Building an Online Fan Base

Long term net positive in generating an online fan base.

What are people been doing to develop a fan base?

• Swanberg. Has a personal website linking to his work. Has a presence on myspace. Its easy for younger audience to follow and digest content.
• Weiler. For his movie, headtrauma, developed a website with an immersive experience with a lot of visual aspects. Incorporate ARG aspects such as phone number, text messages, ring backs, easter egg site – all tied closely together. for example, text messages back and forth WHILE the user is on the site – then a phone call to the user, and playing back the user’s audio on the site – using IVR platform. (whoah) He was also involved in social networks, social media, spoke at universities, and had an extended street team. Lance also created link-farm websites to increase page rank on google. More info at workbookproject.org. Create short content clips (on social websites, internet radio, etc) and notify fan sites.
• Miller. For each film, for example “Iraq for sale”, reach out to activist groups to view film and effect a street team for the films and have house-screenings. Creates a network of interested parties. Brave New Theatres. Creates a network of people willing to support movie and cause through investment and donations.
• Schafer. Clerks II, for example, has myspace member friends list initiatives to gain links back to clerks, ie MySpace bribery and gained target of 10,000 within 6 hours. This got people into the theatres by keeping in contact with members. Further, Kevin Smith stays in close contact with fans with open conversation.
• Straus. “Take fans from one movie to the next to the next. Advertise your new film through acvertising your previous film.” Without a box – Audience by Withoutabox brings together filmmakers, film festivals, film industry and film-loving audiences. – destination to house, host and manage content for filmakers.

A few other random points:

• User generated content (ala Snakes on a plane) may create evangelists. Snakes on a plane user-generated content was seeded by film company.
• Starting a fan base for a film: grass roots. Phone calls, get into festivals. Initiate conversation with potential audiences – people actively seek new movie information a month out from the release. Public relations and conversations need to be started around the movie – nurture personal relationships (director to fan) through blogs, myspace, etc.

Panelists:

• Scott Kirsner Editor, CinemaTech
• Scilla Andreen Co-Founder, IndieFlix
• Jim Miller Executive Director, Brave New Foundation
• Ian Schafer CEO, Deep Focus
• David Straus CEO, Without A Box Inc
• Joe Swanberg Dir, Hannah Takes the Stairs
• Lance Weiler Filmmaker, Workbook Project

Everything You Always Wanted to Know About the Mobile Web…but Were Afraid to Ask

Speaker: Brian Fling, The presentation

• author of dotMobi Developers guide

Why the mobile web? Mobile subscribers in the world: 1/3 of the worlds population has access to mobile device. By 2010, 1/2 the planet will have access to a mobile device. So, how many people actually use the mobile web? 60% of users of mobile will access the mobile web once a month – which is less that global internet users.

Location based services (LBS) will cause a big shift in use of mobile web. LBS contextualizes the web.

Mobile strategy. There is a critical need to balance technical, business and user goals. In the mobile industry there are many important factors to consider.

The 3Cs of the mobile web: cost, content and context. Lose anything that doesn’t support those goals.

Mobile Information Architecture. Keep categories short and simple and give a taste of the content to reassure the user is on the right path.

Clickstream / Clickpath. Diagram content layout and paths to content. Any pointers in developing IA?

3 types of phones: feature, smart phone and pda. The feature phone has largest market share. We must design for feature phone and design vertically.

The mobile web standard. The predominant web standard is XHTML-MP. The transition is easy to do. The CSS spec is different and not all attributes are supported. Recommend to use document styles rather than rely fully on external style sheets. Make sure to link document type, use well-formed code, avoid tables, place navigation in the content body, use access keys in the primary navigation (use ordered lists in conjunction), and link phone numbers: (<a xhref=”tel:+16132317166″ mce_href=”tel:+16132317166″>+1 (613) 231-7166</a>). It is feasible to programmatically adjust the markup for mobile – but Fling recommends using handheld css and mobile specific site.

W3C initiatives: mobile web best practices, mobileOK, device description.

“One web”: principle of making the same information and services to users regardless of the device used. Fling says the mobile web should be more contextually relevant.

There are over 50 mobile browsers. Focus on five: a Nokia, Motorola, Samsung or LG, Treo, Blackberry.

Publishing methods: domain: 76design.ca/mobile or mobile.76design.ca; server side checking and redirect; different top level domain such as 76design.mobi.

The device detection dilemma and there are 2 solutions. There is a simple device detection route: it includes a couple tricks to using user-agent information and sends one website. An advanced device detection may include different website for each device. Mobile stylesheets sometimes detect device.

Testing. Testing on desktop is a great start. Opera and Firefox have tools specific to mobile testing including user-agent switching in browser. Emulators are also helpful. Device testing: test as much as you can. Testanywhere emulates many different scenarios. Usability testing and field testing is also helpful.

Showcase

• .mobi Mobile Ready Report
• mobiledesign.org

Jim Coudal and Brendan Dawes

Jim Coudal: try ideas, explore ideas, research, embrace your short attention; need to be moving, follow inspirations, restarters not revisers, if its not right then throw it out; integrate dreaming into your shop: paint bathroom walls with CHALK BOARD PAINT!, the “book” is a holding place for unborn ideas, write it down and sketch it and put it down.

Brendan Dawes: get it out there, just do it, let people talk about it, make things happen; Experimentation, public installation, take a risk, learn from your mistakes.

Check out Brendan’s New book: analogue in / digital out.

Web 2.0 and Semantic Web: The Impact on Scientific Publishing

There is a definition of web2.0 and the semantic web as it is relevant to each industry. To the scientific and academic fields, it means open access to content, a collaborative web and the perpetual beta. As notions of the semantic web mature, it means that readers of content are not only humans but computers as well. This means that information has to be as meaningful as possible including defining standard ways to express information. This is particularly relevant to scientific publishing.

Open access is a very important factor to the development of the semantic web as it applies to scientific information. In particular, this means that information will be available by institution and subject matter via standard channels.

New methods and trends such as user-generated content, tagging, linking/citing help classify and qualify information. Time has shown that a perfectly created ontology will not get us too far and is virtually impossible – tagging can make systems more useful. Following that, the system learns from user generated content and user classification and this sytem further defines a context for the information. On top of this, giving access and overlaying data provides further acces to interoperability and repurposing the content.

For publishing, this means new business models but for research funders, it means maximizing dissemenation of information. In fact, many research funders now mandate submission to an open access repository. Some of the new business models include an article submission fee covered by the research funding. Sponsorship will also be an important revenue source.

For performance, metrics, impact is also changing form the traditional method of tracking citations through central sources. Whats more is that impact now has to incorporate user generated content and links on the internet. For example, Google will factor in citations in determining the page rank or importance of an article cited. Other new factors include social bookmarking, blogs, blog comments, and social forums. Despite a reluctance of the more traditional governing bodies to recognize these alternative publishing channels, there is a trend to acceptance.

Showcase:

• Conotea tag cloud (delicious style reference management for science community)
• sciencecommons.org

Speakers:

• Moderator: John Wilbanks Exec Dir of Science Commons, Creative Commons
• John Wilbanks Exec Dir of Science Commons, Creative Commons
• Matthew Cockerill Publisher, BioMed Central Ltd
• Melissa Hagemann Program Mgr, Open Society Institute
• Timo Hannay Dir of Web Pub, Nature Publishing Group
• Amit Kapoor Managing Dir, Topaz

Under 18: Blogs, Wikis and Online Social Networks for Youth

The panel introductions, particularly Danah boyd, launched in with an interesting view on the current segmentation of youth, how it came to be and new behaviour that has arisen due to the following properties of the web: persistence, searchability, replicability, and the invisible audience. Essentially, the idea is the internet gives access to a public life that may not be available otherwise and especially so for rural communities or the younger end of the age group.

The focus of the panel was to explore the range between “young people are in mortal danger” and “the internet is fulfilling inner potential.” The panel spent the majority of the time reviewing the dangers to youth online and, most importantly, solutions.

Of course a major danger, is online predators. In May 2006, Deleting Online Predators Act was proposed to protect youth. The premise was to restrict youth access at schools and libraries to websites with any social aspect including the likes of MySpace but also Wikipedia. Its almost obvious that this is the wrong approach. To fully understand the phenomenon, what has to first happen is an acceptance by parents that this is more than a trend. Only then can a dialogue occur between parent adn child.

The problem isn’t the websites or the technology. Kids know to delete emails from strangers. The internet is an outlet and a mirror to what is really going on with a kid. The negative aspect highlighted in the media isn’t because the website provides a certian channel of communication. An interesting point is social workers should be online on MySpace and other social forums and helping through that medium as well.

Cheating and plaigirism are major issues in school. What is really interesting is the nature of the internet encourages remixing, sharing and collaborating. How does one explain plaigirism when content generation on the web means copying and sharing music, video, code, technique, and ideas. Traditional systems have to be intelligent and will have to learn from these social trends.

Of course there is a very strong positive side. One of the first points brought up is that social websites are good for quiet and shy kids, it is good for kids in isolated communities or those that feel isolated socially. It allows an opportunity for mentoring.

76design has a few upcoming youth oriented projects and we hope to achieve the ideals that were discussed.

The panelists really came across as knowledgable and I strongly recommend following some of the links below.

Speakers:

• Andrea Forte Georgia Institute of Technology
• danah boyd USC Annenberg Center – apophenia
• Anastasia Goodstein Publisher, Ypulse and author of “Totally Wired: What teens and tweens are doing online”
• Kate Raynes-Goldie TakingITGlobal: an online community that connects youth to find inspiration, access information, get involved, and take action in their local and global communities.
• Erin Reilly Exec Dir, Platform Shoes Forum
• Elisabeth Sylvan Researcher, MIT Media Laboratory Lifelong Kindergarten: new technologies that, in the spirit of the blocks and fingerpaint of kindergarten, expand the range of what people can design, create, and learn.

City buses that cost 50 cents and have on-board wi-fi access…

The first Obama ’08 t-shirt I’ve seen…

Buildings that have nozzles on them to shoot a refreshing mist onto the sidewalks…

A hotel with a TGI Friday’s in the lobby…

Austin is a wonderful place.

I know… this is the first post but it’s day “two”. That’s just because day one was a light day of registration and a couple of laid back sessions. The real schtuff started this morning and the totally decent time of 10am. Thanks SXSW organizers – no need to make it earlier than that.

The first panel I attended this morning was Emerging Social and Technology Trends, featuring Pete Rojas of engadget fame. There were some good discussions around the democratizing of media and content, and how today’s youth are more comfortable than older generations sharing and publishing so much of their personal lives. Implications arise, of course, around privacy, copyright and whether we can expect a backlash from future generations that reject the hyper-connected state of being.

The next session was entitled Turning Projects Into Revenue Generating Businesses and featured Ryan Carson of Carson Systems. I’ve always been a big fan of Ryan’s work so I was keen to hear some of his thoughts on the subject of monetizing ideas. A good chunk of the panel covered the various ways that money can be made on the web: regular ads, site sponsors, affiliate programs, selling products and subscriptions. A couple of the more innovative techniques were new to me: virtual gifts, virtual currencies and micro sponsor donations. When it comes to online communities and relationship-driven websites, I think these revenue models offer some really interesting and profitable options.

After lunch, I sat in on a couple of 30 minute sessions (an addition to this year’s programming) that were quite good… but unfortunately, too short for my liking. The first, a presentation by Adaptive Path‘s Peter Merholz, examined the product design process and emphasized the 3 tiers to successful design: providing technology, providing features and providing experience. As you might expect, Apple and Steve Jobs references were plentiful. As Peter succinctly put it, the difference between well-designed products and poorly designed ones is that the good ones “know who they are” and they know that because they’ve been designed from the outside in. Too often, developers miss the point because they design from the inside out, leaving the user interface to the end. 37signals is a great example of a company that designs from the outside in. I’ve often heard Jason Fried say that they start with the Photoshop and HTML mockups of a product to make sure they’ve got the interface just right before they start on development. That’s typically not how it’s done. The last good point Peter made (and this was all packed into 30 minutes!) was that it’s important to realize what your product does and how it fits into a “system”. What do people expect it to do and what do people not expect it to do? Peter used the iPod and iTunes example to illustrate – the iPod is light on features because it’s job in the “system” is to play music and that’s it. iTunes software’s job is to manage music and the iTunes store’s job is to acquire it. Three clearly defined jobs handled by three distinct products with little feature overlap.

The last couple of sessions were a bit more technical and touched on usability concerns and how they play into the user experience and then tracking the next career step for the web coder/developer (cleverly titled “From to Riches“). I certainly took something from the latter – the challenges of transitioning from doing the work to managing those that do the work, and the pitfalls of being a “techie” in a more senior position.

That’s about it for today. Just taking a bit of a bloggin’ break before heading to the Frog Design opening party.

Oh and we saw the Trailer Park Boys walking outside the convention centre this afternoon. Let me tell you – Bubbles looks really different without glasses on.