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Japanese television network claims over 1M participants in interactive TV game

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Last week we told you a little about TeamLab’s social instrument technology being implemented during Nippon Television Network’s 60th anniversary special. That event took place this past weekend, and the idea was to turn the scheduled musical performance from boy-band Arashi into a nation-wide interactive rhythm game where fans could use their mobile phones, computers, or even their TV remote controls to keep up with the beat visualized on screen. It appears that in terms of participation the game was a success. The network claims that 1.3 million viewers took part in the game – which is more than 1% of the entire Japanese population. (Of course, given how fabricated Japanese pop is these days, I don’t think it’s beyond belief that this number might be fabricated too!) Admittedly, the game play was ridiculously simple, but it was certainly a fun step in making live TV broadcasts more interactive. I wonder if we might see something like this appear in a Superbowl halftime show in the future? TeamLab has been responsible for some amazing digital feats in the past, and we encourage you to check out their website to learn more about past exhibitions and projects. Update July 10: We…

Last week we told you a little about TeamLab’s social instrument technology being implemented during Nippon Television Network’s 60th anniversary special. That event took place this past weekend, and the idea was to turn the scheduled musical performance from boy-band Arashi into a nation-wide interactive rhythm game where fans could use their mobile phones, computers, or even their TV remote controls to keep up with the beat visualized on screen.

It appears that in terms of participation the game was a success. The network claims that 1.3 million viewers took part in the game – which is more than 1% of the entire Japanese population. (Of course, given how fabricated Japanese pop is these days, I don’t think it’s beyond belief that this number might be fabricated too!)

Admittedly, the game play was ridiculously simple, but it was certainly a fun step in making live TV broadcasts more interactive. I wonder if we might see something like this appear in a Superbowl halftime show in the future?

TeamLab has been responsible for some amazing digital feats in the past, and we encourage you to check out their website to learn more about past exhibitions and projects.

Update July 10: We followed up with the folks at TeamLab to find out their reactions to the performance. While I was a little skeptical about the numbers Nippon Television Network was claiming, TeamLab says they’re accurate, and points us to further stats from the live event over at ntv.co.jp/musicday/result. We’ve translated it below.

So what’s the next step for this interactive TV technology? A TeamLab rep says they’d love to further evolve it, and they’ve gotten lots of new ideas as a result of this particular experience. As for future events, TeamLab tells me their door is always open to new clients and interesting new projects!

teamlab_game
Annotated translations by SD

TeamLab technology to make televised events more social in Japan

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Japan’s Nippon Television Network is making the first ever attempt to make the experience of watching a music performance on TV into an extremely social experience. The creative team responsible for making this happen is TeamLab, with its ‘TeamLab Social Instrument’ technology. On July 6th, Nippon Television Network will mark its 60th anniversary. A TV program called The Music Day, Power of Music will be aired on that day for 12 hours. Japanese pop group Arashi will give performance that can be enjoyed as a real time sound game. Viewers in front of the TV can access a special web page on their mobile phones, computers, or even using their TV remote control. On the web page, they can choose an instrument and tap on the button whenever the instrument’s icon appears on TV during the performance. TeamLab’s social instrument technology has been used for real live performances before (check out the video below), but it has been enhanced to compensate for possible network delays. Each performance is given a score for rhythm accuracy after performance, and I assume that there will be some sort of social element to share the score on the internet. For those eager to join…

teamlab-socialinstrument

Japan’s Nippon Television Network is making the first ever attempt to make the experience of watching a music performance on TV into an extremely social experience. The creative team responsible for making this happen is TeamLab, with its ‘TeamLab Social Instrument’ technology.

On July 6th, Nippon Television Network will mark its 60th anniversary. A TV program called The Music Day, Power of Music will be aired on that day for 12 hours. Japanese pop group Arashi will give performance that can be enjoyed as a real time sound game. Viewers in front of the TV can access a special web page on their mobile phones, computers, or even using their TV remote control. On the web page, they can choose an instrument and tap on the button whenever the instrument’s icon appears on TV during the performance.

TeamLab’s social instrument technology has been used for real live performances before (check out the video below), but it has been enhanced to compensate for possible network delays.

Each performance is given a score for rhythm accuracy after performance, and I assume that there will be some sort of social element to share the score on the internet. For those eager to join the nation wide interactive event, you can access the special website here.

Japan’s ringtone publisher Dwango partners with pair of media giants

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[Update] The group has announced that UK-based play performance group Whole Hog Theatre will conduct a Japan tour of Princess Mononoke in April and May in partnership with the Studio Ghibli animation studio. Dwango’s CEO is currently working at the studio as a ‘trainee’ to explore a possible collaboration. Dwango, a Tokyo-based ringtone distributor and the parent company of Japanese video sharing service Nico Nico Douga, announced today that Japanese publishing giant Kadokawa Group and Nippon Television Network would take a major stake of its shares. The company’s largest shareholder prior to this announcement, music company Avex Group, will now be the third largest shareholder. Dwango has been partnered with Avex for seven years, but it has been exploring other partnerships in different businesses to diversify its service portfolio. Kagokawa also recently acquired Skyscraper Inc. from Dwango, a company which primarily handles ads for the Nico Nico Douga video service. A group of ten companies [1] including Dwango and Nippon TV Network will unveil a major joint project of some kind on Tuesday afternoon. The press briefing will be broadcast live on the web on Nico Nico Douga starting at 2pm Tuesday, Japan Time. The ten companies are Dwango, Nippon…

[Update] The group has announced that UK-based play performance group Whole Hog Theatre will conduct a Japan tour of Princess Mononoke in April and May in partnership with the Studio Ghibli animation studio. Dwango’s CEO is currently working at the studio as a ‘trainee’ to explore a possible collaboration.


dwango

Dwango, a Tokyo-based ringtone distributor and the parent company of Japanese video sharing service Nico Nico Douga, announced today that Japanese publishing giant Kadokawa Group and Nippon Television Network would take a major stake of its shares. The company’s largest shareholder prior to this announcement, music company Avex Group, will now be the third largest shareholder.

Dwango has been partnered with Avex for seven years, but it has been exploring other partnerships in different businesses to diversify its service portfolio. Kagokawa also recently acquired Skyscraper Inc. from Dwango, a company which primarily handles ads for the Nico Nico Douga video service.

A group of ten companies [1] including Dwango and Nippon TV Network will unveil a major joint project of some kind on Tuesday afternoon. The press briefing will be broadcast live on the web on Nico Nico Douga starting at 2pm Tuesday, Japan Time.


  1. The ten companies are Dwango, Nippon TV Network, Nelke Planning (musical production), the Yomiuri Shimbun (newspaper), Tokyo FM, Lawson (a convenience store), E-plus (an online ticketing service), Dentsu, Aiia (an apparel and puzzle game publisher), and BS Nippon (a satellite broadcaster).  ↩