Hercules and Xena |
Online Fans Have A Unique Collecting Opportunity... | Hercules and Xena essays |
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Hercules and Xena |
Online Fans Have A Unique Collecting Opportunity... | Hercules and Xena essays |
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Online Fans Have A Unique Collecting Opportunity...<
A little over a year ago I was recruited to participate in an interesting project. It seems that all things Hercules and Xena are being licensed and sold, wherever Universal Television Entertainment can find a market. Many fans have found the action figures, card games, posters, books, t-shirts, plaques, photos, and other items that are available through the online stores (and at conventions). But I don't think the word has yet gotten out about Cyberaction's Collectible Electronic Multimedia Hercules and Xena Trading Cards (the service has been discontinued). Cyberaction has created a technology which provides uniqueness to downloadable files. You actually can purchase a multimedia package that is branded. Their goal (of commercial intent, of course) is to create multimedia files with value. In a world where distribution of files was meant to be free and easy, that's a very ambitious goal. Normally, people just put files in an ftp directory and let whomever wants them have them. Since anyone can copy the files and set up their own ftp archive (which often happens), there isn't any real economic value to a given file. Cyberaction is seeking to change all this and they hope that fans of Hercules and Xena will help them pave the way. Their multimedia Cyberaction Cards tm are digital trading cards. You purchase a card and you may keep it or trade it with another card collector. Suonds simple enough. But it's not quite like trading images via e-mail. These files are unique. You can't just go around making copies of them. Well, you can, but that won't do you much good. For one thing, you need the Cyberaction card viewer. You can download that for free at their web site. But Cyberaction has worked hard to put in as much security as they can. You can feel reasonably assured that if you purchase a set of Cyberaction Cards you'll get you're money's worth. But you can find out more about the technology at their web site (with a little digging - not all the links are intuitively placed, unfortunately). Each card contains a 10-12 second video clip taken from a movie or series episode. It also contains a front-image, text describing the scene in the clip (or something close to it), and additional information, such as a brief essay on background material or trivia questions. Just like that handy little trading cards you can purchase in the stores - only those cards don't come with moving pictures and audio. And where do I come into this? Well, Cyberaction needed someone to write the text for the Hercules cards. They recruited knowledgeable fans to help them, and I was recommended to them for the Hercules cards. It was an interesting experience, and I wouldn't mind being able to work on more cards for them. I actually had an excuse to sit down and watch "Hercules and the Amazon Women" (which I enjoy) several times, over and over again. And I got paid for it. No, I won't get any royalties off the cards - my contract was for what is called "work-for-hire" - but Cyberaction does give me credit on their web site and a link to Xenite.Org. I can't reveal the content of the cards I wrote here, but I can tell you that we came up with some unusual trivia. I also did some research into the mythological amazons, and got a chance to include part of that material in the cybercards. There were 21 in all, including a special set for a CD-ROM package Cyberaction may release in the near future. Unfortunately, there were some licensing problems which held up original production plans, but they all seem to have been worked out. Oddly, one of the actors in the movie proved to be hard to locate - even his agent had vanished, it seemed. At one point I was advised we might have to rewrite some of the cards. Working with Cyberaction gave me an "inside" look at how some of these whizbang marketing ideas are brought into play. And it gave me a chance to learn the name of the village where the Amazons' men lived (Gargarantia, according to the script, but it's hard to tell from the movie). One thing you have to keep in mind, however, is that the content of the cards is static. That means that it represents my knowledge of the series as of a year ago. Some of the trivia questions' answers may seem a little wrong now, but we knew that couldn't be avoided. One last word about the "value" Cyberaction is creating. They've limited each set to only 10,000 cards. Once the 10,000th card is purchased, that's it. No more will be issued (at least in that series). You can see samples of the cards at the Cyberaction Web site. They've set up a few java demos so you can get a very rough idea of what the cards are like. I hope the fans enjoy this unusual item. It could be the start of something big for all of us. |
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