Radar 10am One Thing: ReRoll

This post originally appeared on the DDB Canada Blog.   

Virtual worlds are big and getting bigger: The world of Skyrim is just under 40 square kilometers. Grand Theft Auto V‘s map is 126 square kilometers.  DayZ, a recently-released survival game, has a map size of about 230 square kilometers. Middle Earth, the fictional world of Tolkein’s Lord of the Rings saga, is about the size of the British Isles and has been recreated virtually.

Developers of the upcoming game ReRoll are dreaming bigger. A lot bigger. Like, 510 million square kilometers bigger.

That’s because 510 million square kilometers is the surface area of the Earth, and they’re planning on using drones to map our entire planet, creating the biggest open-world game ever.  It’s an ambitious project, and like a lot of crowd-funded games, might never come to fruition. However, we’re interested in the way that it is further blurring the lines between real and virtual. The Montreal-based team behind the game is funding it via crowdsourcing on their website ReRollGame.com. Their announcement video will help show you just how big this project is going to be.

Radar DDB 10am One Thing: #FreeAndOpen

The following post originally appeared on the DDB Canada blog as part of the Radar 10am One Thing series of posts.

The internet connects billions of people to each other every day. It allows us to talk to people around the world, instantly. It lets us share and create art. It can help us learn.  It helps people who might not otherwise have a voice be heard.

Unfortunately, some of the world's governments want more control over the internet as we use it today. They want to be able to censor it, spy on it or otherwise manipulate it, and they are often supported by organizations that don't have the public's best interest in mind.

Enter the #FreeAndOpen campaign from Google. With a real-time map displaying the names and locations of those who have pledged their support and a video to put a face to some of these people, the company whose informal corporate motto was once famously "Don't be evil" is really trying to do some good. 3 million people have already added their names to the map online.

Visit Google.com/TakeAction to learn more about what's at stake and pledge your support at FreeAndOpenWeb.com.

This is an important issue that goes far beyond the advertising industry and our work at Tribal DDB. We urge you take a moment to consider how a free and open internet has benefitted you, and how it can do so much more for the entire world.

The One Thing is a result of the daily 10am meetings held in the DDB Canada offices, where our digital teams meet to discuss new online trends, tools and technologies. Today's One Thing was written by Tribal DDB Toronto Social Media Strategist, Parker Mason.

For an archive of the 10am links, visit our Delicious account and Pinterest board.

Follow Radar on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/RadarDDB

Prometheus & The Animated .Gif

A few weeks ago I wrote about the Radar 10am Meetings we hold at the DDB Canada offices. The following blog post was written as a result of one of those meetings, and I'll be sharing others in the future.

If you're like some of the Radar DDB team, you've been pouring over every piece of content that's been created to promote the Ridley Scott film 'Prometheus.' From a powerful TED talk in 2023 with one of the film's characters to a futuristic Facebook-style timeline for the fictional Weyland Industries, the marketing for this movie has lots of highly-shareable pieces of content that provide a rich backstory.

We especially like this animated .gif of Michael Fassbender's android character David 8. This image was released to those who had signed up to learn more about the movie, and was accompanied by more detailed information about character.

Despite having been around since 1987, animated .gifs are seeing a resurgence in popularity and are shared widely on social networks (learn more here). These are frequently user-created, so it is great to see that the team behind Prometheus recognized that they too, could create and use these lo-fi but highly-shareable pieces of content.

See the image here, or visit the Weyland Industries website to learn more about David 8. You can also check out some of the films fans sharing David 8 content on Tumblr.

View this blog post on the DDB Canada website here.

You might also be interested in reading our post about the Renaissance of the Animated .gif