FreshDirect

iPhone Application and Backend

Cannes Lions Festival

Giant Touchwall

The 39 Clues

Game and Contest Website

British Airways Openskies

Airline Reservations and eCommerce Website

JetBlue

Airline Reservations and eCommerce Website

AdultSwim

Shows Website

Sandisk Fanfare

Windows Application and Website

ABC Full-Episode Player

Streaming Video Player

Nissan Ad Pod

Next-Generation Video Advertising

MSN Originals

Reality TV Meets Website

Taking a gamble on baseball (but not like Pete Rose)

The Story

MSN Originals, a new division of MSN, was created to team with renowned Hollywood production studios to bring exclusive content to the MSN network, including MSN Lifestyle, MSN Spaces and MSN Video. MSN Originals combines video, interactive community features and rich editorial content to create unique entertainment experiences brought visitors by advertising/sponsorship partners. MSN, in collaboration with LivePlanet created Fan Club: Reality Baseball, the first project launched by the Originals team.

Fan Club: Reality Baseball represents an evolution in participatory unscripted entertainment relying on audience involvement to determine numerous aspects of gameplay and strategy. Via the website fans can watch the Schaumburg Flyers, a real professional minor league team, and be a virtual manager running the team every game of the 2007 season. MSN Originals engaged Schematic to create unique, interactive polls that would encourage audience participation and make key managerial decisions for each game of the season.

 

The Solution

A few of the functional requirements were:

  • Authentication against MSN
  • Selecting the team roster — who takes the field and who rides the pine
  • Determining the batting order — from lead-off and clean up to the nine hole
  • Choosing the pitching rotation — which ace starts and which reliever closes
  • Viewing video of both in-game footage as well as behind-the-scenes interviews with players and coaches

To create a compelling, interactive experience, a Flash-based interface for the polls was integrated with a REST interface developed in ASP.NET. The rich polling interface was supplemented with an ASP.NET application to facilitate all of the other functionality such as authentication, site navigation and supporting content. Video services were provided through MSN Entertainment APIs and delivered using Windows Media Player.

Stats and Figures

Role: Solutions Architect and Flash Developer
Client: Microsoft/MSN
Year: 2007

  • Flash ActionScript 2
  • Custom API Architecture and Integration
  • High-Availability Deployment
  • MSN Video Integration
  • MSN SSO Integration