Final Answer
The ClubHouse: The Game - Play Room: Challenges:
Challenge 4 - Group Puzzle:
Final Answer
Luke | Thursday, October 12, 2000 - 10:50 am  Okey Dokey Host--here's our Final Answer: Jane is the architect of the building, therefore she knew exactly how to make her way around the building without reading the signs or seeing or talking to anyone. |
Host | Thursday, October 12, 2000 - 05:24 pm  Thank you Luke - You and your fellow Players are correct!!!! Your reward for getting the answer right is another bit of information from the outside world.... It will be posted below shortly. |
Host | Thursday, October 12, 2000 - 05:51 pm  REALITY TELEVISION: A PATH TO THE INTERNET TV-related Website Leads Way to Interactive Television By Mark FRANBERG Business Home • Return to Business Page Top of Form 1 GET QUOTES Look Up Symbol Enter Multiple Symbols Portfolio | Stock Markets | Mutual Funds | Bonds | Currencies | Bank Rates | Industries Bottom of Form 1 This article was reported by Mark Franberg, Daniel Vogarath and Ronald Bommenthaler. It was written by Mr. Franberg. Last June, CBS, in an attempt to improve ratings, began a summer-long onslaught of reality television programming, spawning the mega-hit "Survivor" and the much-maligned "Big Brother". Unbeknownst to anyone, the television-show related websites have taken center stage on what may be a totally new format: internet-television interactivity. The New York-based television network, adopting formats pioneered in Europe, begat something totally new. While "Survivor" was recorded on tape in early spring, "Big Brother" was virtually live, taxing its producers in a way that no one was prepared for. Joining forces with the television show producers were webmasters, who produced and maintained CBS's website for the show, www.bigbrother2000.com. The potent combination set records for webcasting and live television simulcast-framing -- literally watching a live television show through the internet's live feed capability -- without the commercial advertisements. What appears evident now is what no one had foreseen: the internet live feed webcasts taking center stage, with its attendant websites as strong supporting backup. Foremost among those websites for the Big Brother show -- which was a game show involving contestants agreeing to be sequestered in a camera-filled house built on the CBS lot in Los Angeles -- is the "Big Brother Fan Club WebSite" at www.tvclubhouse.com, which has given CBS a run for its money. Forcing the CBS sponsored website out of the limelight in mid-summer, the webmaster of this upstart site, "Neil B.", landed in trouble with the network. CBS served the webcaster, who is an unemployed Canadian technician, with a summons to appear in court for a suit regarding copyright infringements. This was the first in a brief wave of copyright-related lawsuits filed by the network and served against numerous 'mirror' sites using the CBS television show as a subject framework. In mid-August, the network stepped down, realizing that the publicity for the television show was greater than the commercial risk of the websites' activity -- as long as they agreed not to copy proprietary material from the CBS-related site. Did the network understand its new medium? All reports indicate that it did not. The television audience for "Big Brother" became incensed with the network when the live feeds -- which showed every moment of uncensored activity in the house -- were switched off at the end of a one-hour finale show in which Long Islander Eddie McGee won the show's grand prize of $500,000. The public's rapacious appetite for live, direct viewing spawned a large following clamouring for more and more "information". As of this week, numerous petitions to restore some semblance of the show or its live webcast were delivered to the network's corporate headquarters on West 57th Street, Manhattan. A particular bone of contention with the immense internet audience -- the largest in internet history and numbering in the millions -- was its being cut-off from participating, via live webcast, in the three-hour cast party after the show. Analysts on Madison Avenue registered incredulity when realizing how CBS, strangely, did not value its audience, which has the prize-winning demographic of being very heavy in the 18-34 year old category of consumers. Even the journalists reporting on the media did not seem to know how report on this new medium. Articles appearing on the entertainment pages waxed laconic about "Big Brother's" roller-coaster ratings, without a word on the vast internet audience. Ratings information for Internet webcasts -- at least, any kind of numbers that could be used for comparison purposes -- are non-existent. The television show ended on September 29. With the CBS website no longer being main-tained except for a recent update on its most popular 'character' -- Brittany Petros, a pharmaceutical account rep from Minnesota -- the network appears to have given up on its audience. Even the supporting sites are suffering from a greatly diminished fan base. Does this mean an end to a great experiment? Instead of bringing an end to the entire event as many had suspected, the tireless internet world has come up with a new twist: the virtual gameshow. The television show fan club website has, as of October 6, transformed itself into a mini-"Big Brother." Sequestering ten contestants on a 'message board' through the miracles of internet programming language code, the contestants -- known as "game players" are watched and reported on around the clock by a hoard of hungry spectators who comment on the unfolding action. The players on the message board have no outside contact with the spectators and are identified by 'handles' such as 'Zebulon'. In a parallel to the television show, contestants will be nominated weekly by the players and banished by the spectators. The 'game' ends October 30 with the small prize of a website t-shirt. The internet has a long way to go to bring the financial rewards that the long-established medium of television garners. But that day may come, and it may be closer than anyone can imagine. Ask questions about Business News, Personal Finance, Investing and more. Get answers and tell other readers what you know, in Abuzz, new from The New York Times. |
|