This is one of the most amazing uses of HTML I’ve seen. Â Built by some Google Folks, and the Band Arcade Fire, and combining aspects of HTML5, Google Maps, and amazing cinematography, it is a sign of things to come for the web. Â Most amazing is there is no Flash.
Clear your screen, and click on the photo below to join the experience.
Arcade Fire Video
I’ve been thinking about this piece and think that it suggests a few important lessons for thinking about the future of journalism too. At it’s most basic, what the “The Wilderness Downtown†does is point out a new way of telling stories online. It is beautiful, immersive, and engaging. It calls us to participate, to follow up, to stay engaged. It challenges us, inspires us, awes us. All of these are qualities we need in the news.
I break this down in some more detail here:
http://stearns.wordpress.com/2010/09/03/what-the-arcade-fires-wilderness-downtown-experiment-can-teach-journalism/
I’ve been dabbling in various web projects over the last 14 years, outside of my day job, and vehemently HATE Flash. Some of my clients, by law, are mandated to have accessible websites. Flash doesn’t cut it. This however, also not ideal, or perfect, proves that Flash isn’t the last word. We will be able to have more accessible, snazzy, beautiful sites, sans Flash. It was actually fun to see the house I grew up in…and I haven’t seen that in 26 years! Thanks for sharing!