The MIT Convergence Cultures Consortium - aka Brand Lab, of which this blog is part - is about to launch its first phase of research. We have put together a pretty powerful line-up of people from across MIT departments, both grad students and faculty. We have a couple of open slots for corporate partners that will be filled by mid-October, so here's your chance to influence the direction in which we head and benefit from the results. The agenda will be finalized within the next few weeks, and so far it looks like we'll be probing the following:
1. Changes in media consumption, from the cultural, anthropological and technological angles;
2. The intersection of traditional fandoms and "friends of brands" communities; consumer-created media and DIY advertising (think iPod);
3. Branded entertainment. We will work on building a guide on how not to do product integration and examine the potential of overlooked opportunities.
4. Future of advertising technologies - we have collected lots of material, some of it posted here. We will now analyze what we have and see if we can come up with a meaningful and applicable model that can help advertisers to plan the media that is likely to emerge.
If you are interested, you could either use this contact info, or email me at vedrashko(at)hotmail.com (nothing sketchy about Hotmail; I do have an MIT address).
This post is pinned and will move down on Sept. 26. 2005
