Ong's Hat: The Beginning by Joseph Matheny

8 - Closing Credits

7 - Afterword

6 - Ongs Hat - Gateway to The Dimensions

5 - Incunabula 3

4 - Incunabula 2

3 - Incunabula 1

2 - Introduction

1 - Opening Credits

Some of the things I have achieved as an inventor, creator, product manager, CEO, CTO, writer, and artist include: Playing a role in establishing and evangelizing standards and practices such asPDF, DVD,  Podcasting, ARG and digital video. I am an inventor. I have designed apps for iPhone, iPad and other mobile platforms [1] [2] [3]. I am a published author of screenplays, white papers, technology, sci-fi, marketing and gaming books.

My pioneering work in Transmedia is chronicled in the University level textbook: Legend-Tripping Online: Supernatural Folklore and the Search for Ong’s Hat – University Press of Mississippi (May 17, 2011) Also see here. My transmedia work, Ong’s Hat, is known throughout the gaming industry and academia as the first, proto-ARG. (Alternate Reality Game)

I have also been the executive producer and originator of the Santa Barbara International Film Festival Podcast the first film festival to podcast from the event and the executive producer/director of the Los Angles Film Festival podcast.

I was one of the two founders/curators of the Greylodge Podcasting Company, an Independent film review site covered on MSNBC, Wall Street Journal, Boing-Boing, Dangerous Minds and Torrentfreak as well as a founder of Piltolite/Hukilau.

I  was the podcast editor at TheNervousBreakdown.com.

I have staged and orchestrated very successful, large-scale, mass media Alternate Reality Game/Transmedia style projects since the mid-80s, utilizing print, phone, fax, email, Internet, advertising, video, film, audio, CD ROM, DVD, and on-demand media. My work has been featured on CBS Marketwatch, CNN, CNET TV, Kiplinger’s, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, NHK, MTV, PBS, LA Times, Clear Channel Radio, BBC, MSNBC,  Boing-Boing, and many other weekly newspapers, trade magazines, local and regional radio, television and newspapers.

My work was profiled in Games(TM) magazine, where it was said of my work, Ong’s Hat:
“Ong’s Hat was more of an experiment in transmedia storytelling than what we would now consider to be an ARG but its DNA – the concept of telling a story across various platforms and new media- is evident in every alternate reality game that came after.” Ong’s hat/Incunabula is universally recognized as the prototype for  Alternate Reality Games.

The Incunabula Papers CDROM was recently included by invitation in the BNF (Bibliothèque nationale de France) digital art collection.

Also, Slate recently profiled Incunabula as did Gizmodo. If you want to know “what it is“, these are probably the best profiles to date.

Joseph Matheny

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