Today at POKE we launched KideoPlayer. A fun and safe way for families and kids to “channel surf” YouTube. The brainchild of my POKE partner Tom Ajello, KideoPlayer is based on POKE’s UPL8.TV framework, allowing for easy video surfing by using your keyboard (spacebar) to “skip” forward to the next interesting thing. KideoPlayer works the same way. KideoPlayer also searches the “Safe” areas of YouTube right from the URL bar, like this: www.kideoplayer.com/babyeinstein. That’s it. Just by typing that you’ve rolled your very own “Baby Einstein” channel. Neat huh?! From there, you can keep using it like the regular KideoPlayer features, and use the spacebar to get to the next Baby Einstein video (in this case). Enjoy! And remember parents – watch with your kids and slap the spacebar for the next clip!
Performa, POKE & the Future
This week we launched the beginning of the new online experience of Performa. And what an amazing experience it’s been partnering with such a passionate and creative organization! Having been involved in the world of performance art for a number of years now with J. Mandle Performance, I had the great pleasure of meeting RoseLee Goldberg at several Performa events in ‘07. And I was hooked. So this year, with a theme of Futurism giving rise to the next Biennial, I convinced the crew at POKE to get involved as well. Riffing off of RoseLee’s description of the organization as a “museum without walls” that “uses New York City as a canvas” we began our collective mission to bring Performa and all of their amazing artists and work way into digital culture, up close and personal. Performa was created to encourage and support artists from around the world expressing themselves through live performance art. And are on a mission to push all forms of living and breathing creativity and artistic expression far forward. We thought and they agreed to spread the creative love we needed to create an interactive, command performance of works (that were created and performed in NYC) but now and always open to the world. Experiences that begin right in front of you online, and will continue offline as Peforma 09 hits the Big Apple again in November. And this is only the start. POKE is continuing work in partnership with Performa in the coming months in preparation for Performa 09. So keep an eye out for more digitally-driven, futuristic creative collaboration from POKE and Performa in the coming months. Here’s to the future!