There are 5 big and shiny electronic billboards within about a half mile radius of where I live in West L.A. – and they are all within about 5-10 blocks of one another.  I’m trying to figure out if they are all on different ad rotations, but I know that two of them seem to be on the same rotation (at least for this week). 

It wouldn’t occur to me to link these billboards in with this blog, except that today, I passed one of them, and, following a vivacious ad for Virgin Airways’ new Australian service, there was  a20-second flash from local radio station 100.3 FM displaying what was currently playing over the air (Allman Bros’ “Statesboro Blues”)  Sure enough, I quickly punched my pre-set, and there was the tune.

Boy, that’s effective.  And it’s exhilarating.  And it’s another example of how we are moving so inexorably towards a Real Time world, a world of instant gratification on all levels.

I use the term “instant gratification” like it’ s a bad thing.  And for my generation, it was.  But are we moving beyond that onotological concept?  Is instant gratification a bad idea because, in the past, it was impossible?  A fantasy?  And we wouldn’t want our kids to live in an unrealistic fantasy, so we would tell them that they would need to work for what they want, and that that was a good thing, a responsible thing.  Is the concept of responsibility shifting?   Maybe that’s another discussion…

Well, it’s certainly a more difficult world in so many respects today, so people are still going to have to work for what they want, but the time scales are all “off.”  So we can not only get real time syncing between a radio station and its fleet of electronic heralds, drawing listeners from competing stations in an instant, but we can also use apps like Shazam (free on the iPhone) to identify the unknown melody we’re listening to, download and buy it for us right there.

What is this going to do to storytelling?  You thought I’d never ask.  Is it going to extend the concept of ARG’s (Alternate Reality Games)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alternate_reality_game), where fictional (original or franchise) content will intermix pervasively with our mobile, real time lives?  Will we track characters on soap operas through the days of their lives on our phones and in our emails and on electronic billboards?  Will their stories become seamlessly interconnected with the stories of our own friends, and the real people we don’t know (but wish we did) who have been plucked into reality shows (which will now be omnipresently available to us 24/7)?

Will we opt-in to receive email updates from fictional characters and lurk on email threads between these characters?  Will we be able to personally interact with them (or their transmedia production staff proxies – giving new meaning to the job description of ‘story editor’)?

Will we catch the updates on the electronic billboards on the freeways and boulevards as we’re creeping home through rush hour traffic and flip to our text message windows for further info?

Seems exhausting to me, but so does a lot of stuff that goes on in the transmedia crucible.  But then again, I just added my gmail mailbox to the email app on my smartphone, so who am I kidding…

We are all thirsty for stories and distraction and new ways of stimulating our brains.  Technology is only too happy to provide.