A guy I knew from my days as an influential member of the Pocket PC community (I suppose press isn’t quite the right word but in any case) sent me a message on MSN yesterday, as people I know from that era are prone to doing. My somewhat brief discussion with him reopened a series of wounds that I had been ignoring blissfully, but I think reopening them was good for my creative process.
I kind of fear that I’m going to fall into a trap of telling my autobiography again and again, almost to the point of nausea; but I think this background is necessary for the story I’m going to tell today. Before I started High School, I got a Handspring Visor and a portable keyboard for use in school, and over a period of about two years I upgraded and changed my PDA gear. All the while, I contributed to a number of communities as an editor, columnist, freelance writer, discussion moderator, staff writer, and probably one or two other jobs I’ve blocked from my memory. While I probably made the most money writing about PDA stuff, it wasn’t emotionally fulfilling in any real way, and I did more work for the profit of others then I’d really like to think about right now. My ‘career’ hit a high point when I was one of the editor/moderator/staff writers for a certain site that was pulling half a million unique visitors per month, when that ended, I decided that I had had enough, and moved on to concentrate on other more exciting projects. Since then I’ve drafted a book, gotten a good start on another book, and created TealArt, among other accomplishments. So now you know… back to our regularly scheduled programming.
One thing this experience granted me, other than a few hundred connections I have no use for, and a near encyclopedic knowledge of everything mobile tech related, is a pretty good understanding of how online communities function and how to build websites to be successful. This is why I was basically pounding my head on the desk when this guy sent me a message.
Mobile technology website/communities are thick on the ground and just like any other web-project, all new sites need to either offer something that is completely unavailable elsewhere, or they need to offer their content in a format that is completely new and different from what’s available. Otherwise, you won’t have an audience worth speaking of.
This goes for ‘personal’ weblogs too, and all of the really successful fun ones, knowingly or not follow this mandate, and websites that mirror someone else’s design or format aren’t really successful. GreyExpectations.com merges Noah’s writing and photography in a really unique way, and simplicity is the charm here. David’s design keeps his format in check, and he blends his stories, with his photography, blogwhore content, and the like. TealArt combines aspects of already used formats (most notably Domesticat), but I don’t know of a single weblog out there that has (at least in theory) a group of four people writing this kind of content. We’re unique in our approach if not our format.
The basic format for Pocket PC/mobile sites (those that resemble blogs that is) is to have some sort of a weblog and an associated discussion board. The majority of the content is derived from links to other sites and commentary by the site leader and his (usually his) associate minions. When it’s a bunch of dorks (sorry folks) blabbing about the latest gear, this tends to piss me off, but I was thinking that there’s really *nothing* wrong with the format itself, and there could be a lot of potential if this ‘template’ were applied to other kinds of projects. So I was thinking that it might be really interesting to have a mobile tech style site about men. That’s right, men. There’s a plethora of masculinity related stuff going on in the world and on the internet that should be covered, and I think there’s a lot of potential with this form.
Now don’t get worried, I’m not ready to start another site, because I really want to get this site off the ground completely before I start working on another one (and because I want to have an active user base here that I can use to jumpstart another site). I think the idea has some definite promise, and maybe someday I can look back on this entry and think “god, wouldn’t that be cool to do.”
Thoughts anyone?
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1. Leave a comment, saying you want to be interviewed.
2. I will respond; I’ll ask you five questions.
3. You’ll update your website with my five questions, and your five answers.
4. You’ll include this explanation.
5. You’ll ask other people five questions when they want to be interviewed.
My questions are from Amy of Domesticat.net. Her questions and answers are archived on her site as well.
1. Is art still relevant in American society?
I think contemporary art is just as relevant in contemporary society as it’s always been, which is to say, not terribly relevant. Art reflects society, but I think art is a fairly passive reflection of society, so in that respect I think Art remains relevant to society.
2. Dogs, cats, ferrets, or fish? Defend your answer.
Cats. Duh. Dogs are too dependent and downright annoying, though I do think there are some pretty neat little dogs. Cuddling fish isn’t possible, and if I wanted something pretty to look at I’d by a painting or download a screen saver. I have nothing opposed to ferrets or other rodent like creatures, but they don’t match up to cats. I like cats, because they’re great company, and entertainment, and they take care of themselves mostly, I also enjoy the fact that while they’re fiercely independent, they also seem to bond well with people, which is a nice quality for a pet.
I suppose I should say something about how the cats made me say that, but I can’t think of a clever way of saying that, so I’ll leave that to your imagination.
3. What books, when you finished the last page, left you a significantly different person than you were when you started reading them? Why? What were the changes?
To answer this question completely I’d probably have to spend a few years, so I’m just going to give some of the more recent highlights.
Reading the last page of “The Great Gatsby” changed me and how I think about my writing interests. The rest of the book was kind of iffy as for it’s affect on me, but those famous last words really did something for me.
When I read Robert Heinlein’s “Stranger in A Strange Land,” I learned what science fiction was capable of and what “Speculative Fiction” really means, and given that I’m a more or less a self identified SF writer, that was really important. I think I have similar feelings towards Asimov’s Foundation Trilogy, but Stranger affected me more I think.
While I’ve never read one of his books (because it’s much better to listen to him read his books) I think David Sedaris has had a profound impact of me. He’s funny and fun, but he’s also brutally honest, and can talk about things that I could never talk about and make people laugh the way he does. I listened to the full length version of the “Santa Land Diaries” and afterwards I’ve known that that approach to writing stories and anecdotes is something I desperately need to adopt.
Armistead Maupin’s “Tales of the City” books have shown me how format, amazing stories, and powerful characters can blend perfectly together. As a result I felt more connected to queer history/culture. It also gave me an interesting, and new perspective about the AIDS crisis, which I hadn’t had before (that’s the last too books in particular).
That brings me to my reading of the first Angles in America Play by Tony Kushner, which as of right now is the most amazing piece of prose I’ve ever read. It’s powerful; the production style really works with the subject matter. The play was the most complete look at AIDS and all of it’s effects, and I was virtually reduced to tears by the last page.
4. The weblogging world is fascinated with the idea of being able to dip into the lives of strangers. Is it possible to truly get to know someone through this particular format?
If you fire up your browser and see the front page of a blog and snoop around a little, you’re going to see a little window into the life of a stranger, and this kind of blog ‘browsing’ may allow you to get to know someone, in most cases this picture is incomplete. It is after all hard to get to know someone on a couple of web pages, (unless the person is really daft).
On the other hand if you’ve read the entire body of a person’s work on the web, you can start to get a feeling about someone. There’s a lot of “reading inbetween the lines,” and I must admit that there are few people whose blogs I read that I don’t chat/correspond with, so I suppose that skews things a bit. People are such complicated creatures that it’s hard to *really* get to know them in any format, but I think it can be done. (Is it cheating if you chat/correspond with people whose blog you read?)
5. Would you ever attend dragon*con? If you would, what appeals to you? If not, why not?
I think I would if I could work out all the logistics. I’m a huge Babylon 5 fan (it’s the commonality that brought Chris Knittel and Paula Forbes to TealArt in the first place). I’m also really kind of big into Star Wars, which I’m almost embarrassed to admit, but alas it’s the truth. So things relating to either of those fascinations would be pretty high on my list. Also as a writer/fiction buff, the stuff relating to that would be really interesting. The Rocky Horror showing(s) would also get my attention. That’s the main stuff, and probably only the tip of the ice burg.
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tagged: TealArt
When you’re a bottom you’re not above anything.David
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tagged: clipping