Linkin Park Uses Fan Facebook Photos For Unique Interactive Music Video

If there’s one thing that today’s digital and participatory
culture has shown us, it’s that people flock to where they can have in on the
fun and involve themselves in the content they are consuming. Recognizing
this, famed California rockers Linkin Park have come out with a creative music
video that puts fans and their Facebook friends right in the center of the
video’s storyline.

Seeking to engage in a personal connection with their 44 million
Facebook fans, the video for the band’s new song “Lost in the Echo” delivers a
personalized video experience that pulls in images from the viewer’s Facebook account
and inserts them into a post-apocalyptic storyline. This is done simply with
the tap of a button utilizing Facebook Connect, as opposed to uploading or cropping
photos like we’ve seen before in previous interactive initiatives. All the
action takes place on one page once the viewer links their Facebook account. After some loading time, the story beings.

The “Lost in the Echo” video follows a man with a briefcase in
what appears to be post-apocalyptic future. He then proceeds to opens his case revealing
snapshots to on-screen characters, who then freak out in a craze of
extreme emotions at the sight of these photos, which come directly from the Facebook
accounts of the viewer and the viewer’s friends.

“The inspiration was to push the boundaries of
music, video and fan engagement,” said Aaron Ray, head of digital at The Collective and responsible for the management of Linkin
Park’s digital assets. “The fact that virtually nothing has changed in making
videos in 25 years just seems that apathy has taken over. Linkin Park decided
to do something risky and never done before.”

Ray tells us
that the process to create the video took several months and went through many
evolutions.

“The algorithms
themselves were incredibly complicated when layered over the video and Facebook
data,” he said. “There was a constant push and pull between design,
functionality and ease of use.”

Ray mentioned
that he and his team still need to solve things like embed issues, a universal
programming language, optimization for mobile and internationalization in order
to really take advantage of emerging visual technology.

“There are just
so many types of people experiencing things in such diverse ways, it will
always be a game of catch up,” Ray said. “The fan reaction has been good so
far. It seemed to throw off some people at the beginning because they had never
really seen something like this before, but now it seems that more and more
fans are trying it and enjoying it.”

After playing it several times myself, the experience seemed to differ each
time. Sometimes it worked as planned, with photos of me and my close
friends that would cause contextually deep-rooted emotional responses. Other
times however, I was presented with photos of people that I barely recognized,
or odder yet, pictures of food and people’s pets, making the experience sometimes
inadvertently hilarious.

Either way, the video is strong step forward for interactive
content experiences and we are sure to see more of these sorts of initiatives
executed as we move forward.

Head over to www.LostInTheEcho.com to see the video yourself!

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