By Zamná Ávila
The objective of this paper is explore and present a plan to market and maintain a social media network site I intend to produce for my capstone project using the knowledge I’ve gained through the Interactive Communications Masters class, Social Media.
This plan will use moderation tools, incorporate the concepts of spreadablity and tethering, examine safeguards for content ownership, use other social media sites interdependently, explore the benefits of mobile media, attempt to limit information overload and employ elements used for emergent brands that are simple and protect, as well as optimize, user publicness.
Description
While the name for this project has not been cemented, 1000wordsorless.com and Youwriteit.net seemed to have the most favor among a small group of friend, who I’ve surveyed. Since the domain name for the project has not been settled, this paper will refer to the project as 1000wordsorless, for the sake of argument.
I am proposing to make Quinnipiac University the first home for a serial literature network.
The idea for this project came to me out of my enjoyment of television series such as Smallville. I don’t own a television because I don’t like its distracting opportunities, but when I find something I like I’ll go online and follow it. The great thing about series as opposed to movies is that they are easier to digest than movies and require less of a commitment. I believe the same concepts can be applied to literature in a way that is relevant to our new media culture.
The idea for this project came to me out of my enjoyment of television series such as Smallville. I don’t own a television because I don’t like its distracting opportunities, but when I find something I like I’ll go online and follow it. The great thing about series as opposed to movies is that they are easier to digest than movies and require less of a commitment. I believe the same concepts can be applied to literature in a way that is relevant to our new media culture.
The site would allow authors from diverse genres such as mystery, science fiction or drama can post their stories as series or episodes, set up in a navigational model similar to Netflix and its categories. The network site would allow readers to enjoy a written story in chunks of short stories as they would if they were to follow a mini-series or soap opera on television without feeling an overwhelming commitment to watch an entire movie and yet be compelled to find out what happens next.
Stories would consist of about 1,000 words per episode. Each episode would be posted once a week for a commitment of at least 20 weeks.
Stories would consist of about 1,000 words per episode. Each episode would be posted once a week for a commitment of at least 20 weeks.
Since the point is to foster reading, quality writing and critical thinking the site users will be allowed to post still images, audio, video, augmented reality technology and flash for interactivity, special effects and accessibility only. These media components should aim to facilitate and add to the story but not take the place of the written word. Moreover, page designs, while creative must, be simple in format with plain architecture to avoid upstaging the stories. (Braun 2011)
Writers will find that it is in their best interest to write their stories ahead of time and submit the 1,000 words or less “episode” to the site on or before their deadline.
Writers should aim to follow a few basic suggestions from the site producer (Zamná Ávila, me).
1. Stay within niche: A story that goes all over the place loses the reader. Narrow your subject.
2. Write in a simple, conversational and short content that is easy to digest.
3. Use links, photos, clips and quotes to fight writer’s block
4. Set goals ahead of scheduled posting
5. Write in advance
6. While you don’t want a collage of images, you may want to include an image or two, or a block quote to add to the visual appeal of you stories. (Braun, 2011)
Neither serial literature nor social networks are novelties. What distinguishes this, yet to be named site, is that it would operate as a hub, similar to television networks, where diverse content can be found, chosen through personal interests, followed and in some cases, such as with reality shows, interacted with, without budding into too much of a person’s busy schedule.
The site is a perfect fit for Quinnipiac University’s goals of fostering successful communication and interpretation of information an age of constantly changing, interactive communication.
The site would be a portal within the Quinnipiac Web site. Initially, it could be used by English, creative writing and critical thinking courses as supplemental requirements or options. As the site becomes more popular among students, membership can be opened to the complete student body, faculty and staff, and eventually the general public.
The site is a perfect fit for Quinnipiac University’s goals of fostering successful communication and interpretation of information an age of constantly changing, interactive communication.
The site would be a portal within the Quinnipiac Web site. Initially, it could be used by English, creative writing and critical thinking courses as supplemental requirements or options. As the site becomes more popular among students, membership can be opened to the complete student body, faculty and staff, and eventually the general public.
Moderation
The site would implement a variety of opportunities for interaction through the use of modertor tools. (Braun, 2011)
Readers also would have the ability to interact with writers by rating their stories and, on some occasions help gear the trek of the storyline.
Writers would have the opportunity to promote their work and get feedback about the quality of their work. As their presence becomes more interactive they can use the moderators to structure the community of their followers, stimulate discussions and adapt guidelines. (Millington, 2011)
Professors can use the moderators as a way to get input from their students about what topics to they should be working on, how they are enjoying the topics of they are writing about. This in turn would increase student involvement. (Lindblom, 2011, July19)
Content mangement plugins or even Google Moderator plugins, can be used to to offer this method of interactivity and votes. (Kirkpatrick, 2011)
Ambient Awareness
Non-fictional and fictional writers both can benefit from tools such as RSS feeds, Google Reader and Twitter to nourish their ambient awareness (Hermida, 2011), an ongoing sense of what’s happening at all times with regard to a topic (Braun, 2011).
Creative writers on 1000wordsorless will be encouraged to gain ambient awareness to what is trendy in their markets by subscribing to services such as Google Reader, RSS Feeds, Twitter, LinkedIn (Sukernek, 2008) and Facebook (Kirkpatrick 2009).
Spreadablity
In addition, writers will be required to be a part of at least three social networking, such as Google+, MySpace, Hi5 or any the other previously mentioned. If the writers already have social network memberships, they should invite them to the 1000wordsorless site and promote regularly on the other social networking sites.
The idea would be to foster what founder and former professor of the Comparative Media Studies program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Henry Jenkins, calls “spreadablity.” The concept is simple: “For things to live online, people have to share it socially. They also have to make it their own — which can be as participatory as just passing a YouTube clip on as a link or making a copycat video themselves” (Usher, 2010).
I consider quality, consistency, relatedness and relationships important in making media spreadable. If you have a quality product, people will share your stuff and come back for more, —even people who don’t know you will become engaged.
Consulting Researcher for the Convergence Culture Consortium Derek Johnson calls this collaboration between individuals and networks, “franchising.”
“By reflecting on the heterogeneous interests in a shared set of resources implied by the term “franchise,” we gain a much clearer insight into the social, institutional, and creative relationships by which culture has been produced and reproduced in the media industries,” wrote Johnson in his research memo entitled, “C3 White Paper: Learning to Share - The Relational Logics of Media Franchising.” “In developing collaborative productive models, industry professionals should develop greater appreciation of contributions that emerge from outside the top echelons of power. By thinking of licensed creators and fans alike as “franchisees,” license holders can recognize vital stakeholders in the ongoing production of media properties”(Johnson, 2011).
While many people might fear that my 1000wordsorless may result in the exploitation of talented writers without compensation and the dangerous of copyright infringement, I propose an avenue to foster literacy, education, creativity, growth, friendship, self-promotion, entrepreneurship and exchange through spreadability.
Nancy Baym of the University of Kansas offers six suggestions to encourage systems of social value in her “Embrace the Flow” research study, which I plan to embrace:
1. Operate out of trust, not fear.
2. Behave as people, not institutions.
3. Provide people with social resources they can use with one another
4. Reach out through a variety of social media, but not more than you can sustain.
5. Grant users their independence.
6. Encourage and reward audience creativity (Baym, 2010).
For example, a 1000wordsorless writer might open an account on Twitter, where she or he might set up a Twitter list through the Browse Interest tab (Braun, 2011), connecting with people with similar interests by using keywords and mentioning them on his or her page. The writer might use the ambient awareness she or he gains for inspiration on her topic, network through direct replies and conversations with other members and spread his or her stories by posting links to 1000wordsorless on Twitter where his or her followers’ interest might be peaked through their ambient awareness.
The writer may also with to utilize tools such as Hootsuite to manage and automate several accounts and market their story updates.
According to the Pew Internet and American Life Project, 75 percent of online news consumers say they get news forwarded through email or posts on social networking sites and 52 and say they share links to news with others via those means. Fifty-one percent of social networking site (e.g. Facebook) users who are also online news consumers say that on a typical day they get news items from people they follow. (Mitchell, Purcell, Raine, Rosenstiel and Olmstead, 2010)
Encouraging social media network spreadablity will optimize the potential success of the reader, the writer, the 1000wordsorless and the various social media network platforms. After all, as Jenkins says, “If It Doesn’t Spread, It’s Dead” (Jenkins, 2009).
We tend to believe that building an audience requires an absolute marketing plan. What is great about this site is that is that you don’t have to give up much of anything and you can choose from a variety of plans. If you have a blog, you should continue a blog, you can place your serial story on 1000wordsorless and blog something different, somewhere else, thus building your name recognition. There is no absolute marketing strategy. The strategy is to use multiple tools available without overloading and with an emphasis on quality. You don’t have to be a Kevin, who abandons his blog in an instant, whereas Fred, who stayed faithful and built his blog up. You can do both. (Anderson, 2011)
In fact, writers could use Google+, Twitter and Facebook or any other marketing tool to promote. If possible, postings should not just be links to the 1000wordsorless site. Instead, the reader should a teaser phrase or a lead graph with an image, followed by the link, to entice readers.
Optionally, writers might want to do creative ways to engage with readers once they build a fan base by, for example, hosting Google Hangouts, like reporter Sarah Hill does to engage with her audience (Peters, 2011) or promote chat parties for readers to participate with each other.
Mobility and Locomotion
1000wordsorless will caters to people with busy schedule and thus, must cater to the “on-the-go” reader having the appropriate development design to be used with mobile devices such as smart phones and computer tablets.
A 2010 study from Ruther Finn found that Americans spend about 3 hours on a mobile phone and that about 91 percent of Americans are using the mobile Web to socialize (Perez, 2010). According to a study by the research company TNS that same year, mobile users spend 1.4 times as many hours using social networking sites than reading and responding to e-mail. On average, that means users spend 3.1 hours per week on social networks, versus 2.2 hours on e-mail (Indvik, 2010). And, Social Networking on Mobile Devices Set to Soar. According to ABI Research “The number of people who access social networks on smartphones and other mobile devices will surpass 1.7 billion worldwide by the end of 2016, a research firm predicts. That’s more than triple the number – 550 million – projected for 2011 (Egan, 2011).
Mobility allows for easier “chunk” reading while the reader is in line or doing laundry for example, walking through campus, thus promoting reading and writing. Using the right social network that might incorporate locomotion, a mobile platform also can be conductive to real life networks, business ventures and friendships (Humphreys, 2010). Say, for example, a reader is in the middle of reading “LonG Beach Vamps” on their smart phones while waiting in line at the grocery story. An online friend the nearby coffee shop is reading the same “wordisode.” They might want to meet in person, read and discuss the “wordisode” and form a lifetime friendship.
Overload
Because 1000wordsorless is in many ways a niche product with information overload may not emerge on over-categorizing followers. However, there will be a cap of 150 genre categories for materials presented. (Dobs, Martin, 2011) Both follower and genre category caps may increase or diminish over time depending on demand. After all, the goal for this website not only is to promote literacy, but also to foster a sense of community development.
R-E-S-P-E-C-T
Like any site, there are always privacy and copyright risks, but as was previously stated 1000orlesswords will seek to “Embrace the Flow” of social media. That said, the developers also plan to take steps to avoid abuses.
The first would be to set up and make prominent policies that state the site condemnation and actions against people who violate copyright laws, libel laws, privacy laws and continuously behave with disrespect.
1000wordsorless recognizes that there are advantages (Jarvis, 2011) and disadvantages to (Rosen, 2011) to social network sites and personas’ history. While writers may choose a Pen name for their public postings, 1000wordsorless will require accurate data for its record of each individual.
Writers must agree to post only original content. Images, audio and video must be royalty free stock items that the originator has permitted for use though an online site agreement or direct written release. Violators will be banned from the site in perpetuity. Writers maintain the copyrights to their material, but are encouraged strongly to provide new content for the site before publishing that material anywhere else.
Writers and commentators will not be permitted to publish any libelous material. Again, though 1000wordsorless is in the eyes of the law acting as a distributor of published works and is not liable, the site will forever will consider punitive actions, including but not limited to banning violators from the site. If 1000words or less comes to the conclusion that the author did not live up to his or her responsibility of fostering civil discourse and conversation, the site might take action against the author also. After all, the problem with comments, aren’t the comments themselves but the people who fail to exercise civility (J. Jarvis 2010).
Justin Rondeau listed 12 mistakes that Facebook users, most of which can be applied to most networks (Rondeau, 2011).
In Poynter article, NPR’s Matt Thompson made a few observations on the matter conversations:
1) Don’t blame the Internet; it’s your community that matters
2) Require registration
3) The best filter is an engaged adult who participates in the conversation
4) Provide great, quality content
5) Include scoring for comments
6) Institute a clear policy that outlines stance on decorum and threading; staying on topic.
7) Send e-mails to remind violators about the specified polices
8) Redirect comments on the correct path.
9) Have a thick skin and don’t overreact
1000wordsorless also will take steps by using comment moderator such Disquis.
Depending on balanced discussion, 1000orlesswords may require approval to follow and/or comment on a writer.
Of course, writers also are urged to use caution to how and with whom they share their settings, public and type of friends, something easily done on Facebook or Google+. Remember, these social networking sites still are for profit companies and there is an agenda. (Scoble, 2011)
Readings
Anderson, T. (2011, July 11). How to build an audience on the Internet: The Kevin Rose school vs. the Fred Wilson school. TechCrunch. [Link]
Baym, N. K. (2011). Embracing the flow (Research Memo), Convergence Culture Consortium, MIT. [PDF]
Braun, J. (2011). 6.1 Lecture: Managing Social Media for Legacy vs. Emergent Brands. ICM 522 Social Media. [Link]
Braun, J. (2011). 6.1 Lecture: Managing Social Media for Legacy vs. Emergent Brands. ICM 522 Social Media. [Link]
Braun, J. (2011). 1.2 More on Google Moderator.
ICM 522 Social Media. [Link]
Braun, J. (2011). 1.3 Getting Started with Newsreading.
ICM 522 Social Media. [Link]
Braun, J. (2011). Creating Topical Twitter Lists
Vimeo. [Link]
Dobbs, D. & Martin, R. (2011, June 4). Don’t believe Facebook; You only have 150 friends [Radio segment]. In C. Turpin (Executive Producer), All Things Considered. Washington, D.C.: NPR. [Link]
Egan, J. (2011, September 21) Social Networking on Mobile Devices Set to Soar. Technorati. [Link]
Hermida, A. (2011) FOJO9 Talk: Twitter is a System of Ambient Journalism. Reportr.net [Link]
Humphreys, L. (2010). Mobile social networks and urban public space. New Media & Society, 12(5), 763–778. [PDF | Library Link]
Jarvis, J. (2011). Introduction: The ages of publicness. In Public Parts (pp. 2–14). New York: Simon & Schuster. [Link]
Jenkins H. (2009, February 11). If It Doesn't Spread, It's Dead (Part One): Media Viruses and Memes. [Link]
Johnson, D. (2011, June 15). C3 White Paper: Learning to Share - The Relational Logics of Media Franchising. Futures of Entertainment. [Link]
Kirkpatrick, M. (2011, April 29) Five Things You Can Do With This New Facebook RSS App. ReadWriteWeb. [Link]
Kirkpatrick, M. (2009, October 10) Google to Build Tools to Increase Voter Participation ReadWriteWeb. [Link]
(2011, July19)
Millington, R. (2011) The Broader Role of Moderators in Online Communities. The Online Community Guide. [Link]
Mitchell A., Olmstead K., Purcell, K., Rainie L., Rosenstiel T. (2010, March 1). Understanding the Participatory News Consumer. Pew Internet and American Life Project.[Link]
Perez, S. (2010, February 18). Social Networking Now More Popular on Mobile than on Desktop. ReadWriteWeb. [Link]
Peters, M. (2011, July 17) 5 Ways Journalists are using Google+. Mashable. [Link]
Rondeau J. (2011). 12 Most Common Facebook Mistakes You Are Making. The 12 Most… [Link]
Rosen, J. (2011). The Web means the end of forgetting. New York Times. [Link]
Scoble, R. (2011, September 11). The game of all games: Content and context (why Mark Zuckerberg, Marc Benioff, and Larry Page are carving up the social world). Scobleizer. [Link]
Sukernek, W. (2008, Sept. 8). Ambient Awareness. SocialMediaToday. [Link]
Thompson M. (2011, March 7). A 5-minute Framework for Fostering Better Conversations in Comments Section. Poynter. [Link]
Usher, N. (Interviewer). (2010, November 23). Why spreadable doesn’t equal viral: A conversation with Henry Jenkins. Nieman Journalism Lab. [Link]
