In my recent USF talk on Alternate Reality Gaming, I used ARGs as one example of the “uneasy relationship” between the community-based, self-organizing dynamics of today’s web, and ‘normal’ businesses. Classic ARGs are not even supposed to admit that they exist, making basic information that ‘normal’ business wants (like who’s playing) impossible to obtain. How much can business try to track and control self-organizing communities before they scare away the people they are trying to engage?

The slides from the talk (available below) only start to illustrate the issues, rather than provide the ‘solution’. Thanks to Tom Grossman and the USF Faculty Development Committee for supporting this work.