Microsoft Phizzpop LA design challenge

After 4 incredibly intense days, Microsoft’s Phizzpop LA design challenge is complete and Cynergy Systems is the winner. Congratulation’s Cynergy!  I was certainly disappointed that we did not win, but with only 7 minutes to present your strategy, design and concept everyone had a chance to win.

After catching up on some overdue sleep, I can say that although it was extremely intense (only 20 hours of sleep this past week), it was an incredible experience. My teammates Scott McAndrew and Craig Budwitz were amazing, and I am extremely happy with our Silverlight 1.1 prototype.

LA 2007 Design Problem:

You and your team have just been hired by a consortium representing all of the major Movie and Television studios. Your team constitutes the Office of the President of Products. You are responsible for determining the product strategy for this consortium. While your authority is considerable, it is not absolute.

You must pitch your product solution to the Board of Directors, also known as the Judges.

The media industry is facing an unprecedented set of challenges today. Digital distribution, a dramatic reduction in traditional advertising, the rise of social networks such as MySpace and Facebook and other factors have all combined to force a fundamental rethinking of the entertainment industry.

Your job is to:

• Find new ways to monetize the deep catalog of content that the consortium has. You should specifically be thinking beyond simply pay per download, subscriptions or advertising
• Look for new ways to create fans of our content. Sites like MySpace and Facebook (among others) have shown us that social networks are powerful tools. Figure out how to exploit the principles of social networking, integrate into existing networks, or both
• Look for ways to exploit the Long Tail. The consortium has a fantastic amount of old content that’s very valuable to many people. Figure out how to best help our users find existing content, discover other content, and share this with friends
• Figure out the device & platform landscape. Between iTunes, the iPod, Zune, Media Center, UnBox, Xbox Live, Joost, and everything else, it’s difficult to understand the overall experience system for our users. Explore creating your own, partnering, or both

As you can see from the design problem, it is very deep. Executing on each of these points in a working Silverlight prototype, in a mere 3.5 days, is an impossible task. Terralever put forth a strong effort, here is a series of captures from our working prototype.

Sometime next week I will post a link to the live prototype as well as some posts on Silverlight 1.1 techniques we used to build the appliction.