I am honored to be invited to the table for a project sponsored by Stibo Accelerator, inside the building of CCI Europe in Arhus, Denmark. It is an incredibly efficient and needed program where those technical geniuses from CCI provide space and support for students at Aarhus University, Danish School of Media and Journalism and other academic institutions to conduct research and experimentation with their ideas for a Master thesis.
During a recent visit to Arhus, I was given a grand tour by Kim Svendsen, director of the program, and observed some of the great products cooking inside the Stibo Accelerator. I was positively impressed and expressed my desire to get involved. On the day of my tour, Kim had just picked up a dozen or so smart watches to give the students.
Now, the so called Smart Watch for News-research project is about to launch at the Stibo Accelerator. two students, Jonas Skytte and Ganesh Ram from the Aarhus University have “moved in” and will spend the next 6 months writing their master thesis about the potential for news publishers for involving smart watches in the storytelling and user journey. Jonas and Ganesh already have four units of the Moto 360 to start with and as soon as the Apple Watch ships focus will also be on that platform.
The view from the director
Kim Svendsen says:
“It’s a thrill to be able to launch a research project where our students truly get time and resources to dig deep into a technology that does not only present a new channel for news but also represents a paradigm shift: For the first time in history we’ll have news on a device that is attached to us.
Fascinating!
And a bit scary.
Kim adds:
"What makes it even more exciting is the “privacy and annoyance-factor” – a smart phone can receive a number of notifications without annoying the user, it just “saves” the messages for when you choose to look at it. How will notifications work on the watch? How can publishers strike the right balance between being first on the user’s news journey – from watch notification to another digital product in the brand – and not having their news app uninstalled after a few days because the users feel their wrist is getting spammed?”
“With students – the future key users of this technology – doing the research and world class mentors and development partners guiding the team, we are super excited about this project. And everyone is invited to follow as well since our research is open sourced be default. Check the website for more and sign up under the Smart Watch-project.”
My role as mentor
Nobody knows much about how we will present information on smart watches, but it is a fact that we will, and that is what is so fascinating about Kim’s invitation for me to be one of the mentors for Jonas and Ganesh, which I accept gladly and with a sense of curiosity and excitement.
I plan to keep you updated as the students and I work through the process. I know you will be happy to be part of the experiment via this blog.
The development partner for the project is Berlingske Medier, with CEO and Editor in Chief, Lisbeth Knudsen, as internal sponsor.
The reason for Berlingske Media to be part of the project is, according to Lisbeth Knudsen, to push the newsrooms of the company into experimenting with new ways of thinking in journalism and in the presentation of news on different platforms and adjusted to different user situations.
"We need to think stories in different layers and in a much more flexible way beginning with the smallest screens and growing over smart phones and tablets and laptops to the biggest ones, and we maybe have to redefine content into totally new services for the smallest screens", says Lisbeth Knudsen.
We at Garcia Media and I personally am delighted to be involved in this project that we know the media industry will be watching with keen interest.