Xenophile power ground breaking interactivity for TV series

Link: TheStar.com – Business – Interactive with an X

Now this is quite neat. There’s a Canadian TV series called ReGenesis, which airs over here in Blighty on the Sci-Fi channel. I must admit I haven’t seen it before, but looking at the plots it looks quite cool. Anyway, leaving my TV habits aside for one minute..

Canadian company Xenophile are helping the producers of ReGenesis to break new ground in mobile interactivity. It’s so groundbreaking that they’ve just won an International Emmy Award for their efforts. Here’s a little snippet from the original article:

After the show ends, a viewer who had signed up online may then receive a personalized SMS text message on their cell phone in real time asking for help from one of the show’s scientists.

After logging on, the viewer gets a video message from the scientist. Clues may lead to a multitude of websites and blogs in a quest to solve the mystery.

A subsequent show is then edited to insert an actual photo or video of what the player had uncovered – with reference by the characters in the show about getting help from their “field agents.”

Wow. Now that is really impressive. Some similar interactive stuff has been done before – 24 having ‘live’ phone numbers featured in the show that get answered on set, and the BBC’s Spooks interactive application on UK digital TV that used to come on after the show had aired spring to mind. But in my mind, this takes interactivity up a step – viewers get the chance to really interact in the series is likely to be a big draw.