News: Ivy4Evr - The Second Pilot Update

Here's the Ivy4Evr update, as promised...

Ivy has left home because Lilsis has done the dirty on her and she's no longer sure who her friends are.

For a week she'll tell you **everything** but can she trust you and what will you tell her?

Ivy4Evr is an SMS drama for teenagers created by the BAFTA-nominated interactive artists’ group Blast Theory, written by Tony White author of novels including Foxy-T (Faber and Faber) and commissioned by Channel 4 Education.

Ivy4Evr uses SMS to go places that other dramas can’t go - onto your phone and into your pocket. Ivy becomes part of your life over seven days, getting ever more intimate with you. Ivy wriggles into your life, sending you messages on the way to school, college or last thing at night. Ivy’s life is parallel to yours: she sends boozy updates late on Saturday night and sarcastic chat on a boring Sunday afternoon. And if you send her messages she will chat with you about sex, music and everything else that really matters to a teenager growing up in Britain today.

For seven days starting on 10th OCTOBER you will receive SMS messages from Ivy, you can send messages back and give her advice on the burning issues in her life.

Ivy4Evr is entirely SMS based. To sign up to participate is free, messages you receive from Ivy are free, SMS messages that you send to Ivy are sent to a standard mobile phone number and will be charged at your normal rate.

To register for the pilot episode please go to www.ivy4evr.co.uk. Everyone who registers and verifies by midnight on 9th OCTOBER goes into the running to win an iPad.

You can also search for Ivy4Evr on Facebook and Twitter.

Continue reading News: Ivy4Evr - The Second Pilot Update

News: Ivy4Evr - The Second Pilot

You may remember a few months back I reviewed the first pilot of Ivy4Evr. Well, today, I received an email from Blast Theory, the people behind the project, with some teaser news:

"Ivy4Evr is an interactive, SMS-based drama for teens, created and written by Blast Theory and Tony White. It deals with areas such as family issues, drugs, alcohol and sex in a teen context. The SMS drama takes place via the user's mobile phone and will give them the chance to interact via SMS messages, changing the narrative as they go along.

After a successful first trial in June for 50 users, we are currently preparing a second trial for October for 5,000 users this time round. We are inviting young people to take part in an exclusive sneak peak of the pilot episode of Ivy4Evr for one week from 10th - 16th October, with the chance to win an Iphone-4 for the teenagers who register for this trial."

Sounds good, huh? In the near future I will be sent a press release so I can give you more info on this brilliant project!

Continue reading News: Ivy4Evr - The Second Pilot

Review: Ivy4Evr - Interactive Teen Drama

I signed up to be one of the people to trial Ivy4Evr, an interactive teen drama from Channel 4 told via texts, and was lucky enough to be one of the people invited to take part. Here's some more info.

Hi
O s***, I don't believe it. It was a rough week already but now Lilsis has put that photo on Facebook.
So people are saying I’m a slut but that’s totally not me.
I need to talk to someone but I don't know who I can trust. I just need to get away for a bit. I’m off to Adz’s.
Give me your number and I’ll text you? I think you might be the only person I can talk to about this.
Thanks, hun
Ivy

Ivy4Evr is Channel 4's new SMS drama.
Ivy has left home because Lilsis has done the dirty on her and she's no longer sure who her friends are. For a week she'll tell you **everything** but can she trust you and what will you tell her?
Ivy will text you about her life.
If you text her back she will chat to you.
Ivy4ever is an educational project that deals with issues of sex and drugs as part of a frank and detailed drama. From Ivy4Evr.com

I tried to forget that this was a story, and try to act as if Ivy was a real person. It was a little slow at first because Ivy's replies didn't mesh with my texts. The replies you get from Ivy are determined by certain words contained in your own texts. Obviously, this is Ivy's story, so I was just replying to her questions, and asking about the situation she found herself in, but at the beginning, on the first day, they didn't mesh - she would answer a question I didn't ask, or respond to something I didn't say. It was a little frustrating, but I persevered.

The seriousness of the subjects discussed surprised me a little, which ranged from casual sex, possible pregnancy, underage drinking, and to lesser degree of seriousness, parents who had split up. I'm trying to pretend this character is real and a friend, and then she gets a problem - talking about it via text is not how I would deal with my mates problems. I'd be over there in a shot. Being a story, I know this isn't possible, but it just seemed odd to be trying to help her with this by text. It may be just me, but it just felt odd.

It also felt a little odd when Ivy all of a sudden wanted to talk to me about music apropos of nothing. The situations she finds herself in are pretty big deals for a teenage girl, and to start suddenly asking me about the music I like was just really weird, but I went with it.

The texts started meshing on the second day, to a brilliant extent. Perfect replies each time. There were some pretty serious subjects discussed, as I've mentioned, and had Ivy asking great questions - had a teenager not known the answer, it was a great way to open discussion between teens and parents, to get them talking about the subjects.

I loved the personal touch of having my name or initial included in some of the texts. But what I loved more was the "realness" of the story; sometimes Ivy would send texts with links to youtube videos, to recommend music, or she would email you with a longer message that seemed more personal, as she had more characters to play about with to explain and express how she was feeling - and this time with a link to a video she had "made" herself. At times, I got so involved in her story, I was actually worried about her; my own texts got more personal because of my worry, wanting to help her out.

Over all, it was a pretty good trial. I'm really glad I signed up for it, it was an interesting and entertaining way to have a story told to you. I personally would have preferred it to be an email story - that one email felt more powerful than all of the texts put together - but I guess as Ivy4Evr is aimed at teens, text is the better medium. I really enjoyed it, and I look forward to seeing where it goes from now.

You can sign up for the next trial here.

Ivy4Evr Website
Ivy4Evr Facebook Page

Continue reading Review: Ivy4Evr - Interactive Teen Drama