Dear DMEC Friends and Colleagues,

Happy New Year! With the birth of 2008 comes the birth of IndieGoGo. Eric Schell and I (DMEC’s 2007 Co-Mavens of Film and co-founders of IndieGoGo) invite you to join IndieGoGo’s vibrant community of filmmakers and fans.

IndieGoGo is an online social marketplace connecting filmmakers and fans to make independent film happen. The platform provides filmmakers the tools for project funding, recruiting, and promotion, while enabling the audience to discover and connect directly with filmmakers and the causes they support.

On IndieGoGo, filmmakers can raise money and awareness, find cast and crew, and gain credibility through the help of their number one resource, the fans.

Fans get the opportunity to discover and impact the films of tomorrow, while getting insider access and VIP perks for their support. It’s easy and fun!

Filmmakers who have already joined IndieGoGo include Irena Salina (”FLOW: For Love of Water,” 2008 Sundance selection), M dot Strange (”We Are the Strange,” 2007 Sundance selection), Christopher Roberts (”The Believer,” 2001 Sundance Grand Jury Prize Winner), and Michealene Cristini Risley (”Tapestries of Hope;” Huffington Post Blogger).

If you would like to learn more about what’s possible, just follow the 3 steps outlined below. The more you take action, the cooler IndieGoGo becomes for everyone.

Enjoy making independent happen!

Best,
Danae Ringelmann & The IndieGoGo Team

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

SIGN-UP:

• Go to www.indiegogo.com
• Sign-up for IndieGoGo by clicking on the Sign-up link in the Short Cuts window on the right side.
• Confirm registration via email and start exploring!

DISCOVER & PERSONALIZE:

• Click Around: Familiarize yourself. Read the “FAQs” and “How It Works” if you’re curious.
• Discover: Check out the Projects listing, People listing, Resource listing and MyGoGo pages. Click into Project & People profiles. Toggle through the Info, Media, Q&A, Team & Private sections. Watch videos, click on links, and have fun exploring! Check out the Take Action icons on the left.
• Create Personal Profile: Click on your Profile in the Short Cuts box and add some personal flavor. Include a cool pic & bio. Showcase your interests and tastes as a fan.

TAKE ACTION! (actions embedded in each profile on the left)

• PROMOTE projects you like (grab the widgets and stick them in your blog or websites).
• ENDORSE projects and people you like.
• RATE projects and people based on the different criteria.
• FUND the projects you would like to see made. Every little bit counts.
• BECOME A FRIEND of projects and people to gain insider access.
• COMMENT ON projects and people in their profiles. Ask questions. Do shout outs! Open up conversations with other filmmakers and fans.
• WATCHLIST: If you’re not ready to endorse or rate a project add them to your watchlist and follow their progress. Revisit your Watchlist on your MyGoGo page.
• GET VIP PERKS: Filmmakers decide what perks to offer their contributors. VIP Perks could include a credit in the film, an invite to a cast party or even a character named after you!
• CREATE PROJECT PROFILE: If you’re a filmmaker (or would like to be), create a project profile and use IndieGoGo’s platform to help bring it to life.
• SUBMIT FEEDBACK: If you have any problems or suggestions, please let us know by clicking Feedback or via email. We’re not perfect; help us get there!

Have fun making independent happen!

This is some what of a follow up to my previous post on contents and their shelf lives. GigaOm reported today that their site took a hit when a ” A truck driver drove into a power transformer in San Antonio, Texas, causing it to explode. That explosion caused major power disruption and took down RackSpace, our hosting company. ”

Om wonders how fragile our Internet infrastructure is if a single truck driver can take down so many sites.

I ask, so what? If million blog posts don’t get posted or get read for a day or two would it matter? Did anyone skip a beat other? What does it tell about the place the new UG media have in our lives? If you didn’t miss them for a day, do you need them the next day?

When blogs stop posting after all there is no one to read them, do they make a sound?

In his book The Paradox of Choice[not an associate link], Barry Schwartz says that, “20,000 new products hit the supermarket every year, almost all of them doomed to failure.” Supermarkets love to get new products, if they can be convinced that there are dollars to be earned by “renting” space to these. Because of this and that the shelf lives of almost all of the products are so short they want to have a steady stream of new products lined up. The buyers of supermarket are every busy breed scouting for new products.

The  web portals and content aggregators is not far from supermarkets.  The WSJ says, that

Big Internet companies such as MSN and Yahoo have small teams whose job
it is to “discover” these smaller sites before their competition does.
They scan the Web, attend industry conferences and hobnob with
start-ups to get names of talented but obscure content providers. Marty
Moe, vice president and general manager for AOL Money & Finance,
says he has started making informal deals with smaller blogs and other
sites in order to fast-track the process.

There are millions of content producers (including this blog) all vying for the scarce attention of users. The Yahoo and MSN try to be the middleman, the supermarket shelves for all these new content produced every second. There is not need to worry about the shelf life of these smaller content producers, there are millions to come every year. The only concern for the “buyers” in portal supermarkets is to find those handful of one hit wonders and get them to produce that one hit while occupying your site’s real estate.

Would you have read about this blog’s post on Sprint’s move to Tear down the walled garden if not for getting shelf space on GigaOm, a 7-11 (so to speak) of content providers?

Powered by ScribeFire.

There was a news from the least expected quarters on the signs of what is yet to come in search. You wouldn’t expect National Association of Convenience Stores conference  to give you guidance on the future of search. In the recently concluded conference, Gilbarco Veeder-Root a supplies of fuel control systems for gas stations announced a system that lets gas station owners:

… display maps, find local listings, and even print driving directions and money-saving coupons from Gilbarco’s Encore® dispensers with color screens and the Applause™ media system. The live internet connection means all information is in real time. The Gilbarco® Applause™ media system is the first content management system that uses Google’s world-class open content infrastructure to deliver valuable information at the pump.

Many advertisers have been vying for the attention of the captive customers filling gas. Now this display system is meant to display “aps on the pump’s screen and locate their desired destinations. They can also search Google’s local business listings by category (restaurant, hospital, gift shop, etc.) to find the nearest choices. Once a destination is selected, consumers can also print the driving directions at the pump. Easy-to-read instructions are printed on the receipt printer, making it convenient to take them with them in the car.”

There is one catch that wasn’t mentioned in the press release but was pointed out by IWeek,

The Google service will be very limited initially. Using the pump’s touch pad, drivers will be able to choose a category, such as restaurants, hospitals, hotels, or landmarks, and then pick a listing and print a map to the location. Retailers will choose the listings.

This may sound like a limitation to most, but I see this as the emergence of UG search results.  Imagine a common open platform like this that is available for every community and individual. The members then start compiling search results that they think are relevant to particular queries. May be they even decide the Ads they think are relevant. Just like the Gas station managers who pick only those attractions and restaurants that are are close by, the user search generators will focus only on content that are relevant to the particular locale they are in.  The multiple planes of separation now you can get very interesting, locale, interests, gender, income level, ….

This is User generated search. Or is this Search2.0.

Hi. I’ve been working on a book about the Internet, young people, politics, and civic life - and have compiled a list of economic, technical, and social trends that have helped me to think through the evolving state of internet tech. I’ll be speaking on the politics panel at >play - would love to hash through some of these concepts with other panelists + audience.

Economic

• Over the past 100 years, the economies of modern complex democracies have become centered on information and cultural production (financial services, accounting, software, science, film, music).
• The price of computational technology has fallen rapidly over the last 20 years, such that common people now own the means of producing information. Acting independently, an individual can create so called “units” of economic value.
• A pervasive interconnected network (the Internet) enables people to inexpensively distribute these units.
• The Long Tail: this massive network enables targeted distribution. Business and organizations can earn a return on investment by offering software, products, services, and information that may be of interest only to a limited number of people.

Technical

A new breed of software is emerging both as a result of and an enabler to these economic trends. These technical trends can be characterized by the following list:[1]

• The web as platform: the new breed of software doesn’t run on your desktop computer. It runs on the web. To access the software, you can use your web browser, mobile phone, or any other Internet enabled device.
• Remixability: software developers assemble new software by using pre-existing data and other software. These new creations are typically called “mash-ups.”
• Open: open standards, code, data, and APIs enable easy remixability.
• Massively connected: over 1 billion people have access to the Internet. Over 50% of U.S. citizens have broadband access. Most Web2.0 software relies on this extensive network to enhance its features.
• Users are co-creators: users are no longer simply readers online; they are also writers and creators. Their contributions enhance the value of the software they use.
• The network effect: a product or service becomes more valuable as more people use it. Software is oriented to harness the “collective intelligence” enabled by the network effect.
• Decentralized: creating software is no longer the exclusive domain of a few corporations. It’s being created, distributed, and modified by a decentralized group of people and organizations.
• Emergent: instead of pre-defining patterns of usage, Web2.0 software offers looser structures, onto which users can apply their own structure. Usage patterns are said to “emerge.”
• Rich user experiences: software features and display capabilities are more closely approximating qualities of “real-life.” Using web software is becoming a more vivid experience.

Social

The convergence of these economic and technical factors – the removal of constraints on producing and distributing units of societal value – is causing dramatic shifts in the fabric of our daily lives.

• Individuals are taking a leading role in the production of information, knowledge, and culture.

• They are creating units of societal value that don’t require large investments in capital, legal protection, proprietary methods, or that adhere to the market pricing system in general. In other words, people are creating and giving away the products of their labor.
• As people distribute their own units of value, traditional producers, such as consumer mass-media are declining in influence.
• With so many new creators, the range of information available is dramatically increasing.
• As potential creators, there is a trend towards viewing the world from the perspective of a participant rather than an observer.

• Massive groups of loosely connected people are creating tremendously valuable properties such as Wikipedia
• They are doing so without the need for stable long-term structures such as formal organizations, membership, or hierarchical working environments.
• The aggregation of these distributed actions can create a massively coordinated action, such as in the case of the immigration rallies. This coordination can be achieved even if the individual actors are not expressly coordinating with one another.

• Networked connections are making it easier to communicate with close friends on a frequent basis. These strong relational bonds are strengthening.
• Weak connections are also strengthened by this same effect. Communication among distant relations requires low effort.

Tony wrote about Quechep spam. Now I see something similar is going on with facebook. I am receiving ” such and such has added you as a friend in facebook” mails, even from people with whom I have had just one fleeting email contact. One commonality in all these cases is that they all use Gmail.

I wonder if I am sending “i added you as friend” email to all in my Gmail address list. If you did receive one from me, I did not initiate it. I do not plan to use my facebok for networking, I plan to stick with LinkedIn and I will only send you LinkedIn invites.

It is scary to have any email conversation with anyone if you also ask them in the next email, ” be my friend”.

Make friends, not war! All in the name of Social Networking.

Digital dolls of rock star are not in my collectibles. I am talking about HP’s Build your own Gwen Stefani inspired doll. When you click on the link you get taken to a Flash based site that lets you pick a doll, its hair, outfit, shoes, eyes, lips …

In the end you get to a page that lets you share this doll with Yahoo MyWeb, Del.icio.us, Digg etc. You can also print it.

I wonder about the target audience here,  Kids? Teens? Tweeners? grownups? It will also be interesting to understand what social media networking will happen on sharing a digital doll.  Finding someone who has the exact choice?
If you have kids, you must know a similar flash based game on Sesamestreet,org for helping Elmo Dress up for school. My daughter loves this one. Elmos keeps asking, “What shirt should I wear? Can you find me the green pants?” This is very similar to that.
In Gwen’s case, when HP brings us to print option, that I understand.
This new campaign is part of HP’s Gwen branded digital cameras and accessories. HP says,

In our efforts to blend technology with personalization and design, we are extremely proud to partner with Gwen Stefani,” said Doug Cole, director, Alliance Marketing and Entertainment, HP. “Gwen epitomizes the seamless blending of fashion, film, music and creativity, so it made perfect sense to partner with her to launch this limited edition personalized camera for customers.”

Well after all this writing, wouldn’t it be a shame if I didn’t design a doll? Here it is

Do you Digg it?

(This is a post that’s been banging around in my head for some time. Tony’s well-titled post about his distaste for Quechup abusing access he gave to his online address book, served as inspiration to sit down and compose. As for Tony’s warning, I did not respond to the Quechup invitation, primarily because I am put off when I receive an email from a website I did not give my address for the reasons I will state below.)

I feel that websites hurt us all by training people to provide friends’ email addresses to third parties (e.g. websites). I consider the “email this to a friend” forms on websites the online equivalent of a stranger on the street asking me for a friend’s email address. Sure, the site will email the article to the friend, but I have no idea what will be done with my friend’s email address after that. Options include: nothing, send spam, sell it to a spammer, store it on a server to be hacked into at some point in the future, etc.

Even more dangerous are the “friend finder” tools offered by social web services (e.g. Facebook) that have people provide their authentication credentials for online address books and that identify their friends by email address. By allowing authentication through third-party servers, the major social mapping services (AOL, Google, MSN, Yahoo!) facilitate third-party access to not only contacts’ email addresses, but also members’ authentication credentials (anyone who logged into Quechup: you may want to change your Gmail password).

In consideration of spam’s tremendous drain on productivity, I wish websites were designed to encourage better habits – social norms less prone to abuse by potential spammers. What’s so difficult about providing visitors with a link they can share with others through their own email client, authenticated channels (IM and other social networking tools), or their own website? Word-of-mouth will always be the most effective marketing. Not only because of the credibility lent by the mouth’s reputation, but also because sales often takes repeated pitches. I may wait to try a service until I’ve heard about several friends using it. After spamming invitees, sites like Friendster now provide the invitee the option of instructing the service to never email them again. Well, if invitees select that option upon the first invite, there goes a shot at repeated sales pitches!

Responding to my rhetorical question above, I realize that many people are not familiar with the technical details on how the internet works – including seemingly basic tasks like copy and pasting links into emails. I also understand the demand to recognize people you know using the same services as you. Unfortunately, the common solution to this second problem often includes handing over the contact information for everyone the person knows. I want to identify people I know using the service, but I don’t want to give websites access to the contact information of everyone I know. Fortunately, the social graph is portable and smart services allow their members to take their social mappings with them without exposing their authentication credentials or others’ contact information.

I do not think an open social graph is the answer – I will only map my social network when I can retain access control to the social mappings.

I admire user experience designers that take a broader view of the choices they make: thinking not just about the experience of using the product or service itself, but also how the offering fits into people’s lives and will affect society. Design in a way that enforces habits consistent with the social contract of respecting privacy and discourages habits leaving people susceptible to unintentionally jeopardizing the privacy of others for whom they care.

p.s. I’ve heard an argument that by forwarding an email address to Gmail, you may be violating a social contract not to share their personal conversations with The Google. (Again the whole “fear The Google” thing.)

Have you received an invitation to sign up for a social networking site called Quechup? Stay as far away from it as you can. And tell your friends to stay away from it too. Quechup claims, in its invitation, that it “will not spam or sell your email address.” Unfortunately, spam your address book is exactly what it does. Within days of accepting an invitation from a friend’s email address, Quechup launched a personalized email invitation to every single one of my gmail contacts. Every single one! You can imagine the shame and embarrassment that might cause, yet it seems to be how Quechup plans to grow its network. What kind of people could be behind such a shameful and insidious ploy? Talk about doing evil. Do me a favor and send a link to this blog post to someone you know so they will ignore Quechup just like I should have.

The Economist asks in its latest issue, “Who is afraid of Google?“. This week’s cover story is on Google, and the editorial poses this question. Interestingly the editorial talks more about who is miffed and hate Google than who is afraid of Google. The word “afraid” is used only in the title and the word “fear” is used only twice in the article.

The fear? Privacy issues at stake.

“Conservatives moan about its uncensored videos. But the big new fear is to do with the privacy of its users. Google’s business model (see article) assumes that people will entrust it with ever more information about their lives, “

I once again would like to quote my childhood hero, Scott Mcnealy of Sun. “There is zero privacy in the Internet. Get over it”

If it is not Google  it will be some other service or a collection of services. Google is an easy target thanks to its size and stock price. I am in no hurry to stop using blooger, picasa, gmail, just like million others.

I would like to believe that a company that is founded by two techies and  proudly states its motto as, Do No Evil, should be given the benefit of doubt before fear takes over.