Transmedia: Storytelling for the Digital Age

Samantha Murphy Kelly:  "Selfie drones, virtual reality headsets and simulated art farms are just a few of the most-buzzed-about "toys" getting a big push at the 2016 Toy Fair in New York City this week. Wireless connectivity, integration with the "Internet of Things" and voice activation are some of the most innovative features."

Chuck Salter:  "A Google Ventures-backed startup partners with NASA, Microsoft, and satellite makers on a children's book of galactic ambition."

Brendan Christie:  "[...] YouTube is arguably the most influential entertainment platform in the world—not the most valuable—by far—but the most influential. But what is it really?"

Olivia Coy:  "Neopets had unwittingly become a case study for the ways that ineffective community management can render immensely profitable websites obsolete."

Nicole Kobie:  "Think back to when you were a child: the thought of your favourite doll or teddy bear learning your name and intelligently talking to you would be simply magical" ...

Stuart Dredge:  "The rise and rise of an animated nursery rhymes channel whose most popular video has been watched more times than Frozen’s Let It Go"

Sarah Perez:  "Late last week, news leaked that YouTube was poised to release a new, kid-friendly version of its YouTube service for mobile devices. Today, much to the delight of families everywhere, that app has now arrived, complete with a simplified design, a curated selection of kid-safe content, parental controls, and more."

Stuart Dredge:  "Plenty of companies, from the biggest children’s brands to brand new technology startups, are exploring the potential of tablets and apps for kids, so what do they have in store for 2015?"

KC Ifeanyi:  "The network has proven that cartoons aren't just for kids. CN vet Michael Ouweleen explains how it's evolved its shows for new generations."

Natalia Kucirkova:  "Transmedia may become a sound business model in addition to a noble cause, but it needs to place the child at the centre, follow the general principles of good transmedia storytelling and not fall into being just a marketing tool."

Carolyn Sun:  "Though the word “transmedia” is thought to have entertainment franchise origins, its adaptation for education purposes is both valuable and becoming more and more common."

Mathew Klickstein:  "It all comes down to something called "parasocial interactions" and why we attach so fondly to the warming glow of the screen—any screen."

Bridget Ellis-Pegler:  "It soon became clear that this story world wasn’t going to fit into a film, but needed a whole TV series, in fact, several seasons of TV series. And books. And a website. And a computer game – in other words, I’d created a huge transmedia beast!"

Gillian Shaw:  "Paul Pattison and Luke Minaker knew they were onto something when they got an email from the mother of a nine-year-old who read the first instalment of their interactive story, Weirdwood Manor" ...

Jana Kasperkevic:  "Streaming services like Netflix and Hulu have cut into the DVD sales that helped fund the show. The least it could do then was help to save it".

Greg Toppo:  "Interactive graphics, sound effects, and animations can all enhance a child’s reading experience—when used in the right places."

Lauren Davis:  "Even for Pixar, Inside Out is an ambitious film. After all, it’s largely set inside the mind of an 11-year-old girl, and tries to metaphorically explain all of the wonderful, frustrating, and confusing things that go on inside the human head while exploring a sort of emotional truth. So how on Earth did it all come together?"

Sam Thielman:  "What looks like an entertainment company, spends like an entertainment company and programs like an entertainment company? It's Hasbro, a toymaker. Hasbro makes not just toys but also hugely popular intellectual property, which for decades has been key to its bottom line."

Maryam Kia-Keating and Yalda T. Uhls:  "The movie perfectly captures what it's like to be in preschool."

Aaron Hutchins:  "Can the SVOD service drive ancillary revenues for content studios? Analysts and execs from DreamWorks and Scholastic Media weigh in."

Stuart Dredge:  "Lots of developers and publishers are exploring the potential of interactive picture book-apps for children, but can they ever hope to deliver a reading experience comparable to books?"

Elizabeth Segran:  "For generations of viewers, Sesame Street is a portal to a simpler, more innocent time in their lives. This creates something of a quandary for the show’s producers: how do you keep evolving a show so it doesn’t get stale without offending its devoted fans?"