Digital Culture Presentation

Web 2.0: The Poster from flickr


Thanks to everyone who attended my presentation on digital culture.

I promised to post some of the tips and links I referenced, so here they are. There's also plenty of other material in this blog, so take a look around.

If you haven’t already, get microblogging on Twitter and sign up to social network like Facebook. Explore some of the social applications like the music sharing app. iLike.

Check out the differences between Facebook, which is a network largely for people who already know each other and Bebo, which has a younger profile and positions itself more as a social media site, with online TV shows like Kate Modern. Bebo is currently championing online safety.

Use a feed reader (personal news aggregator) e.g. Google Reader or Netvibes to get your information and entertainment brought to you in one place (and you won't have e-mail newsletters clogging up your inbox).

Use social bookmarks, such as del.icio.us or Reddit, to tag and sort information and access your favourites from any computer. The bookmarks are public, so you can also see what interests other people.

Discover new websites through StumbleUpon or the del.icio.us hotlist.

Download Firefox as your web browser and get some add-ons e.g. the web 2.0 toolbar (allows you to quickly access top social news stories and top viral videos so you're up to speed with the latest online buzz).

Why pay for calls, when you can use VoIP to make free calls online - download Skype.

Store and share your documents on the Internet using Google Docs - even write collaboratively.

Start a blog with Blogger or Typepad.

Create your own cartoon strip with Toonlet.

Create a photoblog, or digital scrapbook, with Scrapblog.

Explore the groundbreaking Microsoft Photosynth, which displays digital photos in a reconstructed 3-D space for anyone to explore.

Try a search visualisation tool like searchCrystal. It's still in beta mode, so give them some feedback on your experience. You can also help improve Search at Google Experimental .

Gain ‘influencer points’ in social media like StumbleUpon or Digg, or Australia-based Kwoff, by voting, commenting and linking to sites and uploading content you think others will find interesting.

Beta test cutting edge new software - get invitation codes from mashable.

See how Brazil's Ministry of Culture is creating Cultural Hotspots, which use digital technology to help preserve indigenous cultures and help communities express themselves.

Check out how we're creating culture through online videos, TV shows and games:
The Machine is Us/ing Us
Internet People
Dick in A Box
Starburst's Little Lad Dance
Neon Bible
Get The Glass
Kate Modern

See how virtual worlds are already child's play:
Webkinz
Whyville
Club Penguin

Enjoy!

Have a great long weekend,

Moensie

Room service? Send up a larger room

Stateroom scene, A Night At The Opera


Marx Brothers' fans will recognise the line, 'Room service? Send up a larger room' from A Night At The Opera. I adopted this as the name for my blog because I love playing with language and the Marx Brothers' ingenious word play is legendary.

In marketing, there are lessons to be learnt from how the Vaudeville comedians flip language to change perspective and meaning. This allows us see things differently, in order to come up with more creative solutions to problems. Then we can genuinely surprise and delight consumers.

So, in customer service, for example, where most service providers would do the obvious, logical thing (service customers just as much as is necessary to maximise profits or shareholder value), innovative companies think laterally. They embrace the absurd and they send up a larger room.

The novelist Paulo Coelho subverted his own brand, creating the 'pirate' website Pirate Coelho, where he posts links to illegal downloads of his own books. He even published a free version of the Russian translation of The Alchemist. And his quirky strategy has paid off. Not only has he garnered the support of fans worldwide, but sales of his books in Russia quickly rose from nothing to over a million.

That's all very well for an author, but what of big brands? It turns out that this kind of lateral thinking can also pay off for large companies. Amazon went above and beyond the call of duty to provide unparalleled customer service, when Wall Street logic would have had the company build the bottom line.

Amazon embraced the 'absurd', offering free shipping, even making losses on some popular items. But, they built a powerbrand with enviable levels of trust and loyalty - 72 million active customers, each spending an annual total of $US184 on average, a 23% rise over the previous year (New York Times).

Their business philosophy is based on the principle that, if you do something good for one customer, they'll tell 100 customers. That's a hundredfold return on investment - not bad odds, even by logical standards.

Google Thyself

I was in Epoque in Cammeray the other day (great mussels and chips) and happened to see a woman wearing this T-shirt. It made me smile.

Self-Googling is increasingly common, now practiced by 47% of American Internet users, compared to 22% in 2002, the Pew Internet and American Life Project reports.

It may seem narcissistic, but keeping track of your 'personal' information online - your so-called 'digital footprint' - makes sense. The same research study, released in December 2007, indicated that 53% of online users had Googled other people, for personal or business reasons. In other words, false, or embarrassing information, or images, come back to bite you.

There's a growing industry in reputation management, with companies like ReputationDefender and the professionally oriented Naymz, helping Internet users bury potentially harmful information.

I've pointed out previously that many people, particularly teens, still don't seem that bothered about many aspects of online privacy. But, managing their image is important to them. It's about being in control of what they share and what they disclose about themselves, in order to be perceived the way they want.

War of the Words

The BBC reports that Facebook has been asked to withdraw the wildly popular Scrabulous application, following complaints from toymakers Mattel and Hasbro, who own the Scrabble trademark.

Scrabulous, created by third party developers for Facebook, currently ranks among the site's top ten applications, with around 600,000 active daily users. And these loyalists have already mobilised to create the Save Scrabulous group. They're encouraging fans to log their protest with the toy makers. There's even an online petition with nearly 700 signatures to date.

Scrabulous has attracted such a following because it gives Facebook users bragging rights with their mates. Being the wordgame master among your social network friends confers kudos in a somewhat more intellectual way than being the top Rockstar Vampire. A burgeoning number of 'scrabble cheat' websites attest to the social value of being a Scrabulous star.

Mattel and Hasbro missed a trick, failing to leverage a property that was online gold. Scrabulous developers Rajat and Jayant Agarwalla spotted the opportunity - and their ingenuity was in not simply developing an online version of Scrabble, but recognising its value as a social widget.

It's as if a Scrabble ecosystem has developed, with several groups having a stake in the intellectual value of the word game. There's the original idea for Scrabble, owned by the big companies, the tweaked idea, with the addition of social networking functionality, part borrowed, sort of 'owned' (they hope) by the Scrabulous developers, and, the intellectual standing gained by champion Scrabulous players. Add to that the cheat websites and Scrabble is rich brain food indeed, feeding minds, boosting social currency and wallets.

It remains to be seen how the intellectual property battle will pan out. Not only the developers, but Facebook, face the music. By throwing open its doors to third party applications, which live on the site, Facebook has, to some extent, aligned its fate to that of external developers.

The social network's member base and user engagement rocketed last year when it invited outside applications - games, quizzes, film and music sharing widgets flooded in. Now Facebook shares the grief and the potential loss of visitors, or decline in the time spent by users within the site, should popular applications be withdrawn. For some people, Facebook is Scrabulous and the social network's value would be diminished without it.

Too cool for school?

Coolest Girl in School


A new mobile game for girls, (who now account for around 60% of mobile game users) by Australian developers Champagne for the Ladies and Kukan Studio, invites players to fight their way, tooth and nail, to the top of the high school ladder. In Coolest Girl in School, players improve their social standing by lying, bitching, getting pregnant, doing drugs, you name the vice. Too cool for school? The Australian Family Association is not amused.

There's been a lot of press coverage about the apparently dangerous effects of violent video games, or games that seem to promote aggression. They've been blamed for antisocial behaviour, teen pregnancy, even murder. Other media explore violence and horror, yet computer games get most of the heat because of their interactive nature, which is thought to influence behaviour more.

Critics are particularly scathing when it comes to games that reward bad behaviour, saying this sends out the wrong signals to children and increases aggressive thinking and behaviour. They point to a body of research. A recent study by the University of Michigan Institute for Social Research likens exposure to violent games to a pubic health threat.

A counter argument is that indulging in fantasy or roleplay doesn't make kids monsters. Teens are natural thrill seekers and gaming allows them to experiment, explore and discover the consequences of their choices. Not only can gameplay help enhance their strategic decision-making ability, but it can be a safe outlet for their more brutish, or conflicted feelings.

Gameplay occurs in context - the social context and the player's preexisting tendencies, which may have a stronger behavioural influence. Gaming enthusiasts point to other studies, which indicate that short-term video game play has less of an impact on behaviour than existing personality traits.

There is no scientific consensus. If there is any common ground, it's a tentative acknowledgment that violent videogames may desensitise people to real-life violence. Cyber-bullying, such as happy slapping, has been cited as a possible consequence.

It remains unclear whether violent games cause violent behaviour, or whether they just tend to be favoured by more aggressive people.

Ultimately, kids may be attracted to violent games because they're more exciting and absorbing. Research indicates that video games can dull pain, and violent games are the most effective, according to scientists at Wheeling Jesuit University in West Virginia, US. Nilli Lavie, a psychologist at University College London, has speculated that fighting and sports games probably dull pain most because they occupy more of a player's attention.


High school - the horror!

Without getting too embroiled in the violence debate, lets look at some home truths about the school setting of Coolest Girl in School. Kids don't need video games to bring out a sadistic streak, if they're so inclined. Whether they're pulling the legs off spiders, or torturing younger siblings, or sending classmates to Coventry, baser instincts will find expression.

High school can be quite ruthless. (OK, I admit, my high school was a bitch fest. Alarmingly, encountering some of my year group later in life, I found the years had made them all the more bitter. It just goes to show, 'if you think bad, bad's what you get'.)

The primeval, Lord of the Flies brutality of high school has often been visited in media. Think Heathers, Clueless, Gossip Girl. And now there's the Australian school-themed mockumentary Summer Heights High (which rated amongst Google's top TV searches in 2007).

These films use satire, pastiche, and black humour to pull apart the social constructs in school, to reveal the power struggles, the cliques and the gender battles. We laugh, while wincing at how close they come to the ugly truth.

You could argue that a computer game, which tackles similar issues, is also making valid commentary. But, the point about a game, particularly a role-playing game, is that users can follow different paths, depending on their moral and strategic choices, therefore any point the developers may be making is less clear. A game is more open to interpretation (and misinterpretation).

While instincts may be to protect kids from various horrors, they're fielding them every day. That's not to say that computer games that appear to encourage bitching and violence should get an easy ride; we should always debate content, particularly when it's aimed at kids. I get the feeling that Coolest Girl in School, billed as 'Grand Theft Auto for girls', is banking on some debate. In games marketing, being infamous is as good as being famous - provided you're not banned.


Implications for branded entertainment

Companies looking into branded games need to be aware of the pitfalls. Clearly family brands don't want to attract the attention of watchdogs, but if they do use games in their marketing mix, marketers need to make sure they appeal to the target audience. Kids are exposed to edgy and risque games. Often, these are the most thrilling. A safe, daggy, branded game will attract nothing but derision and do the brand more harm than good.

But all is not lost. It's relatively easy to aim games at younger children, with innocent, playful, or educational content. Word games, e.g Scrabulous, or strategy games, can work well for older audiences. Brands can explore humour when targeting any audience, but bear in mind that a lot of modern comedy is edgy or dark.

There's no easy solution, but this is not a problem peculiar to branded games. Any ad, or branded entertainment property, needs to make its mark, finding a place on the spectrum between inchoate boredom on the left hand side and infamy on the other. I'd suggest right of centre, whatever your brand!

Thrifty chic

Thrifty Birthday Girl


Thrifty thinking, once the preserve of misers and cheap dates, is officially cool. As illustrated by JWT's campaign for Thrifty car rental, people are having fun with thrift. That means it's seeping into popular culture (for example, Thrifty ads are giving rise to copycat spoofs on YouTube). Thrifty thinking has become a positive lifestyle choice, a movement no less.

Thrifty thinking is such an engaging concept because it's a game of wits. You can try to beat the system, always getting the better deal, whether it's buying on the sales and getting twice as much, or shopping at a discount department store and passing it off as designer. It's not just about getting things cheap - it's the payoff when you pull it off as something bigger and shinier. Thrift has attitude.

In the Thrifty campaign, that's the dad taking disproportionate credit for getting his daughter a car (rental) for her birthday. It's Thrifty 'borrowing' someone's high-traffic billboard space round Sydney Airport.

Being thrifty is not exclusive. It works for people of all ages and incomes. As the Entourage boys demonstrate, being a multimillionaire superstar playboy, or one of his hangers on, doesn't preclude thrift. Vince orders the most expensive steak on the menu as a takeout when his business lunch goes sour. Drama steals batteries from recording studios for his (very) personal shaver.

With the mainstreaming of green or 'caring' consumption (think Anya Hindmarch's 'I'm not a plastic bag' - environmentally caring, oh! so desirable and the godmother of caring handbags), being thrifty is no longer pejorative. If you're thrifty, it's not that you're cheap, you're just putting more thought into what you buy. You're not a merchandise monster who's destroying the planet for us all through your out of control consumption.

So, join the backlash against record consumer spending, 'buy' your friends a virtual beer, pull in your purse strings and get some thrift. It's all the rage (and, given the global credit crisis, it's kind of sensible too).

4 examples of contagious customised virals

When it comes to viral marketing, it may be glaringly obvious, yet it's often overlooked that you need to give people a good reason to pass it on. One of the most successful ways to do this is through customisation: then people have a vested interest in the content and are more likely to spread it.

Here are 4 examples of contagious customised virals:


Simpsonize Me



Burger King's (still live) Simpsonize Me, which coincided with the 2007 release of The Simpsons movie, is pretty simple and good fun. It takes no more digital sophistication than the ability to upload a photo of yourself, so it quickly became popular with all ages.


Elf Yourself


Elfsonificated Markus on Flickr

US-based office supplies company OfficeMax's recent Elf Yourself initiative spawned flickr groups, caught the imagination of broadcasters, including the Today Show and generally caused a stir, attracting over 110 million visitors, according to OfficeMax statistics. So simple, so dumb, so successful...The moral of the story: people are easily pleased. You don't need sophisticated widgets and gizmos, just something quirky and customisable that gives them a chuckle.

The downside was the lack of leverage for the OfficeMax brand. Dancing elves are all very well, but unless they shift some product they might as well whistle Dixie.


Dexter



Dexter was more sophisticated, but not over-complex. To launch the TV series Dexter, Icetruck TV came up with a wickedly ingenious viral that let users give their mates a scare, by sending them video footage indicating that they were next on a serial killer's hit list. The video is a lifelike news report, which includes 'police' footage and commentary on patterns observed in the killer's activity; it's made all the more real for including your friend's name, job and a customised message at the crime scene.


Pepsi Max





Pepsi recently launched this 'tattoo' video viral that lets you play a joke on guys who fancy themselves as lady killers. It includes a good level of customisation, as you can see above, without being too time-consuming. Drop down boxes enable users to quickly make a selection.

Post-Futurism, Now!

Culturally, we're in the throes of a time slip. We're losing the present. In film and fiction, the present day is increasingly represented as the future, while current films are more often set in the past.

Firstly, the current past. In The Sydney Morning Herald (11 January, 2008) Joe Queenan observes that more new films are set in the past because technology is ruining suspense in storylines. With mobiles, the Internet and GPS tracking, the good guys get real-time information on the whereabouts of killers and help is instantly at hand. So, present day films lack the suspense of old-fashioned thrillers.

I agree with this up to a point. However, a series set very much in the present, 24, manages to be immensely thrilling. But it does have to work bloody hard to be so. It's a paradigm of multi-threading, with multiple plots and subplots unfolding concurrently. To achieve close to the same level of tension as, say, Hitchcock's Psycho, it has to be ultra-complex. From Lost to Heroes, multithreading is a clear trend in TV.

I believe that what films set in the past offer is suspense and simplicity. (Incidentally, the Coen Brothers' new movie No Country For Old Men, set in the late 70s, is awesome - the slow, slow pace of it, the entire lack of music, which makes it so oppressive. At one point, the Sheriff visits an elderly relative. I got the sense that the old guy had been sitting there in his dilapidated house, on the far side of dusty nowhere, with no company but smelly cats, since time immemorial. I loved it; others may feel they've been sitting in the cinema since the beginning of time.)


No Country For Old Men trailer


Now, back to the present future. The fantastic science fiction blog io9 recently posted a feature entitled Why is science fiction going back to near future?. The article points out that cyberpunk guru William Gibson, who coined the term 'cyberspace', now writes fiction in the present day because, he claims, 'reality has become science fictional'.

Science fiction is now closer to real life, so the genre is mainstraming, or rather, sci-fi ideas are creeping into literary fiction. I've read several such books recently by mainstream authors, including Kazuo Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go and Tobias Hill's The Cryptographer, both set in the near future. Cormack McCarthy's The Road, which I would unconditionally recommend, is set in a post-apocalyptic world, which seems to loom before us, as storms and drought ravage the world.

Science fiction is no longer so outlandish. The fact is, we simply don't need to look to the distant future to conduct the 'thought experiments' of sci-fi. We already have the capability to destroy, or redeem ourselves through technology. Much of the work being conducted in breakthrough fields like nanotechnology and AI won't be commercialised for many years, but there is a research lab, somewhere, where mankind's technological nemesis lurks. It's post-futurism, now, baby!


www.postfuturism.org

Microblogging - insights and inanities

Millions of people are sharing their immediate thoughts, feelings and secrets online through digital art projects and microblogs, which encourage brevity of expression. They've found an outlet for their stories, profound, trivial and downright inane. They're empathising with strangers and connecting with friends, being privy to other people's lives in a way that's never before been possible.

Microblogs require users to pare down to the essentials. Sometimes this makes contributors stop and think because words are precious; on the other hand, it can encourage the sharing of any old kack because it’s easy.

The context of the website tends to dictate the sort of material submitted. Twitter is the place to splurge random thoughts and much of the content is banal. Onesentence, which is more oriented to storytelling, seems to encourage greater deliberation.

But even the quotidian can be of interest. Knowing that Molly is having trouble sleeping may be irrelevant to most, but important to her mum, illuminating to her teacher and a leveler for insomniacs everywhere. And, whether or not we know the person, in a way it’s reassuring to know that other people suffer the same boredom and annoyances. As much as the interesting stuff, this reminds us that other humans are like us. They're not somehow more switched on, they're just as rubbish as we are (actually, that's kind of scary).

You can stumble upon surprising, or touching entries. Anyone can tell their story, anonymously or semi-anonymously, so, in some ways, a microblog is like a confessional that doesn't require you to be a member of any group or religion. It can reveal the truth of people’s innermost thoughts, which at other times, proves so elusive.

Often, transitions are captured – the exact point when people steered their lives in a new direction. For example, a striking entry on Postsecret is ‘Everyone that knew me before 9/11 thinks I’m dead.’ Is it true? Who knows? But to many people, the postings are more 'real' than a lot of media messages.

As a consequence of the insight to be gleaned, some of these sites are tremendously appealing to viewers and readers, hungry for a good story. Compendiums of people’s thoughts, published as books, are hitting the bestseller lists.

Microblogging still seems, to many people, rather pointless, or odd. But it stems from traditional modes of expression, such as the post-it note and the to-do list. Once we kept these to ourselves, but thanks to web 2.0, we’re now able to share our stories on an unprecedented scale. More's the pity, some might say, but take a moment to check out these story sharing blogs, highlighted on Blogger.

Postsecret



Postsecret began as an art installation for Artomatic in Washington. People were invited to send in anonymous home-made postcards, with their secrets written across the artwork. The community project is ongoing and exists as a website, created by Frank Warren in January 2005, and a series of books. The fourth book is currently on the Amazon bestseller list in the US.

To-do list



In the trailer above, Sasha Cagan begins with the question: ‘Have you ever wondered what your to-do list says about you?’ Nothing in my case, as I aim to live as spontaneously as possible - that means a list-free existence (but I guess that says something about me anyway). Loads of people emailed or sent in their lists, which range from the daily grind to a record of people’s hopes and ambitions. The recent book includes entries from novelist Nick Hornby, alongside everyday punters.

One reason the site is so compelling is that checking out other people's resolutions can help your formulate your own. It's kind of lazy, but so what? And, making your goals public makes it easier to ask for help and adds an extra incentive to make things happen, so you don't look like a chump (I love that word - anyone remember the original Miami Vice?).

On the wisdom of crowds

picture from www.mindfully.org


One of my favourite fairytales is Hans Christian Andersen's The Emperor's New Clothes. You know the script: a vain emperor is duped by rogue tailors, who convince him of the sartorial elegance of the new (non-existent) clothes they've fashioned for him. All but the stupidest of people would see the quality and magnificence of the cloth, they assure him. As he parades through the streets, naked, the crowd is taken in by the myth, wildly praising his attire - no one wants to appear to be a chump. Only one boy cries out that the emperor is stark naked and the truth quickly spreads by word of mouth.

First published in 1837, this really is a tale for the web 2.0 generation. It has all our favourite ingredients - the power of a good story, the 'wisdom' of crowds, viral marketing, the antihero who speaks up against authority and the child who's wiser than his elders.

Apart from showing that things haven't changed quite as drastically as we think over the past couple of centuries, the most powerful message for me is that we should never blindly accept accepted wisdom.

There are lots of principles and tenets in marketing and elsewhere that act as useful guides. But the only real wisdom is not to take anything as red. Next time you see a naked emperor, no matter what your friends and colleagues say, call it. Then you'll be the kick ass kid, wise beyond your years.

Mind you, you have to hand it to the emperor. Even when the crowd had turned, he held his head up high. If you're going to do dumb, do it with conviction.

5 ways to tell a more convincing brand story

Your brand's competitive set has expanded, exponentially. Every particle of entertainment, everything out there that's useful or interesting or mildly diverting competes for consumers' attention. So you'd better have something to tell and to keep telling, to keep them interested. That means a living, breathing, evolving story, not a repeated proclamation of your USP, or unique selling proposition.

Here are some ways to tell a more convincing brand story:


1. Tell your own story better than your critics can

You can't have full control over your brand's image, but you can have a strong personality and a compelling story. The more impressive your account of yourself, the less convincing is the bad stuff written about you.

Microsoft is in the business of world changing, yet its story, as told largely by third parties and competitors, has gone from despotic to dreary. Apple's Get A Mac campaign casts the PC, aka Microsoft, as a desperately undynamic, bumbling, old-school suit.

Now marketer and cartoonist Hugh McLeod, author of gapingvoid.com (cartoons on the back of business cards) is engaged in the Blue Monster Project to help Microsoft tell its own story better. The character has been adopted as a mascot by some employees.

Blue Monster

Microsoft has help from other quarters. Director Laurie McGuinness has created a series of spoof Mac ads from the PC's perspective. A mashup that's well worth a look - instead of defensively putting down the Mac, the films playfully pick up on the traits of each system and its users.


2. Create drama in the right places

Your brand communication needs to entertain consumers or provide something useful, otherwise it will be screened out. So create some drama. If you're a Nike or Mini, that's pretty easy. Not so, if you're a toothpaste, or one of many indispensable yet invisible work-a-day FMCG products. Sometimes, the trick is to accept that your most interesting story may not have your brand playing the lead role.

Realising that people are (usually) more interesting than flame grilled slabs of meat, Burger King has been creating Burger King, The Movie, about flatmates living above a BK restaurant. The brand is clearly central, but incidental in that the interest is generated by the relationships and friction between the flatmates.

For me it evokes fond memories of 160d Finchley Road, when Rhyd and I lived with 'satan', opposite a kebab shop and next door to Domino's. They weren't my leanest times, but 'although I'm happier now I always long somehow, back to 199*'. And with those memories, come the curious craving for a burger 'n' chips, even a donner will do, before going home and forgetting to shut the door and then spending the night terrified having just spent the evening discussing in detail how you'd defend yourself if attacked by the ghoul in Scream. But that's just me.

No doubt some punters will baulk at the audacity of BK's putting its name to a movie and boycott it on principle. But audacious it is, and one to watch (if not actually view). Ultimately, success or failure will depend on the quality of writing and the characters - and, of course, the buzz it generates. And will it sell burgers - who but the subservient chicken knows?


3. Get some fans

That's fans not consumers. South African winemaker Stormhoek engages bloggers to spread the word, leveraging groups on Facebook, YouTube and Flickr. It provides the wine for 'geek dinners' when the freaks and geeks (the bloggers) invite their friends for dinner and then write about Stormhoek's wonderful hospitality, which makes the wine taste that much better.

Stormhoek wine blogging guide


4. Make your story directional but openended

Allow fans to build on your story. Digital culture is mashup culture. People alter content, they comment on it, augment it, satirise it, to express themselves through it. That's how culture becomes popular. The Get A Mac ads are a case in point.

So, give people an outlet to customise, to comment and have some fun with your brand. If you don't they will anyway. Check out Flickr images by the Decapitator, recently active in London. Pimm's is quite apt, while Moet & Chandon may well be less pleased with the Texas Chainsaw Massacre take on champagne chic.






The Decapitator at work


5. Make it exciting - but accessible

People must be able to imagine themselves in the roles you cast for them. For example, Kellogg's Nutri Grain promises that boys will grow into iron men, therefore the iron man must be someone a boy could hope to become, not an inaccessible, godlike figure.

Online, it's all in a day's work to adopt different identities. Just check out some of the Facebook applications, like 'Which Hero are you?' Answer a few questions and discover which character from the TV series you are. Answer differently and try on some other superpowers for size.


Heroes Facebook application