Glenn Close did you say? That is almost enough to draw me in to learn more. The site loads with some teaser video of disturbing shots from the show, and had me hook line and sinker. The idea of combining the law firm of Hewes and Associates was a good creative touch as the navigation led me to explore more, as if I was interacting with an actual law firm site. But wait, what is this? Chat or IM? And who was it? A clever touch that captured my attention as the dialogue kept me riveted to watch this voyeur-like exchange of two people's conversations in the firm, which in turn led me to the senior associates' blog, where I dug deeper into the behind-the-scenes story. I was a little upset that after 20 days there was only one post, but maybe they had been caught by the boss for running a blog outside of the company policies. I would need to subscribe to the RSS feed to keep my eyes on it as more posts emerged.
The addition of two features kept me on the site longer than I would have expected and not running up to the TiVo to queue up this show for later viewing, and even some past missed episodes (wait I could just buy them on iTunes from the tied-in button, so long TiVo for this show). The Cross Examiner allowed me to drag and drop characters on the show to reveal the connections between the two. And there was also a Lost-like feature with episode footage that reveals a clue that turned the tide of the case in each show.
Besides the community and blog they tied together the whole law firm play by posting the phone number on the front of the site. Of course I called and it just provided more credibility to the whole site. It went to a voicemail box at the firm (I was calling after hours) but I left a message with my case number, name and contact info, just to see if they will take me on as a client.
Overall it was a well thought-out site with elements that created a plausible story on the web while tying it into the real world.
-- Dylan T. Boyd, VP of sales and strategy, eROI
Section 1.1: Overview. "Damages" is a show about lawyers, which reminds me, Author, of a joke:
Section 1.2: Joke. "Two lawyers were out hunting when they came upon a couple of tracks. After close examination, the first lawyer declared them to be deer tracks. The second lawyer disagreed, insisting they must be elk tracks. They were still arguing when the train hit them."
Section 1.2.1: Pursuant to Section 1.2, if the calamity describe hereof were to have taken place in the world of FX's show "Damages," it is materially agreed upon that without limiting the generality of the foregoing, Glenn Close's character, Patty Hewes, would have grabbed the train and hit the other lawyer with it…she's that tough and this site shows it.
Section 2.1: Functionality. Video snippets residing throughout this site are expressly provided as a successful and successive means to warrant continued attention by website visitor(s). As pertaining to, but not limited to, general functionalities that were of particular note, Author was impressed by (a) the length and insightful episode rundowns (b) the community posts and (c) mobile integration. As pertaining to, but not limited to, general functionalities that Author found of exceptional and innovative note were (a) the high contextual relevance of FX's advertising initiatives with FindLaw.com, (b) the exclusive video content and (c) the inclusion and presentation of fan podcasts, which notably placed an interesting twist on encouraging the show's fan base to provide user-generated clips and thus be known hereto as consenting disclosuring parties.
Section 3.1: Kudos. Nice design and great innovative functionalities!
-- Bradley Werner, director, The Fifth Network
