Assignment 1 Job Plan (Draft)

What network or community are you going to tap into and develop to encourage contributions and participation in my tribe?

Being actively involved with the Singapore music scene, I am privileged to know some of the finest music producers and radio presenters in Singapore. Some help can be fostered from Online Radio stations like , Meshradio, Unpopular-radio and Sweetmusic.fm. and I can develop certain skills involved in producing this radio programe.

I was a sound engineering graduate and had worked in the sound production industry after graduation. These skills can help in me ensuring the sound quality of the works to be good and give advice on improving content.

My strategy for recruiting,

My first task in getting help is to contact my friends from Meshradio, Unpopular-radio and Sweetmusic.fm to plug our project on their radio show, asking for interested individuals to contact me or refer them to a site where there is instructions on how to summit their work onto pool and what kind of work we are looking at. Getting these online radio stations interested in our project is very important because they can provide us with valuable advice and information that can help us a lot with the project. In fact the radio stations are filled with content producers that we can haverst from.

My second task is to get in touch with the Melbourne music scene through friends and social networks. This way, it’ll make it easier to get content as the previous point. My main idea would revolve around popular games and the fan service dedicated to those games. There is a very high chance that I can tie in the comics/animation community into this as well.

Individual Contribution

I am currently an audio mentor for the tutorial project and I will produce an audio promotional piece together with Sean and Claire.

My individual contributions to this aspect will be good as I have a lot of background in sound production. I have the equipment and skills needed at my disposal to record and produce an audio piece. I would need to work with the other 2 members to come up with good creative content to put into the clip.

Also, as an audio mentor, I can provide assistance to people wanting to put content up on pool. I can give advice on what software to use, recording tips and even tricks to make an audio project successful!

Timeline

March 28th: meetup with group to come up with content

April 1: Plug project on personal online radio broadcast

April 10: my tribe project launch

April 15th: finalize my tribe works

May 27th: final written report on task

Personal Goals

My biggest personal goal from this project is to learn as much from it as possible. But My individual goals for this project is to get all the online radio stations to successfully plug our project, get as much content as possible up on pool and to make this radio show a successful one that ABC will remember!

hey guys! i'm having my virgin radio show starting on 1st april 2006, every 1st thursday of the month. details on the e poster!

you can follow this 2 links to stream the live broadcast =)

Listen #1

Listen #2

MY TASKS AS A SOCIAL MEDIA PRODUCER.

As I had discussed with myself a few entries ago, The Job of a social media producer from what i learnt from the web, is to connect and interact with users through new channels such as Social Media networks like Twitter, Instant Messaging and of course, Facebook, Newmedia communication tools like Podcasts, Forums, Online communities and Blogs. As part of their daily responsibilities, An SMP will be at the forefront of driving a company's or project's Contents through social media networks with the goal of attracting a wider audience to the project he/she is producing. And is expected to flag trends and be aware of new social media sites on the internet. For a start, a good social media producer should already have a significant group of online social network. An SMP have to be self motivated, popular and important enough so that his/her friend will actually listen to what they say. Getting more socialy active is a good start on becoming a Social media producer.

Personally , I believe That Facebook is still the strongest Social media network that i'm using. almost all my friends and contacts are on facebook. I can use Facebook , first to find friends and acquaintances That can provide useful content to our project. and next we can of course use facebook, create a group or event to raise awareness and interest in 'MYTRIBE'. of course I'm gonna use many other SMNs like Myspace, Twitter, Friendster ,online forums and my online radio show at unpopular-music.blogspot.com.

Since our Project is Audio based, I have a large arsenal of friends who are well known in the Singapore Music scene and a few in melbourne. Recruiting won't be hard as there are many independent artistes and producers out there that are looking for outlets for their creative work. Some of them would jump at any chance to plug their work! and of course some of their work are very very good and interesting. All i need to to is to probably post a "shot-out" to anyone interested and form a group page and put all the details there on facebook. Once that is done, They will be exposed to pool and 'mytribe' and will receive detailed explanation on what mytribe is about and how their work can fit in. Music trends, Discussion , genres, almost anything can fall under "mytribe" as most people I know categorize others by the music they listen to. Music makes a huge part of most people's lives.

My tutorial's Task is to come out with 5min long Radio documentary shows on 360. This can be easily done and can be very fun! I guess since i have a sound engineering background, I can be in charge of recording or mixing? or making sure the audio quality is top notch. Samples can be recorded at my place as I’ve got some basic Audio Equipment and DJ equipment at home. Also I can make use of my Singaporean contacts to widen the choice of content for our project.

The achievement from this project will be obvious. If the radio show becomes a talk-about issue, it's definitely a success!

SEARCHING FOR THE ORIGAMI UNICORN

The matrix and Transmedia Storytelling.

OK, this chapter i read on Jenkin's book on convergence uses "The Matrix" Series as an example of one product spread across many different media. Not only is "The Matrix" a film trilogy, It has Computer Games, Websites, Graphic Novels and short Animated films on DVD. The story does not just replicate itself thru these mediums, rather the entire story was told thru these mediums. I myself had experienced the "matrix experience" being a sci-fi nerd 7 years ago, I chased this series for a look at alternate reality. After the first movie blew my mind, I went on the internet to read up on it. and to my amazement, there were tons on information on the web that is linked to the film! and also by watching "The Animatrix" I Understood the back story of the matrix rather than what disinterested people call "mad trip".

One of the points Jenkins hi-lighted is that "In the deal form of transmedia storytelling, each medium does what it does best .....Each Franchise entry needs to be self-contained so you don't need to have seen the film to enjoy the game and vice versa."

That is not completely true in "The Matrix" as i had experienced.

other than with your own assumptions, you can't really understand the plot or link the 3 fims just by watching the films. neither can you fully understand the Animated shorts if you had not watched the film.

what i believe is that the best flow of understand the entire picture is in this order,

Sequel 1 "the matrix" - Online materials - The animatrix - enter the matrix game - Sequel 2 "matrix reloaded" - online graphic novels - Sequel 3 "matrix revolutions" - Online materials - "the matrix" online game.

That IS the entire story line. (spoken like a true matrix geek)

Economically, I think this is a huge move.

matrix has obviously attained cult status, it started the whole "alternate reality" craze and popularized awesome shooting and editing techniques like bullet time and 180 deg freeze pan thingy.

And having a cult status, people are obviously hungry for information on the story. and by leaving out bits and pieces in the film's plot, they got people buying stuff from them just to satisfy their hunger. The Production team got the world of nerds eating off their hands!

Imagine if the matrix were to be made not 10 years ago, but now. With media convergence and new media growing rapidly, this movie will be a blast!

Imagine receiving live updates from zion on your phone while you are watching the film. and you can get the experience of fully immersing into the storyline.

Just look at AVATAR the movie. They had the online community going NUTS just days after the release! Online forums were teeming with nerds wanting a world just like pandora. You get people doing Roleplaying and creating new stories of avatar related plots on fan sites! There are people who are living a second life on the internet thru their computers and now their phones. they can be 24/7 connected to their alternate lives thru all these mediums.

Media companies have the power to create lives for people. to put meaning into them.

All they have to do is to design a way to incorporate all forms of communication into a story, constant updates thru mobile devices, live streaming true multi mediums and a platform that is interactive and allows the audience to not just watch a story, but to be living the story.

Thats the power of convergence.

SOCIAL MEDIA PRODUCER.

One of the Task we have on PP1 is understanding what a "Social Media Producer" is and what he/she does.

This is not Really that hard, I did some reading and searching on line and came up with this -

An SMP's (socisl media producer) Job mainly is to connect and interact with users through new channels such as Social Media networks like Twitter, Instant Messaging and of course, Facebook, Newmedia communication tools like Podcasts, Forums, Online communities and Blogs.

As part of your daily responsibilities, An SMP will be at the forefront of driving our news articles, blogs, discussions, polls and community activities through social media networks with the goal of attracting a wider audience to the project he/she is producing. And is expected to flag trends and be aware of new social media sites on the internet.

Basically i see that an SMP HAS to be a sociable person. I mean You'll really suck at your job if you have only 13 followers on twitter and 20 friends on face book. you can't reach out of you are not original socialy active. It's of course ideal to be a SMP if you are already famous within the online community, or just have alot of friends. If people do read your blog, you can post and promote your projects on the blog and people will see and be aware about whatever you are promoting. (unlike this blog)

well i think the first line of work i have to to as an SMP in PP1, is to be more active on my social networking accounts. That will make people notice me and therefor notice what we are doing.

And just for the record, I'm having an online radio show soon on unpopular-music.blogspot.com , stay tuned for updates!

Readings: Introduction: "Worship at the Altar of convergence" - Convergence cultural by jenkins & Deuze First week of school! and the hot topic in PP1 and media Industries 1 tutorials is ... *drum rolls* Convergence! (no prizes for right guesses) Convergence is basically defined as the interlinking of computing and other information technologies, media content and communication networks that have arisen as the result of the evolution and popularisation of the Internet as well as the activities, products and services that have emerged in the digital media space. (Technological convergence. (2010, March 7). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 16:46, March 8, 2010, from http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Technological_convergence&oldid=348241210)

It is very easy to notice the change in our reception of media.The easiest way to notice it is by how we receive media nowadays. 10 years back, we rely on news broadcasts, television, newspaper, radio, magazines. tell me when was the last time you really sat and watched television. ( Tivo or Video on demand not counted, and so are DVDs). I don't watch television. But instead, I have right now on my brower tabs, Facebook, Tweeter, Wholivesnearyou.com, Blogspot and wikipedia. and on top of that I'm on MSN messenger, Listening to a live online radio from Unpopular-music.blogspot.com and I have my handphone beside me that give me Live updates of my Facebook and tweeter account. This says alot about what we are studying here.

Infact, I just received news of Singapore's famous filmmaker, Jack Neo, caught having affairs with 2 young women. where did i get this news? On Facebook. and i double confirmed it on tweeter and tripled confirmed that it is a fact on wikipedia.org. New media is so fast, no one can stop it.

Convergence is where we can receive all forms of media on one platform. The internet, which is of course accessed from our computer. But very soon, we won't even need our computers for receiving media! our phones can do it perfectly and it's so handy we can receive information anywhere, anytime. and it's already happening.

The computer in our basic 3G phone is 1000,000 times more powerful, 10,000 times cheaper and 1000 times smaller than the most powerful computer in MIT in 1965. There is someone who said this once about computers, "What once fits in a building, now fits in our pocket. and what now fits in our pocket, can fit in a red blood cell in a couple of years". Astounding. Imagine the future of media when convergence don't just include technological appliances, but integrated with our body as well, imagine news, information and entertainment to be downloaded into us, to be used at our disposal everyday. the world wide web is just a thought away! Advertising will take on a whole new meaning!

As you can see, Advertising in recent times have changed a fair bit, you just con't reach out to as many with traditional media! Youtube have far more viewership a month than All the big broadcasting corporations's viewership added together! we are already seeing a fall in traditional advertising, tv ads, news ads and radio ads have seen a decline. People will rather pay to not have any Ads on their tv!

whereas ads on Mobile phones, social networking sites and product placement on youtube videos have seen a rise. they reach out to far more receptive audience! Hack, google even tailor the ads for you depending on your searches and the sites you visit! Only Ads that you are interested in and all others are not shown to you! how cool is that!

Convergence has happened, so we better keep up and worship at the altar of convergence!

Hello readers!(if any)

From now onwards, This blog will be dedicated to my studies.

namely my PP1 course of my RMIT Degree program.

will be typing out thoughts of the course readings.

cheers!