless noise and heat like physical things pushing [...]