About Futurescape
Futurescape provides industry insights and identifies commercial and creative opportunities in online television and digital entertainment.
Founded in 1998, our customers include international advertising and media agencies, branded entertainment specialists and television companies.
Research
We publish multi-client reports with actionable intelligence, new thinking and key data for well-informed decision making.
The most recent titles are 2008: The Birth of Online TV and Marketing Success via Video Social Nets. For further research, read our case studies of social media marketing campaigns.
Development
We conceptualize, produce and launch innovative projects for major television and entertainment clients. See our development portfolio and read our blog for the latest news and commentary.
The principals
Colin Donald started the New Media department at Flextech Television (now Virgin Media) in the mid-Nineties, where he launched a series of award-winning Web sites to market Flextech's television channels. He was previously at the authoritative business newsletter Financial Times: New Media Markets and on the editorial board of media consultancy Informed Sources, analysing broadband content, models for commerce via TV and interactive TV. His ActiveTV column in Broadcast magazine explained new media for the television industry. Colin has an MA in American Studies from William and Mary.
Özlem Tunçil was in the first intake of the UK’s first-ever MA in Hypermedia at the University of Westminster’s Hypermedia Research Centre, where she wrote her 1998 master’s thesis - From Zapping to Clicking: How can an Interactive Experience be Created for Internet-based Television? - and produced a working prototype demonstrating the interactive principles that were carried over into Futurescape projects for MicrosoftTV and ITV.
Her first new media company, hUpdate, focused on educational projects. Özlem has a BA in Business Management and is also a trained therapist. She specialises in working with artists on the creative process, including Sumer Erek, who recently built the acclaimed Newspaper House.
As Futurescape, they produce original research and are creative consultants for major television and entertainment clients, including Sony BMG, ITV, Discovery Communications, Microsoft and First Resort.
In the press
- What do Web shows cost? (Daisy Whitney at TV Week )
- Online TV myths (Gavin O’Malley at MediaPost)
- Don't be left behind in the online TV stakes (Marketing)
- Online offers new global opportunities (Broadcast)
- Agencies need to grasp online TV opportunities (Campaign)
Speaking engagements
Netimperative Seminar on Social Networking
- Presentation: Does marketing match social networking members' motivations?
- Successful and failed marketing campaigns via YouTube and Bebo
- See our case studies of social media marketing campaigns
Future of Web Apps – panel comparing and debating the US vs UK start-up scene
- See our blog post from the presentation, Great exits for UK Internet start-ups
Chinwag's Web TV Takeover, London
- Chairing the debate, see photos and hear podcast
Broadband and Triple Play Services 2007, Rome
Video on the Net, Rome
New Media Knowledge’s User Content: The Real Deal, with Moblog UK and Scoopt
- Presentation: The balance of power is shifting to participatory consumers
Central Office of Information, UK government's marketing and communications dept
- Presentation: Participatory consumers, tailored for COI's responsibilities
Our Social World, the UK’s first blogging conference, Cambridge
- Presentation: A world where everyone can be a media producer/distributor
Interactive Screen, The Banff New Media Institute, Canada
- An intensive development laboratory in new media project creation and development
- Presentation: Issues in adapting fictional television content for new media
- Presentation: Managing production from television to MicrosoftTV
European Multimedia Labs
- Presentations of and intensive development work on Virus Wars
The Cable and Satellite Show
- Where Bravo, Trouble and Time Machine won awards
IBC’s UK Digital TV conference
- Presentation: Integrating television with interactive content
Broadcasting @ Internet
- Presenting Internet strategy for Flextech Television (now Virgin Media)
