Role of the news org

I've been working on rewording/reordering the presentation. Kate and I are meeting at 12 today to finish it up. We'll send it out to everyone for before the call tonight.

One thing though: can everyone send us a like one sentence idea of what they see Locker Talker doing for the news organization. It's still kind of a whole, presentation wise. Having other people's wording would be really helpful.

Thanks everyone!

feedback

Hey guys,

So here's what I took to be notable feedback...

1) Dianne thinks we need to allow users to show off their filp books to other people... She said that it isn't really fun if you can't show it off.

2) someone brought up that the news org. should actually make magnets for kids to put on their real school lockers... so they can show off that they are 'in the know'

3) someone suggested there being music in the locker.

4) It was emphasized that we need to know what the consequences of Locker Talker are on the demographic, and why it means good business for the news org.

Harry has everything

So the four hour process of sending Harry all the files is complete (don't ask .... it took forever). Tyler redid the main mockup this afternoon to make it look a little more realistic and appealing, so he now has everything & hopes to have it back to us for Monday.

Dave - Harry needs file

Dave can you send Harry the original file you have for the flip book?
I'll send you an email too in case you check that first.

Thanks!
Andrea

Valuable feedback from Christina..

via e-mail:

"The stickers on the lockers need to look like advertisements, many of them didn't. Post-it notes need to look like post-it, many times they do not.

Also, kid-friendly headlines are better than '2 soldiers dead in Iraq' as people protested the severity of content... I say we just avoid the issue all together in the mock-ups...there was more feedback, but I do not have the opportunity to post it at this moment... this is all I think we need to be concerned about with the mock-ups. Also a sense of consistency is key.. the tyler-made ones looked different from the andrea/kate-made ones."

Discuss this as a group and then communicate decisions to Harry pronto.

mock up help

so we've found a Flash guy. can we just use this post to quickly iron out what needs doing in the mockups? we obviously need the notebooks "coming forward" from the locker. anything else? also, are we looking to get it so that we can click on the notebooks to make them come forward in the mockups, or do we need only a few Flash animation files to put into the Powerpoint?

also, Christina and Dave, did you guys get any feedback on the mockups?

last thing--I think Kate has the mockup files so she will have to send them to the Flash guy.

presentation

hi guys - christina is working on the presentation hand outs - she didn't get a copy of the presentation so far - can somebody from st. mike's shoot her a copy so she can get started thinking about order and what extra content needs to be there

thanks...kim

Webinar call tonight..

..at 9:30 p.m. You should have the numbers sent last week by Kim. If not, let me know. Kim's in CA and may be late to the call.

Come prepared to finalize lingering questions re: the presentation.

We are planning a Sunday, Oct. 14 Webinar call at 8:30 p.m.--another mock presentation with the three presenters; we will all listen, ask questions, and comment.

Talk to you later.

check out this blog post

with a story about a multimedia package - uses the bulletin board as a theme - iwth photos and videos - kind of interesting

The SMC mock presentation...

...went extremely well. Kate, Andrea and Tyler did a terrific job on the first run and they received some pertinent feedback. (Andrea has already given you a summary in a previous post.)

From my perspective (having listened to the presentation, as well as read the individual surveys that audience members filled out), a few key elements need to be strongly emphasized in the Toronto presentation:

1) clarify the problem (i.e. young people not reading newspapers, not tuning to local news; high percentages of youth on online sites; existing sites are superficial, play-based; no online sites out there (cite your research) allowing youth to personalize news interests and share info with other youth groups in a secure environment).

One SMC audience member suggested beginning the presentation with: Do you (as news execs) want to help spawn the citizens of the future? This is attention-getting!

2) mission of LockerTalker (a written mission statement in a PowerPoint slide) communicated in 2-3 bullets. (Citizen journalism is a buzz word that online news executives are all discussing--looking to implement; needs to be emphasized in presentation--this connects to Knight Foundation goal of Incubator Project.)

3) explanation of social networking sites (i.e.Facebook) and how LT differs--how it's an "alternative to social networking for social-networking wannabees"; why parents will like this platform for middle-school age (you all need to clarify exact age range re: Andrea's previous question--many listeners didn't get the narrowed demographic info--there were quite a range of answers to the survey question, "what is the target audience?"); secure news and education environment; privacy rules.

4) explanation of 6 primary LockerTalker features (i.e. notebooks, laptop, post-its, etc.); a suggestion to add video headlines on the laptop, which is a great suggestion--hitting viewers with even more news. (I would definitely suggest ripping from current headlines and inserting them in the mock-ups. This will give news execs a feel for the types of stories that will appear.)

5) explanation of why this is a valuable application for a news organization (what are the concrete benefits for them?); advertising revenue; sparking an interest in news/information and connecting youth to their news sites at formative ages; news is being consumed by a virgin, untapped target market for most news orgs.

6) how LT is financially feasible for the news org--how you envision oversight of the site? How many staff needed to monitor and customize news stories? What kind of labor hours are required to monitor/produce content for site? Play generation card here!

7) restatement of mission, demographic, benefit to news org.

youth groups

We need to contact some youth groups (try, at least) to see if the interest is there before Toronto. I know some of the big ones we came up with were Girl Scouts, 4-H, CYO, Girls Inc.!, Babe Ruth and Little League baseball and softball ... I honestly can't remember what else but people had more creative ones.

Just post which ones you contact, that way we don't all do the same ones.

I'll start with Girl Scouts and 4-H ...

focus group

Both Jordan and the SMC group received the same feeback re: the idea of using a focus group before Toronto. We're trying to contact the director of our community service office, as she runs a Middle School Mentors program. Hopefully, we can show our mockups and ideas to some of these middle schoolers this week (unfortuanately I think they are all girls). We'll let you know...

more SMC feedback

Here's the feedback from the multimedia guy at the Free Press addressing first, whether this is classified as an Intranet or not and second, the possiblity of Locker Talker being a browser:


Your second question first: I'm inclined to agree with you that classifying the project as an intranet would be too insular/limiting. A primary strength of Locker Talker, as I see it, is the way it interfaces between the vastness of the web (which no one can navigate alone) and an individual's interests and tastes. Also, I think there's a pragmatic reason to avoid conceptualizing the project as such: most newsrooms have intranet systems that store photos and stories...generally speaking, those systems are slow and outdated. As for the suggestion about locker talker as a browser: Social networking sites typically cater to niche audiences. The Free Press has a social networking site for moms , for example. The idea there is to bring a particular demographic together for a particular reason. Locker Talker, on the other hand, seems to have a larger potential to be an environment through which people navigate the web. For example, I go to YouTube to see videos but YouTube does not become my web navigation system. It's merely a stop along the way. Facebook, as you mentioned in the presentation, comes closest to being an environment that helps people navigate the web via groups, hobbies, taste, etc. And it's major drawback is definitely privacy concerns. (This: "We may share your information with third parties, including responsible companies with which we have a relationship" is fom Facebook's "privacy" policy). Locker Talker offers the privacy -- it respects individuals sense of space -- without shutting out the really fantastic elements of social networking. Why a browser? Browsers are the tools that currently structure our web environment. It is always with you, no matter where you go on the web. Explorer is the most popular...but it doesn't offer much in the way of personalized space. Check out Flock, which does a lot more by giving accessing to feeds, ability to upload photos, blogging capabilities, etc... Locker Talker, I think, would work very nicely like this.

Feeback from my presentations, finally.

Feedback from Presentations:

There was a lot of feedback that I got that has been unnecessary to post. People gave me ideas like making a power point (of course college professors would say that) and maybe doing a focus group, which I think is something that should be done after we prevent these ideas to the ONA by whoever decides to pick it up. In general there was extremely positive feedback and most people thought it could be implemented, etc.

People said some general comments which they thought were stronger were:

Our goal

Our use of technology/the internet

Starting with a smaller community newspaper

Clear concept

They liked our name for it

The relevant interests to our age demographic

Using buzz words like hyper-local, etc. were responded to well.

Easing networking into news

Safety

Personalization and privacy of lockers

That our demographic is too young for MySpace and Facebook.

They liked our ability to adapt to potential sponsors and the flexibility for change

Tricking the students into reading news

Still using the professional journalists while involving the community

What they felt still needed work (based on a rough presentation and then a little smoother one the second time around from me by myself – keep this in mind.):

We need to look more into what the target audience wants to learn about

Risk of censorship

Streaming video potential?

Will the content be repackaged for these kids?

Wondering if there are strong community newspapers online (I SAY YES TO THAT)

How to convince fearful adults (TO THIS I SAY, THE KIDS ARE ALREADY ON THE INTERNET DOING THINGS, LET’S GIVE THEM AN ACTUAL SAFE PLACE TO SPEND THEIR TIME.)

Approaching a paper for moch content instead of creating headlines in our presentations ourselves.

Some other random suggestions:

Look for smaller community newspaper, not one owned by the big guys

Advertising money worth the audience (I SAY YES)

Are we doing this more as a community service or as a way to make money… (I’D SAY THAT’S A REAL QUESTION WE’D BEEN STRUGGLING WITH IN THIS PROJECT OVERALL. I TOOK IT ORIGINALLY TO BE MORE ABOUT A PUBLIC SERVICE AT FIRST, BUT SINCE THE LAST TIME IN ITHACA, MY THOUGHTS HAVE CHANGED.)

Have a really clear overview of the moderator (WHICH IS SOMETHING I THINK WE ALREADY HAVE, I JUST DIDN’T HAVE ALL DAY TO TALK ABOUT THIS PROJECT.)

It was really quite the learning experience for me being on the other side. I feel less bad for professors than I used to because I can’t tell you how many of them looked like they weren’t giving me their full attention, several half-assed their comments or were playing on their phones the whole time. I guess now I know how they feel, but it’s not like they are any better.

Also, several questions arose that I already stated in my presentation and I had to reanswer them. Maybe that means we should stress them more in our presentation?? Things like how to implement it in the first place, advertising revenue, and moderation of the site were big ones I got questions about.

Thanks guys.

PS – Andrea/Kate, whenever you get a chance, can you send me the powerpoint and script so I can look over it and stuff? I still haven’t gotten it from you.

another possible tie-in

When looking up for info on the Girl Scouts tonight for the Interest Project/cit jo tie in, I found Girl Scout TV. It's basically TV clips of things relating to the Web site. Perhaps if this youth organization relationship actually takes off, such clips could work off the computer along with the video components and PSAs. Just a thought?

Check it out: http://www.girlscouts.org/news/gs_tv/

two more things...

...any way you can think to safely tie in YouTube? How about a mapping feature similar to what Hyperzoom wanted to do?

SMC Presentation Feedback

We presented at SMC yesterday afternoon to 5 Journalism professors, a marketing professor, director of Public Relations for SMC and the person in charge of multimedia for the Burlington Free Press (and a SMC grad). It went really well and we got some excellent (as in very helpful yet still encouraging) feedback.

• The biggest thing across the board: Although everyone thinks there is something there, we need to come up with a clear and coherent response to the question "what does this do for the news organization?" Why should they want to adopt this/put energy, time, money into this? Beyond the fact that our demographic is largely untapped ... why would they find this appealing. In terms of answering the question of "who will staff this," one of our professors came up with a great response. It's people like us -- who are graduating with the multimedia skills to support sites like these -- that would be a perfect fit for such a staffing opening. It's what we're trained in. And the whole concept behind the Incubator project.
• The question of what groups are acceptable and who decides this. In our explanation of "applying" to the site admin for a public group, the question was raised regarding where the line was drawn, particularly in the political groups. And our marketing prof raised a good point: what's good in one community might not be in another depending on where they fall on the liberal/conservative scale. We can't lose the privacy/security feature, but need a solution to what is allowed and what's not (I guess a methodical way of deciding what flies...)
• A suggestion: why not strengthen the laptop feature (and tie in more video components) by having video headlines automatically begin when the locker is accessed. This way more news is getting delivered, without a choice on the user's part. Also would also for more Internet safety PSAs to be fused in. This particular prof. said we needed to make it so more news "had" to be seen.
• Another thing across the board: how is this different from Facebook. This is a question that was asked to us, and I babbled off a long explanation to which he replied "right that down." The point being, it is different, and for good reasons. We just need to reiterate that at the beginning of our presentation because some of these news orgs aren't as familiar with social networking sites as we are, and there's the potential that they could see this as familiar if it's not clearly stated how it's not.
• Clarify the problem. And offer Locker Talker as the solution. And what other solutions have tried, unsuccessfully, to do what we're doing. We can look back at all those middle school girl sites we tackled the first two weeks back from Ithaca as to what we saw wrong and how we're better.
• Play the generation card. Again, this is a demographic that we're not all that detached from, but our audience is. Use that to our advantage. Two suggestions: one, really play up the hypothetical locker idea of "Kathryn's locker" (and maybe a male example) and keep that consistent, actually referring to the person, throughout the entire presentation. Another suggestion was to begin the presentation by asking the news organization "Do you want to create a citizen?" because that's what our product has the potential to do. Obviously not a marketing thing we would use to the users, however.
• Really strengthen the part about Project Sharing. This is a great feature of the site that we came up with at the end and subsequently, it's stuck at the end of our presentation. It really encompasses the whole citizen journalism aspect. Also, if people want to turn their diary entries into stories to be shared (through the site admin), allow it to be possible. Encourage writing because it's encouraging cit journalism. They though the tie in to local groups and the community was a strong part of this project however.

There were also some general presentation concepts that our Chair and another veteran prof shared with us after that were really helpful. One was to storyboard the presentation. Start with front of the locker and work your way through in order. Really play the generation card and the hypothetical students. Start the beginning of the presentation with the problem, the failed solution, and how this is the solution and how it is distinctly different from existing social networking sites, because it is.

We're also going to look into combining our PowerPoint and Mockups presentation into one. Consolidate the PowerPoint, with the above info at the beginning, and then move into the mockups with the product explanation.

The good news was they all felt this was practical and could be implemented by a news organization, as long as we came up with the answer to the first question I posted. I have an email into the Free Press multimedia guy regarding a couple questions he raised.

Let me know if any of this doesn't make sense...

Presentation Script/Questions/blah

During the last phone call we talked about Kate and Andrea sending out some of the script for ONA. Could you guys send me what you have (if its anything new)? It'll help me make the hand-out sound like you guys speak, you know what I mean? Like everything is a piece of the same whole.

Right now it is pretty beastly looking

Also, how old can Pew statistics be about the middle school age group's internet habits before they are too old to be used in the handout?? Is 2006 too old? 2005? I have no idea how to handle evolving, time-sensitive statistics like these. I want to include some of them, as it proves how LockerTalker can easily be taken on...

Brandy set up a presentation next week for us over here at IC in order to get more feedback. So, we'll have something to report later on.

mockup issues

I took some pictures of real lockers and notebooks and things to make a better mockup, but it just ended up looking like a really messy, stupid collage.

meanwhile, during our presentation today at SMC (more on that later) we used the mockups we already had, and it seemed to get the point across to the attendees. Dave's flipbook even got specially mentioned as good (must've been that bit about the pretty kitty).

i've been messing around with gradients and such in Photoshop to give the mockups more dynamics while retaining a simple look that would load quickly on the web. unfortunately I can't get the upload box to load, mainly because my internet is running at dialup speeds (as usual, thanks a lot St. Mike's IT).

however, one of the people at our presentation was looking for some kind of website. so my point is--should we not worry so much about our mockups as they are and worry more about creating something that works more like a webpage? don't think any of us can code enough in Flash to make a website, but I think I could make a graphics intensive HTML page using the existing mockups that would at least stand in as a working model.

any thoughts on what we should do here? if people think I should forge on in refining the mockups, I will. I just don't know where I should spend my energies so that the presentation has the best net gain in the end.

Not to make you nervous or anything

But our presentations will be in a room set up for 200 people.!!

I asked brandy whether they really expected that many or a more realistic number like 75. Probably there's just no way to know since this is the first time they've had something like this on the schedule.

IC folks - Brandy got a van so you guys are all going together - brandy and the dean and you three. That will be fun.

Good luck on the presentations in VT! Kick butt (just don't breathe germs on them - bad form

Might be late to the meeting

Hey guys. Just wanted to leave a note saying I might be a bit late to the meeting tonight. I'm working on putting together a project for my Digital Journalism class and it may take us a while to finish. In the meantime I will continue to work on and tweak my mockups. Talk to you all soon!

Phone Numbers?

I didn't get an e-mail with the webinar number and access code. Could someone send it to me? ccaraco1@ithaca.edu

thanks.

questions/misc.

I was looking over the powerpoint presentation Andrea sent me last Sunday...

1) It says the post-its can only be sent to members of the network. Does this mean if I am a member of Locker Talker because I play soccer, and my friend is on Locker Talker because she is in Girl Scouts, that I can't send her a post-it because we signed up with different groups? I guess I don't know what 'network' implies.

2) The description on first slide is kind of a mouthful. If you're comfortable with it then I guess it's okay, but if it were me I think I'd want to break it up a little.

I'm beginning to work on the sheet we hand out at ONA. My initial idea was that it be an overview of the main features and a description of what we need the news org. to do to make Locker Talker a reality. Did you guys feel there is something that we specifially want on the sheet that will help them decide if they want to participate? Or is there something you're worried about coming across clearly enough in the presentation that you want to rely on the sheet to better explain? Let me know.

pics

http://www.flickr.com/photos/14060635@N05/favorites/

So I don't know if I figured out what happened with my pictures not showing up, but I just found the lost ones again and now it seems to be working.

Stuff and Such from Kim

Bad news for the IC folks - the national advisory board meeting got cancelled so there won't be any big wigs on campus to talk to. We need to check with brandy to see if she has any ideas.

The programmer needs really specific guidelines about what you want to do and on what graphics and in what order. And unfortunately they need that pretty quickly. So Sunday - one of the things I want us to talk about is what do we have for the presentation and what do we still need.

When the folks present at their school - be sure to post the feedback (or a summary of it - good and bad) to the blog

Look for a message tonight about the phone call

Hola Groupo

Hey everyone, I've been working on my second presentation I'm giving the past couple days and getting it all squared away. Tomorrow before I give it, I'm meeting with Darcy and Jane (our staff person and dean) to discuss the feedback from the last presentation as I haven't seen any of it yet. Tomorrow will be a little more eclectic group so I think the feedback tomorrow will be extremely varied, I should have some good stuff though. Just a little update.

pictures

So I've found a bunch of pictures using flickr and collected them into my favorites. Here's a link to my favorites. Maybe this is a dumb question, but I've found more pictures than it shows, is there a way to go through them all that I'm not seeing?

http://www.flickr.com/photos/14060635@N05/favorites/

Presentation

These three people will be doing the presentation in Toronto: Andrea, Kate, and Jordan

Christina is going to help with the handouts - passing them out, bringing them (we'll get an estimate from the dean of how many she thinks we might need and get them copied - since we're driving, figure it would be easier for us to bring them from Ithaca)

Jon is going to proof read the presentation script - grammar, flow, good turn of phrase

Tyler (and christina if we get the 2 computer, 2 projector setup we want) will be driving the computer during the presentation. Tyler and the speakers will need to work out a system for letting him know when to change slides - maybe what phrase they're going to be saying when they're done with a page... something a little more subtle than next slide please

Everybody should be working on finding images, writing up pieces of the presentation, commenting on the mockups...

Notebook Mockup

I recieved Jordan's details this afternoon and took a crack at making a mockup. For the final version of this I plan on making the notebook itself a bit more exciting to look at. Does anyone have anything they think they would want to add? Please comment.

Mock presentation at St. Mike's

A mock presentation at SMC is in the works for Wednesday, Oct. 3. I have spoken with Kate and Andrea, and we all feel it's important to get as much presentation experience as possible, as well as having professionals question aspects of the platform (to ultimately make it a stronger concept).

Still have to coordinate on a time, but we will have new media, marketing and journalism professors present, as well as a couple representatives from local media organizations (our director's great idea). As a result, we have much to bring to fruition in the next 9 days.

The participation of majority of the team is disappointing..a few worker-bees..and dribs and drabs from the rest.

We'll talk more shortly.

Can't Make It

Sorry for the late notice, but I can't make the call tonight. I've talked to Andrea and Kate and I know what's going down in the next couple of weeks. Again, sorry.

Jon

late?

I may be a little late to the phone call depending on how a meeting goes with my director of photography for my thesis film. I've attempted to have the meeting at another time, but it looks like it can only happen tonight and we have some big due dates this week. Hopefully I wont be late, but I just wanted to give you guys a heads up.

thanks.

Contacts

I sent E-mails to 4-h Little league Girls inc, Pop warner girl scouts, AAU Big brother big sister and... the Ymca. I sent the e-mails on thurs (day off). I got e-mails confirming reception but it looks like they were generated because I got it back in like a minute. I expect e-mails back next week.
Cheers,
Micah McAllister

mockups

This image is the locker. Obviously. The color and stickers would be changable. I have this vision in my head that when you click on one of the notebooks, it would pop out of the locker and open up, result being that it would look like this:


Although now that I think about it, I probably should have mocked-up a more newsworthy group than a soccer team. I can do another one though.


And how about this for a laptop solution. As it is it's a really small screen, and I don't think there's any getting around that given the scale we're working at. So, when you click on the laptop, how about that it zooms in like this, and then some videos can pop up like that?

How's this look, apart from the fact that it needs obviously smoothing out to be presentable?

things to do

So to tie up some loose ends / things on the organizational front:

Presentation: Kate and I have gun working on a skeleton outline for the presentation. Anyone else interested in this aspect?

Mock ups: Tyler's working on banners and image mockups. We've met with Jon to go over Flash / animation to go along with the presentation. Anyone else want to work on mockups?

Coming up with questions: Christina's been doing this and it's extremely helpful. She's basically asking questions from the calls and the outlines that are making us think about our holes, things that need fixing, things we need to work on adaquately explaining. Anyone want to join her in this aspect? Your opinion's valued.

Youth organizations: Micah was suppose to be contacting several. Have you had any luck? What ones have you gotten in touch with so we don't overlap? If someone else wants to work with the youth orgs. make sure you talk to Micah so we don't contact the same one twice from two different names.

What else are people out there doing / want to do / want to work on?

Lap Top Feature

Andrea mentioned the Lap Top feature as being a pretty big hole in the project right now and I wanted to initiate a conversation as to what kinds of scenarios are possible and the consequences they have on the idea.

What does the Lap Top allow you to do - potential ideas...

1) Lap Top as a means of streaming content produced by the news organization itself.

2) Lap Top as a means for displaying internet safety tips/programming.

3) Lap Top as a means for playing user-created content (ex. mini-doc about a Girl Scout's project)

Another issue is if the news organization sends out the same video to every locker, or is there some sort of choice involved on the part of the kids. I almost feel it would be much easier for the news org. to send out the same chunk of video to everyone - what do you guys think?

What if the internet safety tips were like commercials between news clips? I think that if the lap top only plays internet safety info that it will be a huge buzz-kill to kids who think this application is making them cool like the myspace people they're cut off from.

Third, how would a user, say a local girl scout troop, get their little mini-doc about their project onto the laptop for other people to see? Would they just upload it and submit it to the news organization for review and see what happens?

If any of this is redundant and I somehow missed the info on the first go-around I apologize. Let me know what you guys are thinking.

privacy statement

we've begun to hash out presentation ideas and got to thinking about the privacy statement ... for the outline, i snatched one from online as an example ... but do we need our own, orignal privacy statement for toronto? i understand we need to touch on and emphasize how security and privacy affects this site, since it's a huge selling point, but was unsure if we needed to get as specific as our own privacy statement? thanks.

questions

So I was going over the write-up that Andrea e-mailed everyone and I had questions/ideas.

If you look at Example 1 in the Initial Marketing vs. Add On section there is mention of a lap top option. Is this supposed to say flip book option? If not, I don't know what the lap top option is.

Also, the whole idea about an independent URL being available. It says we can have an independent URL and still avoid being considered a stand-alone site. Can you guys explain that to me again? Is it that they have to initially register through the news site and then can use the independent URL?

I had an idea about the whole post-it thing if people get uncomfortable about the potential for abuse (I personally am not worried about it, but who knows). The store I work for sells Webkinz and they make us watch terrible tutorial videos, and the way they manage to get away with having chat rooms is that the things kids can say are already pre-determined and put on a list that they have to choose from. I hope we wouldn't have to resort to such a thing, as Webkinz are for a younger age group, but it's just something to think about if we run into a snag.

some banners

Here are some banners I made for Locker Talker--I wanted to make something that looked good in different color schemes, and that would also appeal to both boys and girls in the demographic. think the Burlington Free Press (as an example) logo across the top spoils it a bit, though. is that even needed here?

the kind of thing we're thinking about. i think?

Hey everyone,
I read my two online newspaper editions from home everyday when I'm at school, and this article in this morning's edition stuck out at me. It's about a seventh grade girl who really enjoys politics over more traditional middle school activities. Anyway, the point is ... this girl is someone's friend, and I'm sure her friends would love to read about her. This is ONE of the types of articles the news organizations can provide to users ... articles about classmates in your network. As you can see from the article, the Union Leader loves to keep all the links of related stories in other stories. Maybe kids will click around and begin reading more news. One step at a time. Anyway, it's worth checking out, especially if there was still confusion about on aspect of news sponsorship involvement. Here it is.

Also, did everyone receive the Locker Talker outline attachment okay? Let me know if you didn't get it and an email address you use.

Thanks!
Andrea

Part 1 is over, Time for Part 2

The innovation part is over - time to get ready for the presentation and hopefully implementation.

We didn't say much this week because we wanted to see what you guys would do - and you did what we hoped to see - you started organizing yourself. That's exactly what is supposed to happen in this kind of creative innovative application. Some of the organization has been tentative, but at least it's starting. Everybody emailed that they were still in on the project. We need a lot of effort from everybody these next weeks. Sounds like you all are dividing up into teams - working on the model, on the presentation, fleshing out the idea. We still need someone to check with members/representatives of some of the youth groups to see if they think they're members could make use of it.

We're not going to have a phone call this week - you guys have a lot to do. The phone calls are for updates, not for planning. Don't wait till the phone call to bring up an idea you have - put it ont he blog NOW. Start working on it NOW. Since we're just starting this part of the process, not much to update. Is next week sunday night good for people? Say 8:30?

So - get a task - if you don't have one, ask. Look back thru the posts about the locker project and get reacquainted with it. Look for questions that haven't been answered yet. Ask questions, raise issues - - ON THE BLOG. Comment on things, add to the conversation. Don't wait for someone to ask what you want to do. Throw it out there. And be willing to do lots of stuff. Now is not the time to specialize. We have many tasks that need.

Folks from ithaca - the dean wants you to present the idea to the national advisory board when they're here the first week of October. Sounds like some of the other schools are organizing similar efforts. This is a great opportunity - it forces you to have your idea thought thru, the presentation started. You don't have to have the working demo prototype by then, but lots of still images. This way we're sure everyone is up to speed on the project as we talk about it to lots of professionals. Be sure to listen to everything they say. Now is not the time to argue with them or tell them they didn't understand (might be true, but don't say it) - take notes on every comment they make, every suggestion, and especially every criticism. Ask them if htey think it's feasible, how we might get people involved...

Let me know if you can't make the phone call NEXT sunday at 8:30pm eastern time.

Legitness

Children,

I was poking around Technorati at my internship and I discovered that the Team Devistator blog, yea this very one, is the 2,634,577th most legit site in the internet. According to my debriefing on social media usage, this labels us as having "Little to no Authority".

Also, while participating in some additioanl research, I discovered this little gem.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/12/technology/12social.html?_r=2&ref=technology&oref=slogin&oref=slogin

It's about facebook/myspace for grown-ups. Fun.

I love you,
Kathryn

What's next?

What are we suppose to be doing before Sunday's call? And we never set a time for this week's?

Time's up

Based on the lack of posts today with the info about the debate this project, MaryBeth and I decided we can't go forward with it. There were some very specific questions we wanted answered and nothing was posted.

So we need everybody to get on board with the Locker Talker project. They did post about the news organization and the youth organizations - thanks guys. There's still work to do fleshing out the options and then doing the mockup and presentation. Fun times.

Truthfully - we're pretty disappointed with the level of input from some people - folks aren't posting, aren't stepping up to the plate with tasks during the week. That needs to change. There's a very short amount of time left to get everything ready for Toronto. Not everybody needs to go on - and if the participation isn't amazing this week, we will have to remove you from the project.

Everybody needs to let me know (kgregson@ithaca.edu) by noon tomorrow if they're still on board. I will take a non-response as a sign that you've decided to leave the project.

I'm being blunt - if you can't actively get on board with Locker Talker, then you need to leave. If you can't step up the effort level, then you need to leave. This is the beginning of crunch time. Locker Talker doesn't belong to just a couple of people. It's the team project. Everyone can have meaningful input.

I'll be looking for the emails.

Kim

What LT will ask of the news organization.

Responsibility of the News Organization:

At a local level, the news organization would be responsible for getting those first users through participation and working with local school districts. They would express the educational role the Web site would play and hopefully that would be enough to get the school districts interested in promoting the locker to their middle schoolers.

The news organization would have administrators (probably only one would be necessary at first) who would monitor use of forums, groups, etc. In the beginning, the groups will be pre-decided (ie, I love football, soccer, math, slurpees, etc.) It would evolve so that students could request that groups be created and maybe eventually students would be able to create groups to promote discussion, etc. The administrators would moderate conversation and make sure that nothing is being said that could endanger any users. Some of the groups being created will and should pertain to newsworthy things (I love Hilary, Barack is my Rock, etc. Also community things like Volunteers at the Shady Pines Retirement Home, Boy Scouts of America, etc.

The news organization will obviously add to the locker features as the user-base grows. They would get advertisers for the site geared toward this middle school age-group (probably much different than their normal advertisers).

Within the lockers are the users’ own personal things, pictures, books, etc. Most of that content will either be provided in the news stories the news organization already provides or through user-uploaded photos and things that the user may not share with other users online. The administrators will have little to do with this.

The news organization will provide content (stories) that are both of interest to middle schoolers (one of their classmates wins a national award, a law is passed requiring middle schoolers to start school earlier than high school kids, sports, etc.) We are asking that the news organization also keeps in mind that kids are often turned off by newspaper content because they can’t understand it. This may require slight editing of some stories so that they are appropriate for the middle school-aged demographic.

The days from page headlines will also be provided within the lockers as something that is not optional. This will again be part of the responsibility of the news organization.

Inital Audiences

What we talked about last night in terms of grabbing the first couple of users. Obviously, I'm not a business major and know nothing about marketing (in fact, I'm taking it pass/fail right now because I'm so clueless, but that's besides the point), so when we were questioned last night on how we would attract that initial user base, I was trying to think a little more creatively and a lot less business oriented.

And that's when I came up with the idea of having the support of the youth organizations on our side - having the leaders be aware of what Locker Talker can do for their groups to help them communication outside of meetings, etc. I think in terms of marketing, this is a great avenue of an initial group of people to market the product to - we've already talked about doing that for parents and educators. But now market it to the troop leader, the head coach, and youth ministry organizer. Have them use it as a tool so they're participants are "highly encouraged" (I don't want to make anything mandatory) to participate in the use of Locker Talker to further facilitate group work and discussion and become more aware of what's going on around them.

Kids outside of these youth organizations will then also become aware of its potential uses. And the kid who does nothing can still become a member and pick groups. Even if he doesn't pick a group (so he has no "interest derived" news, he will still receive the day's top headlines on the back of his locker door. And he still has the ability to participate in Internet education. And maybe seeing what others can do through Locker Talker will encourage him to get involved (I know I'm being extremely optimistic here)? I guess my point is this: if the only thing you do is sign up and sign in to Locker Talker once, then at least you're getting the news that one time. And maybe a headline will spark your attention ...

Other ways. We've talked about this being an alternative to social networking, and so hopefully we can tap into an audience that is too young for the MySpace/Facebook craze of just not allowed to do it because it's down right creepy. Kim brought up a good point in the conference call two weeks ago: with an icon on the homepage of the sponsoring news organization, the idea is going to be introduced to parents, who can get their kids excited (maybe ... I do realize we're dealing with 12-year-olds).

I don't know. Maybe I'm completely off base, but those are my thoughts on getting the first 10 members.

Youth Organizations

This is a list of youth organziations I started to brainstorm in bed last night. Add ones you can think of (even if they're local) and I'll look into what we have to offer each other:

4-H
Girl Scouts / Boy Scouts / Brownies / Eagle Scouts
Catholic Youth Organizaiton
Babe Ruth
Little League Baseball / Softball
AAU sports
Recreational Leagues (sports at the town level)
Pop Warner
After school library groups
Girls Inc.!
YMCA
Boys and Girls Club
Big Brother Big Sister?
Camps Fire USA

Thanks.

a few minutes late

Kate and I will be a few minutes late with the Webinar call being at 8 and not 8:30 tonight as Campus Mass is from 7-8. By the time everyone gets called in and we figure out how to work the phone this week, we'll be there. Thanks

DebateThis - What The News Org Might Be Able To Do

First of all--sorry for the slow activity of late. Apparently the St. Mike's network is powered by hamsters running in wheels, and since the year started those hamsters have been falling asleep a lot.

Anyway, I was reading the Burlington Free Press website today--which I do sort of often so I can't believe I haven't noticed this before--and their comments section jumped out at me. So here's the link:

http://www.burlingtonfreepress.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070906/NEWS01/709060304/1009

Click on the "View All Comments" link. You'll notice that the "StoryChat" feature works basically like a message board embedded within the Free Press website. Users have profiles and saved data. Presumably it's a lot of infrastructure.

But it's basically a fancy overlay onto a standard comments section, so I don't really see it as competition. If a news org can set up a message board with user profiles and the like, then maybe it isn't such a great leap to see a news org propping up DebateThis.

-Tyler

so I can't draw...

So my second idea for the design of DebateThis was for it to take on aspects of a comic book. I think it would be a way to pinpoint our demographic. This would create a connection in our users' minds to political cartoons. Also, comic books show heightened emotions, which are sure to arise in a heated debate. I'd have an example, but it turns out I can't draw anything better than a stick-figure, so I'll have to hope you guys can just consider it without the visual. I did a quick google image search for the pic provided.

Other Locker Site Not Similar

Hey everyone,

OK, so I think I found this fantom locker site, and it no way is it similar. http://www.livezone.com/girltalk/locker.html.

The site is about like healty eating and exercise and body image. Yawn.

Kim, if you think Dianne was talking about another site please let me know so I can try to find that one.

Good Conversation

I'm glad you're all talking about it now.

I'm going to step back. I've been dumping everything into how I see it working over the past few weeks and I think I'll leave it up to you guys to decide if it's going to work.

If you guys think it's worth saving then I think someone should build something or come up with an outline that's trimmed enough to make it work.

Otherwise, lets hop on with the Locker folks and their fantastic idea so we don't end up wasting any more time.

Good stuff people, get at me.

Reality Check

As DebateThis has grown and become more defined I've started to have some major concerns about its resemblance to a stand-alone app. In it's current state, it is a pretty big undertaking with a lot of layers (profiles, leader boards, etc) that aren't really prioritizing the actual news. How much of DebateThis is about news, how much about fame, and how much about the social networking? Have we found the right balance? Are we wrapping the news up in options in the same way you hide a pill in a piece of meat you feed the dog?

My first reaction was to simplify the idea, trim the fat off....but then it comes dangerously close to looking like a comments section.

I love the idea of competition and encouraging critical thinking, it makes people better citizens, no matter what side of a debate they happen to be on, but I wonder if what we have here is a little too big to be appealing to a news site.

I don't say these things to suggest that it's a bad idea, I wouldn't have wanted to work on it if I had thought that way...I'm still totally on board, and will continue to develop some more aesthetic options, but I want us to really think about these issues. Is DebateThis too complicated to be desirable??? Is a simplified version possible??? Am I just a pessimist?

Later 'bators

More DebateThis

I read over the two long posts concerning DebateThis and I wrote down some of my thoughts. I've also been working on a quick mockup of how I envision some of the DT pages including the front page (with the top 10 list and all) and the DebateSpace profile page.

After going over the whole project I had one small bit I was iffy about and I want to hear what others think about it as well. The whole idea of DebateThis being a competition with a rankings ladder and handing out rewards to those who do the best seems almost a little too, for lack of a better word, competitive for my tastes. I'm not saying we should scrap any part of the points system but I think we need to tweak how rewards (and what rewards) are distributed in the community.

First off, I don't think certain members should have a privilege over other members to post audio and video, not to mention giving higher ranked members more space to voice their opinion. I feel like other members, especially newbies, would get the impression that these other debaters have an unfair advantage over them and this might affect their decision to stay with the site. In my opinion all members should be given the same functionality in their posts off the bat.

Something I've observed on Digg. Members like to post news regardless of their celebrity. There are some members who post a great deal more news than others but their main motivation is not getting known on Digg. In my opinion they just want to make some positive contributions to a site they really like. They don't do it for fame (but the community still recognizes them as big name posters). I don't think our members should be motivated by fame either, and if they are they're getting involved in debate for all the wrong reasons). This doesn't mean we should get rid of the rankings system or points. We just need to improve it a little.

I'm still a little fuzzy on how one accumulates points for their rank. Is it solely based on how highly rated their posts were? How does one really decide who has won or lost at a particular debate? I feel as though the debate rank, the thing that determines your "place" in the community, should be based on two things. First a sum total of the time you've spent debating/posting/commenting in a particular thread should be taken into account. This will help judge how much time and effort a particular member has spent on their arguments. This number is complemented by a set of "quality points", or, how highly or disdainfully the community votes your posts. This would also depend on us having a mature and honest community of debaters, but depending on how many positive (or negative) votes your posts receive your ranking would change positively or negatively. This holds members accountable for what they say and how intelligent/well thought out their posts are.

Finally, if one can't earn the ability to post videos or audio in their threads what value does the ranking and points system have? Well, it's true that with my model those things would be available to members for free but I think we're missing a critical thing here that could really boost traffic and discourse on the site. Debaters will still earn points if their arguments score accordingly but instead of being able to trounce other members with extra features they've bought how about if the points could go towards extra options in the DebateSpace profiles?

When members start at the site their DebateSpace will only give them a few fields to describe themselves with (picture, birthday, town, high school, ect). After earning enough points though users could choose to "buy" more pieces to add to their profile (favorite things, a wall, more space for pictures, ect), and with Facebook apps becoming all the rage the possibilities for extras on ones profile could be limitless. Taking a page from wikipedia (ha ha, bad pun) we could also create a series of "badges" a member could buy and add to their profile. They would be little graphics that describe something about the member in question. Check out a wikipedia profile page here. We could also add other things members can buy such as merchandise (who doesn't want a DebateThis polo shirt?!) and other things I'm too tired to come up with at the moment.

Anyway, what are people's thoughts on this? We need to tone down the competitive aspect to ensure the site is still fun and challenging but at the same time we need an incentive for people to participate and I think being able to add more to your profile (self promote in a sense) is a pretty good incentive.

Concerns

1) Audio/Video- Does it really take a lot to host audio? Again, remember these will be very small clips. Video can be handled via YouTube. Also, the length of Audio/Video is determined by the point system so most people wont even have the that capability until the site has been up for awhile. Then again, I know nothing about this stuff.

2) Getting New Users Interested- People are ALREADY interested. This is aimed at the kids/young adults who already lurk in every website's comment section. DebateThis was conceptualized FOR THEM. This gives THEM the platform and THEM the power. Remember - Fame. If your commenting on newspaper articles you expect that people are reading it, in fact, your probably checking to see if people are reading it. Now you have a whole community to cultivate that.

Also, the whole high school deal we talked about earlier. This is really just a huge game. Games are competitive. Games are fun. Games can be informative. I want to make this one all of those.

3) Comparisons to Slashdot- no. I'll tell you why.

a) Slashdot is for nerds (I'm not being mean, this is self-proclaimed). Its all tech-game-gadget stuff. DebateThis is more politically focused, however it covers everything.

b) It seems that articles and writeups on Slashdot are done either from the community or through the community. Articles from DebateThis are from professional journalists. The community doesn't make the story but through the DT community, the counter eventually becomes the story.

c) The rating/point system is in no way comparable to what DebateThis would be. It's not even close.

d) Who the hell are these people? One of the whole points of DebateThis is the idea of fame. It's a game and it makes you a bigshot. Why the hell should I care what "CmdrTaco" thinks about the new iPhone. The user base on DebateThis will carry weight and authority. It gives them a platform not just a hole to rant from.

Thanks.

Something for the locker folks to check out

http://mashable.com/2007/09/03/bonuscom-offers-games-for-parents-and-kids/

a site that is supposed to get parents and young kids online together - might be worth looking at their sign up forms and info for parents

made it a link so hoepfully it will work regardless of how much shows up on your screen

Both Team Devastator ideas still live!

Kim and I will post more about the faculty/deans conversation today, however, suffice it to say that both Locker Talker and DebateThis have one more week of (intense) development/mock-up work before a decision is made as to which 3 ideas will go to Toronto. There are a total of 4 ideas in development at this time, but Dianne only wants to take 3 due to the amount of execution work that will be involved post-ONA.

I have a meeting to run to and will post more of the feedback later, but folks seemed excited about the target demographics you are aiming at. Keep the work coming, everyone!

Phone call details

or what i remember from it - hopefully marybeth will add her notes too

LockerTalker -
- dean lynch remembers seeing another site that used the locker metaphor - we need to look around to see if we can find it and make sure it's not like ours
- people wondered if kids will be interested if it's not a social netwrok (which isn't to say you have to make it such a network but you need to do a little more reading/research
- is it doable - gonna need a database which means backup and maintenance - the way you have it now with accounts there's no way around the database idea - eventually you'll need to figure out what data you're going to keep (the programmer will need that info too)


Debate This
- folks thought it sounded a lot like slashdot - you can rate articles but you can also rate comments kind of like your system, the community polices the topics - this could be a show stopper - you need to look closely at slashdot and be able to say how you guys are different (or change the idea a bit so it is different) - just being on a news site isn't enough difference
- same question as with the locker guys - is it doable in terms of the programming - what info will ya need to keep? where are video and audio files going to be stored...
- related to doable - who's going to police the debates at the beginning - i know eventually the community is supposed to take on some of that role, but who will do it at first - what is going to be involved? this could be a biggie


We have to get it down to 3 ideas - it could be our 2 and one other or one from each group - for a couple of reasons - we only have 1.5 hours to present the ideas, there's only a little bit of money from dean lynch to implement the ideas with the news organization. We're going to present the ideas again next week to the dean's and we'll have to get it down to 3.

That means in the next week - before our group phone call on Sunday - you need to finish fleshing out the ideas, think about what the news organization gets out of the idea, how much work they'll have to do. We want to see ideas and work from everyone - you all grabbed pieces - you should be posting about them. And stuff has to be up on the blog by 5pm on saturday so we can all read and comment - and you guys have to comment - not whoo hoo or sounds good - but be critical - the other guys will - they want their idea to go to toronto and be developed, right? better to get answers to the questions now before the group presentation. I hate to be harsh - but if details aren't there we'll have to drop the idea. we're coming down to the time wire.

Kim

DebateThis: The Pages Part One

Okay...



Here is a rundown of what a new user would see at every aspect of DebateThis. This includes the outer shells to the inner-workings. Ranging from the media's homepage to a spesific Arena battle.



I hope this just doesnt complicate things further. Anyone who is making mockups please read and comment where you see fit.

---------------------------------------

The Media Homepage
Best Example: mlive.com


-Whatever media outlet or organization we decide to go with should be a hub-based multi-informational sattelite for news or a major local conglomerate featuring serveral outlets.



-mLive is a great example of what a new, expereinced or non DebateThis user would see at a particiapting new org website. They generally feature a pool of news from each induvidual outlet's site, creating a swarm of content (all of which... debatatable).



-The DebateThis section of the site will be featured prominantly at the top of the site in a flashy link with the logo morphing into something cool.



-It will be teased like "find out more" or "argue on today's top news events." Hopefully the news org will be excited about it so there will be no quams about teasing a link to another page within their website.



-This tease and link should be cool, hip, flashy and slightly mysterious. This will require some serious work on whatever we pick for the icon, color scheme, widget, etc.



DebateThis Home
Best Example: Mix of YouTube.com, CNN.com, & Digg.com

-Clicking on that intitial link within the website will take a new user to the DebateThis homepage.



+The top displays 10 day's top stories and headlines from the media outlets website.



+Top left corner features the option to log in with a DebateThis user name or "Register for DebateThis!" Being a new user, the ladder option is avaiable. Their is also the option to "logout".



+The Far Left Column features a number of links and options for the Debate this user:



1) "My DebateSpace": The DebateThis user's personal profile and networking homepage.

2) "DebateRank": A database/ladder of every single DebateThis user ranked in order based on the induvidual's accumlualted points.

3) "TheMasters": A page that features the very best of the DebateThis community. Profiles on up to 10 of these members as well as their personal thoughts and linked DebateSpaces.

4) "Arena Search": Wade through induvidual arenas to find a got spot to jump into a debate.

5) "Links": Relevant links to resources (news, debating or otherwise) found not contained through DebateThis.

6) "Help": A listing of laws and rules for the DebateThis community. A listing of standards, practices and policies. A Q&A for new users.

7) "About DebateThis": How was it started? Why was it started? What is it? etc.



+The center of the page is a 25 list of the hottest arenas currently featuring debates. This is based & calculated on volume and the number of high-ranking users within the debate. Think Digg.com spesifically here. Clicking on each link will take the user directly to those debates.



+The Right side of the page is a scrolling flash-based column featuring the community's top 100 debaters and their accumulated points. This is basically a scoreboard. The column slowly fades 10 users at a time in and out until it recycles the list at the end.



Example:

1) Chavez- 1,234,453

2) The Shadow- 1,121,233

3) Bluedawg- 1,111,421

4) ILuvDebating- 953,854

5) I M RIGHT- 914, 235

etc.



fade out- then fade in...



11) MSUFan- 764,324

12)

etc.



+The bottom features a link to the weeks featured top point earner. Here he is given a forum to say whatever he wants about anything. This could be an informative rant or a well writen story and accompanying video clip of his dog Sandy.




Logging In/Signing up
If you are already a DebateThis user, logging in is as easy as any login place. There's a bar for the user name and a bar for the user's password. Type both correctly, and your in!

If you are a new user, you are prompted to go through a sign up process. Basically a repleca of any place you've been required to sign up with before. Prompting you to type in Date of birth, contact info, email, etc.



DebateRank
Best Example: RPG Battle Ladder

A huuuuuuuuuuuuuuuge ladder database of every current user. Each user has a slight column of information. From left to right: Rank - Username - Status - # of Points - Time elapsed since last post - Link to last post - DebateSpace



Example:
861) Spartan21/Veteran/561,235 DebatePoints/3 hours since last post/"Clinton has no chance"/DebateSpace/
862) VoteorDie!/Veteran/545,176 DebatePoints/2 days since last post/"Iraqi Pullout"/DebateSpace/



TheMasters
Best Example: Blogtoplist.com

Huge picture/flash-based links of the very best debaters. These may be people who have trancened the game entirely and are now moderators, leaders or educators. Links to each DebateSpace, blog, rants, etc.


ArenaSearch
Best Example: Google.com

Type in something relevant to the areana you're looking for and the search function will come up with anything matching that criteria.


Links
Best Example: NABJ.com Resources

Fairly self explanitory. Places like Dictionary.com and wikipedia to help with knowledge of issues.


Help
Best Example: YouTube.com Help Center

List of topics and answers to questions. Q & A. Practices & policies. User Agreements. etc. YouTube's is nicely arranged.


About DebateThis
Best Example: About Pandora

Just a quick summary of what the mission and the site is about. Again, pretty self-explanitory.



DebateSpace
Best Example: Facebook.com profile

The DebateSpace page, moddeled losely on any Facebook profile, features user conact information, quick rants, posted YouTube videos and a running log of all Arena Posts.

+Top- Username (on top of) Status (on top of) Rank (on top of) Points

+Left column- All the options from the DebateThis homepage including "Cuztomize", "Spend Debate Points" and "Privacy Settings"

"Customize": Arranging anything about your DebateSpace. Limited, of course, by the number of points accumluated. New users will have to stick with the color scheme and format. Advanced users can change the basic layout, color scheme, add personal flare, backgrounds, music, stickers, widgets, etc.

"Spend Debate Points": EVERYTHING in the world of DebateThis hinges on the number of Debate points accumluated through debating. This link takes you to a page that allows the user to purchase more options based on the rank and amount of points the user has accumulated.

Here the user can buy new colors for his DebateSpace or add more room to type during Arena Debates. Some point-based milestones are automatic when a user moves up in rank, such as the ability to post audio or video. Points are cumlulative and never diminish from purchases.

"Privacy Settings": limit contact information and what other users can see, etc.

+Center- Picture of User, Concact Info, Advnaced User: more pictures, videos, audio, Advanced User: Favorite Widgets, Advnaced User: Multimedia Diary, Adcanced User: RantSpace.

+Bottom Right (where the "wall" would be): Running log (blog format) of everything posted in the arenas.

Any DebateThis Widgeted Article
Best Example: StateNews Article

This is any regular article with the "DebateThis!" widget at the bottom. Clicking on that icon takes the user directly to that article's spesific arena site.

If the reader is not a DebateThis user, the reader will be prompted to sign in or register. This reader will still be able to see the discussion but will not be able to participate.

A normal comment section, common on most news websites will be REMOVED in place of the DebateThis widget.

Example of An Arena Page
Best Example: ???
A mix between a standard forum site, Youtube.com, Digg.com, Pandora's slick design and use of flash, and the comment section from a random news article

I'm thinking TheArena might be entirely flash-based. I don't know if that is at all possible, but I see it in sort of this cool... graphical tree with multiple branches for each discussion and the actual article in the middle.

It is very very hard for me to conceptualize. But it is done in a way that is so immediately appealing and unique that a viewer is awed. This is the ANTI COMMENT SECTION.

This has to be the most graphically original and appealing part of DebateThis. The use of minimal touches, flash, slick design and arrangement should be optimal. I just dont know how. It in no way will look like a comment section.

+Top- Name of Article/Arena (on top of) number of views (on top of) number of posts (on top of) Optional "HOT Topic" icon.

+Center- running lists of posts (arranged in a cool way): Title of post (on top of) RateTheDebate (on top of) This post's rating (on top of) the post's actual content (whether it be text, audio or video) (on top of) By USERNAME (next to) User's Rank - status - fame

+Bottom- Link back to original article.

+Left Column- all options found on original DebateThis homepage.

+Right Colum- Flash-based scrolling list of hottest arenas (on top of) Flash-based scrolling list of top users.

RateTheDebate: A new user will only be able to vote two ways. "Positive" or "Negative". These options will have cooler, demographic-based names. Since the user is new, his voter strength wont carry as much weight. Therefore a "negative" vote may carry 0 points while a "positive" vote may award the posting user 10 points. That's it.

An advanced user will have more options. This may range in 5 variables from "Very Negative" to "Very Positive" (of course these descriptions will be replaced by something cooler or may just be a simple 5-point star system).

Since this user's opininion carries more weight, the negative votes may subtract up to -10 or -20 points while the very positive votes may award up to 30 to 50 points and the middle may either award no points or offer 5 point swings.

Master users have even more options. They have the abilitly to liberally dole out or subtract points at will and may move more freely between posts (less restrictions on frequency of voting, etc). They also have the ability to leave breif comments, suggestions or CONSTRUCTIVE crticism. These are proven and trusted users. Having this kind of power is rare and comes with great responsibilty.

Senior users are basically moderators. They can edit and remove posts/video/audio/ratings/comments at will but carry no weight to the voting process wahtsoever.

**Points are also awarded for the frequency of posting. Any post that has no comment after a spesific amount of time is awarded a 2-point particiaption bonus. But if a new user were to give it a negative rating, this would 0-out that bonus.
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So I hope that wasnt too confusing. Leave comments for clarification or if I left anything out. Please start making mockups when you see fit. Add other stuff if you think it works. Tell me why we should take it out if it doesnt. Feel free to run with it.

Also, I didnt spellcheck and I wrote fast. Sorry.

Thanks.

DebateThis Spesifics

Here are the spesifics on how DebateThis will work, a few of the certain features the DebateThis community will see and information of the maitenece of the idea.

Some of this information is repeated (and edited) from a few of my previous posts, but a lot of that inforamtion has already answered many of the questions that have been continually posed throughout the project. There are some changes.

Also there is a bunch of added new inforamtion about relevant issues.

This is the first of several posts to satisfy the need for DebateThis saturation. More to come in minutes.
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Handling Demographics

-DebateThis is aimed at the politically and socially informed, ages 14-23. More importantly it is aimed both at the section of youth that is both competitive and used to a certain level of digital recognition and fame.

-This covers both the iGeneration and yGeneration, two groups of young people who expect technical simplicity, creativity, style, entertainment, instant gratification and most importantly: themselves.

-These are the children of YouTube, Myspace and Facebook… where fame is not only a possibility; it is, to a certain extent very expected. DebateThis feeds into that desire in such a way that allows news and the ability to gather news to take center stage in that hunt for notoriety.

-Registration will be limited to ages 14 and above, based on registration that checks date of birth. It is possible for some kids to lie, but a lot of sites acknowledge this.

-No profanity or pornography is allowed on the site whatsoever.

Homepage

-DebateThis targets local news websites and constructs that filter multiple sources of content through one main hub. An example of this is mLive.com. mLive serves as a starting point for more than six different websites of prominent Michigan newspapers.

-The DebateThis homepage is tied to the hub, ala mLive or a similar website.

-But the homepage is its own space and has a dedicate page specifically for DebateThis. The content is then routed through a widget at the bottom of relevant stories.

-The DebateThis homepage itself is a subpage of the media’s main site and features a YouTube style media hub with links to specific arenas, participating news homepages, interesting articles, DebateSpace community profile pages, relevant videos and clips, blogs and opinions from top debaters, links to debater status and the DebateThis leader board. This is also where new users will come to sign up for the community.

Maitenence

-The news organization will have to have some level of involvement (albeit very small) to maintain DebateThis in its starting phases.

-The debates will have to be moderated and the upkeep of certain hosted filed will have to be maintained. This should not take a lot of manpower.
-The list of responsibilities may include: maintaining a small network, moderating conversations, maintaining upkeep of minor filesharing, making DebateThis work for the media company’s homepage.

-One of the benefits of DebateThis is that as the community begins to grow, many of the entitled high end users (I like to call them master users or senior point earners) will begin taking on some of that moderator responsibility.

-As members gain the necessary power within the site (and as such, have a proven track record for being smart, balanced, obsessed with the site and not completely crazy) they will also gain powers surrounding the content of the site.

-These members will be allowed to maintain ethical and contextual editorial content.

**While the level of company involvement may be low, it is conceivably necessarily at this time. With that said, the level of involvement is at a minimum compared to the potential rewards for a adopting this fresh and possibly revenue-generating idea. If DebateThis is to succeed, the organization that adopts it must take some care and effort in its original incubation. The community will take it from there.

Functionality

-DebateThis is a widget. A clickable, linkable icon that can attach to nearly any web 2.0 savvy web page. DebateThis will feature its own website where you can customize you're own user profile.

-Clicking on the icon takes you to TheArena, a sub-page that is back within the DebateThis website itself. There you will see a enclosed version of the article along with a section to "Spark a Debate."

-Basically, the first person to comment can say anything he or she wants about the article in controlled but challenging manner. The idea is that the person comments on something in or about the article that in effect, challenges the other members of the DebateThis community.

-That challenge can be in an audio, video, print or multimedia format and is displayed prominently on the articles own arena page (and also linked to each individual poster's blog).

-Other members then come out of the woodwork to counter the argument, statement or question.The motivation is that each time a user posts something thought-provoking and directly tackles whatever was said in a way that it almost trumps the other user, it earns points for that user.

-The user community can vote on each post. Points are awarded for the number of positive ratings as well as number of hits per each post. Accumulating points allows each member to become more influential in the community.

-The top point earners are always displayed on the homepage where users can find out more about that person. A senior point earner may be able to write his or her own articles for the page or have his own featured space where other users can listen to more of what he has to say.

-A member may become such a good and knowledgeable debater that his fame can travel across the entire community. With enough points and position in the community, he may even grow a following and then a team, where other members work to post together under his leadership.

The News Arenas.

A News Arena is basically a chain of DebateThis debating.

Here’s how it works:

1) A DT member clicks on an article, reads it and scrolls down to the bottom. Lets say the article is titled “Obama Inexperienced for 08.”

2) Member X is infuriated by this article and clicks “DebateThis!”

3) From there, the member is taking to the “Obama Inexperienced for 08” arena. He is the first to enter as this is a brand new article so he clicks the “Spark a Debate” icon.

**The length, format and extensiveness of each user’s post is completely organic and based once again of the DebateThis point system.Example: A brand new user is limited to creating only a text post with a very limited space (maybe one or two paragraphs max).

An advanced user has a whole page for posting, can create audio and video clips featuring whatever creative message he chooses to get across as well as links, pictures, etc.

Basically an advanced point earner has an extensive arsenal at his disposal for gaining points and respect in any given arena, where a new user can only use a very brief and limited medium.**

4) After choosing to spark a new debate, the user (lets say he is a new user so is limited to restricted text) posts a short paragraph on Obama. Maybe he agrees with points in the article that say he’s experienced or maybe he agrees with the ones that say he is completely inexperienced.

Whatever he chooses to write about, he does so and posts it on the area wall. After the post, DebateThis then asks him to pose an open challenge. It could say “prove me wrong” or “why exactly do you think Obama is experienced” or “There is nothing you can say to trump my argument.” This statement prompts other users to jump in.

5) Member Y sees this post and wants to post and can either decide to post a well thought out rebuttal or spark another debate.

6) As the debate continues to sprawl, every member in the community can make a simple vote to decide how many points he or she will give the user for his or her post.

The Point System

-Clicking on the icon takes you to TheArena, a sub-page that is back within the DebateThis website itself. There you will see a enclosed version of the article along with a section to "Spark a Debate."

-Basically, the first person to comment can say anything he or she wants about the article in controlled but challenging manner.

-The idea is that the person comments on something in or about the article that in effect, challenges the other members of the DebateThis community.

-That challenge can be in an audio, video, print or multimedia format and is displayed prominently on the articles own arena page (and also linked to each individual poster's blog).

-Other members then come out of the woodwork to counter the argument, statement or question. The motivation is that each time a user posts something thought-provoking and directly tackles whatever was said in a way that it almost trumps the other user, it earns points for that user.

-The user community can vote on each post. Points are awarded for the number of positive ratings as well as number of hits per each post.

-Accumulating points allows each member to become more influential in the community.-The top point earners are always displayed on the homepage where users can find out more about that person.

-A senior point earner may be able to write his or her own articles for the page or have his own featured space where other users can listen to more of what he has to say.

-A member may become such a good and knowledgeable debater that his fame can travel across the entire community.

-With enough points and position in the community, he may even grow a following and then a team, where other members work to post together under his leadership.

The Locker Talker Notebook

Since I really didn’t have the time I wanted to put effort into making a visual mockup of the locker talker notebook, I figured that I would just dive into the explanation since the visual has really been shown pretty clearly with the Flip.com examples.

Anyway, here’s how it will work. There will be a library full of typical things that can look like anything from pictures to stickers (examples: soccer ball, flowers, smiley faces, poker cards, pretty much anything that can be represented with simple little clipart).

The layout with look like lined paper and the kids using the site would be able to put whatever they wanted into their notebook and it would be dated when it was made or edited or both.

The kids could also upload their own images. Pictures of themselves and friends, pictures of their celebrity crushes or even their real crushes and they could put those on a page of their notebook. It would basically serve as a giant scrapbook of their life and things they like.

Here’s where the news factor would come in. On the original news site, in all of the articles, there would be a little link underneath the articles and each of the pictures and videos that would say, “Add this to my library.” That way, let’s see the middle schooler ends up in the paper for the science fair or their big brother or sister happens to get a huge picture from a football game or volleyball or whatever, they could add that to their library along with their uploaded images. Within the notebook they could either link to the article, have a cutout looking thing with the article “pasted” on the notebook page or even just part of the article. It encourages the users to reuse the news in a way that’s important to them. Let’s say they go see a movie on opening weekend? They could put a good review of that movie on a page (this content coming from the news web site) with a screen cap picture from the movie (this would be uploaded from their computer—probably found in a Google image search).

Another feature of the notebook would be embedded video clips from Youtube, the could place on pages. I decided at first that the notebooks should remain completely private, much like someone’s individual diary is, but maybe eventually we could set up a way where they could choose to “Share” a page or two with other users if they design something really cool.

The notebook would also have like normal colors for drawing or painting and stuff that is totally doable in flash (like the Graffiti Wall on Facebook) so they could write what they want on the pages or add little touches with color. Basically it would be like a scrapbook that would encourage them to add articles and pictures straight from the news site about things that are important to them. A Hilary Clinton article if that’s who they support or even some political messages.

The notebook would be a smaller feature of the locker that would sit next to the books (which are groups we decided I think). They would click on the picture of the notebook and it would open up to the notebook. The editor would be after a different link. They would be able to add and delete pages where they wanted, see when the page was first created and last edited. They could edit or add to the pages as much as they wanted to. Having a user account is pretty much key to keeping the notebook since their personal libraries would be visible and useable only to the individual user while the public library of goods would be provided by the news provider.

How is this different from Flip.Com? Flip.com encourages their users to put advertisers of things they like on the web site and is geared extremely toward girls. This would be equally geared toward both and a little less cheesy. Not a ton of glittery signs saying AWESOME! or SO COOL! Flip also doesn’t encourage any newsworthy content like our site will. This is innovative in the fact that it encourages youngsters into the news, which is something almost no one does on the internet right now. Especially not in a way that is fun and cool.

from teh locker talker folks

(some issues with formatting - but good info)

Mission statement: The mission of Locker Talker is to present news and facilitate educated discussion in a safe and secure online environment while appealing to the social interests of middle school students.

In doing this, we want to emphasize that we are not another social networking site. The features used by Locker Talker which may be similar to or resemble features found in social networking sites are simply there to attract this demographic to news. Otherwise, Locker Talker would be the same thing as reading your favorite newspaper online and our audience research has proven that this is not an activity occurring with this demographic. We feel the implementation of Locker Talker will also begin to force news organizations to better tune into our demographic.

Demographic: The initial demographic for this is the middle school age range, both males and females. Our initial target audience is 10, 11 and 12-year olds, although we hope to retain our existing user base past the age of 12 by enticing them with new features. See “initial marketing vs. add on” section below for more on this.


Review of features:

* Notebook groups (aka Haverhill MS Boys Soccer or Hilary '08): These will have to purposes: 1.) to direct what sort of news clippings get posted in your locker and 2.) to help jumpstart community involvement.
o These groups are designed to initiate community involvement and foster thoughts among similarly aged people in the community based on news articles appearing in their local paper. By clicking on your notebook group, the notebook will be removed from the locker shelf and be opened on your screen. Two sections will appear:
+ Left hand side of screen: Message boards storing recent discussions on topics relevant to whichever group you clicked on. For example, if you click on Haverhill MS Boys soccer, there may be discussion on lat night’s game or thoughts about the upcoming tournament. On the right hand side of this page will be upcoming activities: the week’s game or practices. On more national sites, upcoming activities will refer to marches, meetings or community events.
* Leave notes to your friends: These will appear in your locker. You can only send notes to someone whose username you know. They can then choose to accept or decline your message
* Use of a flip book feature to encourage the sharing and creating of ideas, which seems to not only be a big trend right now, big to this project, but also very popular among this demographic. Your flip book could turn into something very similar to a yearbook to keep with the whole "school" theme
* News: A local news carrier. News headlines appear on the mock newspaper page on the inside of your locker door. The news headlines on the left hand side of your page are determined by your groups. The headlines sectioned off on the right hand side of the page are the day’s top headlines, not necessarily relevant to what notebook groups you are in.
*
* Marketing to parents/privacy: we want security to be a high priority. No one can see the inside of your locker but yourself, so any images you chose to upload will only seen by you. Also, refer to the below discussion on privacy statement and username guidelines.




Advertising: Obviously, a way for companies to create revenue through advertising via stickers or magnets on the inside of the locker door, all the while sticking with the theme and mission of Locker Talker:

* On a local level, this could be the pizza shop downtown or the local gas station.
* If this were to go to a national level, the attraction would be for large names: Nike, GAP, etc.



Customizable options: (Refer to mock up image). This is the place for customization of Locker Talker. Here you can pick:

* The color of your locker (again, this is no longer for the middle school girl demographic, but for the entire middle school or younger demographic, both sexes) … pink, blue, green, camouflage or other predetermined patterns
* Choose stickers or magnets corresponding with advertisers
* Font: make it glittery and cursive or masculine and block style
* Add your own pictures or images (remember, no one else can see the inside if your locker, so all personal images will remain personal).
* Tab here to browse for your personal items such as pictures or images to add on
* “Customizable library” will also contain the assortment of notebooks. These, however, will be geared toward non-exclusive groups. For instance, global warming or Hilary ’08.
o Locker Talker members can also create there own groups, which much be pre-approved by a general site administrator before going “live.” Members can then either be asked to join this site (invitations are delivered via the post it notes which members also use to communicate with other members) or they can request to join a group. Once the group has been approved by the site administrator, whoever created the group then becomes the group administrator. They are responsible for who is allowed in the group.



URL vs. access from news sponsor: Locker Talker will be accessible from two points. One, there will be a link or icon present on the Web site of the news organization sponsoring Locker Talker. This will lead you to a new page (independent URL) for Locker Talker. By doing this, we are attracting parents who may be on the news organization’s Web site. Reoccurring users, on the other hand, can access the site through the URL. In this way, it is not a stand alone site and still pairs nicely with a sponsor. We can also inform parents of privacy features and the mission of the site through the news organizations site. This fits in with our original thoughts on marketing to parents and educators.

Privacy statement: A privacy statement will eventually need to be crated for Locker Talker, being that much or our target audience is under the age of 13 and considered a minor in terms of Internet rules. Please refer to a sample privacy statement retrieved from the popular site Stardoll as an example:

“To use Stardoll.com you don’t have to register or give up any personal information. We explicitly ask for your personal information when we want it.

In order to register as a member at Stardoll you need to give us your email address, name, last name, and age. that is identifiable as Personal information.

The way we use Personal Information

Your email address is used by Stardoll to send information about new services at Stardoll and will not be handed out to third party vendors. The information about age is mainly used to identify minors that need to get permission from their parents or legal guardian to become members at Stardoll. (Minors in the US are defined as children under 13, in non-US minors are defined as under 16 of age.)

We reserve the right to collect and disclose (to our affiliates and to non-affiliate third parties) user behaviour and Personal Information to the extent permitted by applicable law, as specifically restricted below or in the Terms of Use. Notwithstanding anything to the contrary in this Privacy Policy or elsewhere, we reserve the right at all times to disclose any information as necessary to satisfy any applicable law (including, without limitation, the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act), regulation, legal process, law enforcement requests, demands by parties claiming your infringement of their rights or governmental request, to edit, refuse to post or remove any information or materials, in whole or in part, in our sole discretion; or to act in an emergency to protect someone’s safety or legal rights.

We have no control over third parties to whom you may give Personal Information through the use of Stardoll.com. We use the information you provide about yourself or others to complete the transaction for which the information is intended. Such transactions may include: administering a service, such as email, search, advertising sales, ecommerce; completing an order; replying to support requests; or contacting you if you have granted us permission to do so.

From time to time, we also use the information you provide about yourself or others to inform you of additions or improvements to the Stardoll services as well as conduct member surveys in order to improve our services.

We may also use personally identifiable user information to provide targeted content and commerce opportunities to users based on their demographic and behavioral information.

Finally, we never use or share the personally identifiable information provided to us online in ways or for reasons unrelated to the ones described above without also providing an opportunity to opt-out or otherwise prohibit such unrelated uses.

Opt-Out and Termination:

We believe that our ability to share your Personal Information with our affiliates, vendors and certain third parties improves our ability to provide services to you. However, if you object to our sharing of your personal information and would like to exercise your rights under the Financial Services Modernization Act and the Fair Reporting Act to limit our use of certain information governed by the mandatory opt-out provisions of those acts (should we ever collect such information and even though we are not governed by those acts), and if you would like to terminate our use of your Personal Information on a going forward basis (except as it relates to prior financial transaction and communications) you can do that by filling in the form below. However, this will result in the termination of your Stardoll user account(s). Please click here and fill in the form.

Cookie

We may place a text file called a "cookie" in the browser files of your computer. The cookie enables us to collect information about your visits to Stardoll. We may use this information to enhance your Stardoll experience and may share some information with our members, vendors, sponsors or others.

You can turn off the cookie function in your web browser, then you won't be able to register as a member or log in.

Parental rights

As a parent you have the right to review your minor child’s personal information, have it deleted and refuse Stardoll to further collect information from your child. This would of course require a proper identification. Please contact us at parentalrights@stardoll.com or fax us regarding this to…”

From: http://www.stardoll.com/en/about/sections.php?section=privacyPolicy

Initial marketing vs. add on: This also relates to the demographic. We have several ideas that we see becoming available “down the road” for Locker Talker that will hopefully retain our user base”

* One idea relates to notebook groups such as Girl Scouts, 4-H and the Catholic Youth Organization, groups where members are often required to work on projects or are responsible for creating, sharing or presenting information on a particular topic to other members. Members can post relevant information to other girls in their troops, ie: organizing rides or discussing merit badges. This is also a way for networks to have an idea of what is occurring in other networks



Example 1: The Haverhill Girl Scout Troop 234 is working on a project on breast cancer awareness for a new badge. Part of their project is to research the topic and create some sort of presentation. They choose to create a PowerPoint presentation on the topic matter. They can then send this presentation to the Locker Talker site administrator who has the rights to distribute this to other networks as a way of “sharing” projects. This can also utilize the lap top feature.

Example 2: A male Locker Talker member is working on his Eagle Scout project which consists of making a new nature trail behind his high school. He documents the project with video and still images and adds commentary. Because obtaining your Eagle Scout badge is an admirable project, his leader wishes to share this with other surrounding Boy Scout troops. This project, once approved and sent through the site administrator(s), can then be viewed by members of other networks belonging to a Boy Scout/Eagle Scout notebook group.

Other ideas for future add ons include:

* The addition of education based games focusing on a topic (for instance, geography, politics, current events)
* The ability to upload personal images to use to as your locker background instead of being restricted to colors in the library, national networks
* Incorporating national advertisers (see above).
o This may also eventually change the demographic down the road. While we are initially targeting 10, 11, and 12-year-olds, it is our hope that be combing their existing user status with constant additions and new features, we will retain them past the age of 12.



Responsibility of news organization:

* Set up of site: go off of our mock up to create a site that is in working order including a complete customizable options, privacy statement and note to parents, and integration of news
* Designate a general site administrator(s): duties will include overseeing the site, approving group requests, sharing of projects, and facilitating any necessary inter-network communication. The site administrator(s) will also be responsible for “overseeing” the discussions occurring on the notebook group message boards to ensure posts are staying on topic. They reserve the right to remove group members. Once you are removed from one group, you lose all group privileges (your locker then serves only as a place for you to decorate, receive news and participate in Internet safety education). Other Locker Talker members can also report what they feel is inappropriate behavior to the site administrators (s).
* Continually adding and updating new features to add to and retain user base: A list of possible features to be added in the near future can be found above.
* Rewriting stories: Something we have discussed, but at this point may require more news organization involvement than possible to initially start. Some stories are written in such a way that they may not be entirely “understandable” by the aforementioned demographic, but could be worded to appeal more to this age group.



Networks: A Locker Talker Network consists of the towns served by the sponsoring news organization. You can only belong to one Locker Talker network. If this idea were to be picked up (at ONA for instance), it is likely it would only be picked up by one news organization at first. Following our example of the Lawrence Tribune, it means students living in the towns it serves (Haverhill, Andover, North Andover, Groveland, etc), will be able to access this network and its corresponding groups. In the future, it this was to be picked up by more news organizations or reach a more national level, it would work of a zip code basis. When you initially registered for Locker Talker, you would enter your zip code, which would provide you with a list of the papers/news organization serving your area. Again, you would only be able to select ONE network.

Username/password: Everyone will initially have to register with the site and create a username and password (your locker combination). After much discussion regarding the apprehension of requiring a user to create yet another username, we came to the decision that we are reaching to a demographic not heavily involved in existing social networking sites. Therefore, this is not an issue. We also did not want students posting to the message boards using their name for privacy reasons. As a result, each user will create a username, much like a screename. This will serve two purposes: 1.) your name will appear on your locker and 2.) when using the sticky notes feature. The only way you can send a sticky note to someone is to know their username. The exchange of usernames is done outside of Locker Talker, for security and privacy purposes. Instead of telling someone your AIM screename, you will now tell them your Locker Talker name. Knowing someone’s Locker Talker name in no way allows them access to their locker!