Some people look at a cell phone as a platform for simple games and basic social applications like text and email. But when entrepreneur Jury Hahn looks at your cell phone, she sees your ticket to a much BIGGER gaming experience.

Her company, MegaPhone, has developed technology that lets people connect in a new way on an old medium: Billboards.

Imagine standing in Times Square playing a game of basketball against other “ballers” using not only buttons but VOICE COMMANDS to tell your avatar to SHOOT! The technology has already found its way into supermarkets, stadiums, and to MTV’s big board in Times Square. I first found out about Jury and Megaphone by way of a short blurb in the June issue of Wired magazine.

I found Jury fascinating both from geek and entrepreneurial standpoints, so I got in touch with the woman who’s email signature now reads “The Phone Call Game Girl” to find out more about her, Megaphone, and the road from idea to reality.

SG: How did you manage to go from being a mobile interface designer in Korea to organizing games of pick-up basketball in Times Square?

Jury: I was working in motion graphics, video editing, music video making industry. I started my carrier at MTV Korea as a motion graphics designer, and while I was working there, my biggest interest was making videos for award shows, concerts, music shows and such. Since then. I had this dream of making “cool stuff” for those big screens in the shows, but I didn’t know what exactly it was. However, while I became more interested in the new types of hybrid interface, I wanted to make something rather interactive than linear video, so I decided to learn more and move to New York to go to NYU’s Interactive Telecommunications Program (ITP) where gave me the opportunities to learn interaction design, physical interface design, game design, mobile development, programming and most importantly, to meet great people who I found my company and still work together.

I also had a brief experience in designing mobile applications, but it wasn’t really intrigued me because of two reason. First, it’s not ubiquitous. Meaning mobile applications have to be developed for certain platforms for certain models of devices, and deploying apps for all of those different cellphone was not a fun thing to do. Second, I’m more interested in social experiences in public spaces in general, and mobile apps for the cellphone are a more individually targeted and self centering experience.

Combining those two desires of “wanting to make something cool for big screens” and “not wanting to develop mobile applications that run inside of the cellphone” led me to create the first version of MegaPhone, name Megaphone 3000, a game for big public screens that can be played with a phone call (which we do in daily life) and be controlled with our voice and the phone’s keypad. It was my thesis project at ITP. Once I started to develop a simple application, I realized the best, most fun usage is connecting and playing a game in a genuine sense.

With advice and help from my colleagues and teachers, I was able to develop MegaPhone games.

I didn’t consider myself a game designer even though I love playing them. Out of limitless respect for the great game designers, I was very careful to be a “game designer”,

I don’t want to offend gamers by making nonsense games. A lot of MegaPhone games are very casual and have a short pace, but I aim to make more sophisticated games that satisfy both “gamers” and “non-gamers”.

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