By Guest Blogger Richard Ha

This past Wednesday I had the opportunity to attend AFI DigiFest in Hollywood. There were so many smart and creative people there speaking (and learning) about the new ideas that are coming out of the AFI Digital Content Lab.

Four teams presented their projects, describing their main challenge and how the team (comprised of everybody from computer programmers to design agencies) worked together to come up with a solution. The central theme for all of the solutions seemed to be Social Media and how to leverage all of the new ways people connect.

My favorite was the team from ITVS, which came up with an iPhone app that tied in to an upcoming online fictional series called FutureStates. The series is made up of short films that take place in the near future and speak to some sort of social issue happening today. Instead of just opening the films up to comments to “make it social,” the team developed an app that lets people make their own predictions for the future. All of the predictions from the films as well as the ones submitted by users are plotted on an interactive timeline.

Like all cool things, you kind of have to see it to appreciate it (the programmer was so right on when he said it was Guitar Hero-esque), but it looked nice in the demo. I’d keep my eye on their blog for the latest on it though. They’re public so give them some love! (more…)