La Fievre Transmedia, French Style

All the buzz, baby steps, exploration, experimentation concerning transmedia, or creating multi-platform storytelling on the web, is also taking place in France.

"We are moving from mass market audiences to a community audience," says Boris Razon from state television in a recent interview in French media.

From the extremely complicated and interactive and perhaps overly promising with hanging possibilities from all directions webdoc Manipulations, which promises to give the participant the sense of becoming an investigator of the hypercomplex, still unraveling French Clearstream political financial scandal....

to the chillingly, disturbing map and character-based Trnopolje about war camps during the Bosnian conflict, produced by the Zaradoc documentary film company...

to the fun, quizz-enhanced overview of Amour in today's society ....

to the beautifully shot, award winning, multipart globetrotting video expose of street art in Defense d'afficher

to the nicely executed multicharacter view of a dilapidated condo in the sometimes tense, angry suburbs of Paris B4...

which in a nice touch included a photography contest ...

and that's the point beyond the nice intros, packaging, it seems there is usually little interactivity in these projects (with the bewildering Manipulations a seeming exception, although it makes it appear as live interactivity, which it isnt) ...

beyond clicking to the next chapter, there is very little potential for serendipity experience and getting the audience lost and participating...

a more interactive project was Facebook-based and involved two journalists going on tour on bikes during the recent French elections, La Campagne a Velo, posting videos along the way, and encouraging participants to comment and add their own content.

MY TAKEAWAY: map and character-based type stories are easy to do and work well, so do quizzes and contests, and living on Facebook seems to be much more engaging ...