Team Devastator

Role of the news org

2007-10-14T05:37:00.001-07:00

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

2007-10-12T19:46:00.000-07:00

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

2007-10-12T13:06:00.000-07:00

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

2007-10-12T06:45:00.000-07:00

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..

2007-10-12T05:08:00.000-07:00

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

2007-10-11T15:20:00.000-07:00

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

2007-10-10T10:15:00.001-07:00

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..

2007-10-10T07:17:00.000-07:00

..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

2007-10-09T18:40:00.000-07:00

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...

2007-10-09T17:22:00.001-07:00

...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

2007-10-08T18:43:00.000-07:00

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

2007-10-08T18:20:00.000-07:00

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

2007-10-08T17:55:00.000-07:00

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.

2007-10-07T16:18:00.000-07:00

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

2007-10-06T17:01:00.000-07:00

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...

2007-10-04T18:36:00.001-07:00

...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

2007-10-04T17:09:00.000-07:00

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

2007-10-04T13:50:00.000-07:00

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

2007-10-03T18:49:00.000-07:00

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

2007-10-01T11:08:00.000-07:00

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

2007-09-30T13:59:00.000-07:00

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?

2007-09-30T08:01:00.000-07:00

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.

2007-09-28T15:07:00.000-07:00

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

2007-09-28T14:59:00.000-07:00

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

2007-09-28T07:51:00.000-07:00

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

2007-09-27T16:57:00.000-07:00

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

2007-09-26T07:00:00.000-07:00

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

2007-09-26T06:33:00.001-07:00

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

2007-09-24T21:34:00.000-07:00

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

2007-09-23T17:06:00.000-07:00

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

2007-09-23T14:50:00.001-07:00

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?

2007-09-23T07:10:00.000-07:00

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

2007-09-22T11:54:00.000-07:00

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

2007-09-21T17:18:00.000-07:00

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

2007-09-19T20:16:00.000-07:00

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

2007-09-19T12:11:00.000-07:00

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

2007-09-18T18:31:00.000-07:00

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

2007-09-18T18:09:00.000-07:00

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

2007-09-17T19:58:00.000-07:00

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?

2007-09-16T06:50:00.000-07:00

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

2007-09-14T16:50:00.001-07:00

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

2007-09-14T12:48:00.000-07:00

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?

2007-09-13T05:54:00.001-07:00

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

Time's up

2007-09-11T18:05:00.000-07:00

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.

2007-09-11T17:16:00.000-07:00

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

2007-09-10T16:30:00.000-07:00

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

2007-09-10T04:52:00.000-07:00

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

2007-09-09T07:06:00.000-07:00

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

2007-09-08T10:52:00.000-07:00

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...

2007-09-06T20:09:00.000-07:00

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

2007-09-06T16:01:00.000-07:00

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

2007-09-06T11:03:00.000-07:00

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

2007-09-05T19:54:00.001-07:00

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

2007-09-05T06:49:00.000-07:00

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

2007-09-05T01:56:00.000-07:00

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

2007-09-04T16:16:00.001-07:00

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!

2007-09-04T13:39:00.000-07:00

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

2007-09-04T13:14:00.000-07:00

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

2007-09-04T02:18:00.001-07:00

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.
----------------------------------------

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

2007-09-04T02:08:00.000-07:00

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.
-------------------------------------------------------------

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

2007-09-03T22:25:00.000-07:00

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

2007-09-03T19:20:00.001-07:00

(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!

Locker Talker

2007-09-03T18:46:00.000-07:00

We are having computer troubles and the image we posted earlier today will not upload, so please refer to the earlier post.

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.
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!

Michah's game addition:

On the campaign trail.This is a relatively simple game. The game is set up just like “Where in the World is Carmen San Diego.?” The difference is the contestants are trying to guess where in the United States is a presidential candidate. The complexity of the game comes from separating states by political issues instead of geography. Another way of separating states is by significant events that happened in the news. The questions can be current events or significant events in the past. The questions can initially be written by political science majors that are interested in volunteer work. The reason why a political science major would be interested in writing this is because it would look great on their resume to be involved in a project like this. The questions should be written out once a week. It’s possible that Viacom or a company like Viacom could be interested in financially backing a project like this. Rock the vote has been very popular and financially backed b y Viacom. This would give larger companies a chance to promote voting and political awareness with a much younger demographic.Micah

Kim and Marybeth: the formatting of the outline got entirely screwed up when we loaded in here, so we've emailed you both the document as an attachment.

Thanks,

Andrea and Kate.

conference call coming very quickly

2007-09-03T18:31:00.000-07:00

just a reminder - Marybeth and I have the conference call tomorrow early afternoon. I don't see any thought out descriptions? I like the locker talker picture - that's a nice start but not the detail we need

Locker Talker Customization Example

2007-09-03T09:46:00.001-07:00

On the left is where you would make your choises for cusomizing and on the right is the options you have chosen before your locker is made. Kate

DebateThis: This Week.

2007-09-03T09:20:00.000-07:00

Job Board

Steve- I'm going to basically take a few of my giant posts and fatten them up into lists for what the viewer will see on each individual page that DebateThis contains or touches.

After that, I plan to do a walk-thru of both what a new user would see when he boots up and what a top user would see on each page.

Christina- She plans to develop our edge. She' s going to keep thinking and designing ways to give us that certain flare we need for the demographic we're after. Also she plans to pose some questions and concerns about how we plan to pull all this off with the media organizations.

When she asks questions please post answers. Or at least comments or more questions. And Christina if you have time enough to start forming ideas about those questions, that would bee cool.

Tyler- Tyler is our art department. Tyler is basically taking all our thoughts/ideas and constantly updating and creating mock ups when ever he sees fit. But Tyler needs ideas so please feed him.

Dave- Dave is our layout guy. I know Dave is good with the mockups from our last group. So if you want to work with Tyler and Christina to really nail down the placement of stuff (I guess web design is what they call it) to really maximize user productivity/wow factor and minimize stress... that would be cool. Also anything else you see we should be doing technically or creatively, holler.

Jon- Jon is going to work on the site's flashyness when we start moving into our final builds. For now, you could help with anything with the web design and style to get an idea about how to jazz up the final stuff for Toronto.

Getting on track

2007-09-03T08:32:00.000-07:00

So this is somewhat of a mixed-bag post.

I want to start the conversation about what the news organization is required to do to maintain DebateThis. So far we've been talking about DebateThis as being an independent website, and there may be some issues as to who takes care of it before 'senior point earners' begin to handle it (if that even ever happens). Aside from that, my impression is that the only change that would be taking place on the news organization's site would be the appearance of the button on the bottom of articles that says DebateThis!

Also, are there any issues with multiple news organization participants?

I said that this week I would try to come up with some ideas concerning the style of the site as a means of pinpointing the demographic we are in communication with.

I had the idea to incorporate a border that resembles old-style label makers with high school-themed photography. In the example I made I used a school hallway, but you can easily imagine that picture being something like a track-meet, a cafeteria full of kids.... whatever... and the pictures can change with each page of the site. (Ex: A competitive area would have sport/competition photography)

Of if you hate what I made, that's cool too. I admit my Photoshop skills are rusty.

I'll come up with some other totally different aesthetic ideas this week so we can have a variety to choose from. I don't want anyone to think we're stuck with this.

Let me know what you think.

Most populra site on teh web for young girls

2007-09-02T20:10:00.000-07:00

http://www.stardoll.com/en/

Stardoll - Your paperdoll heaven - with 6 million unique visitors a month

You might check out how they handle sign ups, privacy, names on the screen...

This week

2007-09-02T19:23:00.000-07:00

For Locker Talker:

Jordan: make a visual mock up that fits in with the existing locker images so we can easily describe what need for animation as well as complete the interior.

Micah: work out details to game and requirements of news organization as to how much work it would be, who's doing it, how it would fit in, etc..

Kate and Andrea: work on the list of questions we formulate tonight (parental permission, site admins, pre-loaded library, etc...)

Look for more tomorrow.

a blog post about how the news can attract more of the younger demo

2007-09-02T17:21:00.000-07:00

check out the Journalism Iconoclast - they have a post about what the news could do (especialloy newspapers) to attract younger audience

http://patthorntonfiles.com/blog/?p=42

duh - have content that interests young people - like the locker dealy

What i'm not seeing

2007-09-02T14:57:00.000-07:00

Hi guys,

Some interesting mockups

But i'm not seeing
- posts by everybody which is really disappointing. Not everybody will be going to Toronto if that doesn't change - these are big projects and need lots of hands if it's going to work.
- walk thru's of what users would do
- thoughts about how the news organizations are going to be involved

We have to keep a couple of thoughts in mind
- it has to be innovative idea
- it has to be doable - which means buildable up front but also maintainable

right now i can't tell what the news organization will need to do to keep the systems up

(I posted some comments about each project too)

Some very cool, creative mock-ups..

2007-09-02T12:57:00.000-07:00

..to discuss during tonight's Webinar at 8:30..however, the input/reaction of the majority of Locker Talker and DebateThis innovators is missing as of today. Are folks posting late again this week? The tasks of idea development and mock-up creation should not fall on a few hard-working individuals. (Yes, I know we're all just back to school.) Everyone needs to be fully engaged in seeing this endeavor to fruition--we are just 6 weeks away. (Were assignments for the week unclear, possibly?)

Remember, Incubator guidelines include a minimum of five post/comments per week.

Talk to you later. Peace.

Progress.

2007-09-02T10:40:00.000-07:00

Tyler's mock up look pretty damn good.

Dave I'm wodnering if you want to get with Tyler to work on the other mockups or anything you think we should add.

John- After this week's phone conference, do you want to start adding flash?

Christina- What can we do to to make this better and more original? What else should we put in or take out to make this practical, useful and worthwhile to both the users and the companies?

**Is there anything else you guys would like to see? What do we think about menu options?

**Re-read my last mega-post, you can pretty much build an outline from that, and if you have any questions/changes just ask.

Get at me.

DebateThis Mockups

2007-09-02T09:46:00.001-07:00

Here is a mockup of TheArena. Steve (or anyone else), let me know if you think it needs any changes.

Locker Talker specifics...

2007-09-01T16:14:00.001-07:00

... more details can be found under the comments section of our original post containing the imagfes, so leave any questions or comments there!

Can one of you text message me the number and code this time.

2007-08-31T19:59:00.000-07:00

I'm going to be out out town this weekend. please text message me the info my number is 270 535 0962
Thanks, Micah McAllister

DebateThis logo

2007-08-31T16:14:00.001-07:00

(Click on it to see it in non-jagged-lines-mode)

Like? Dislike? Anything?
I can mock up a homepage next, but a rough sketch from someone would be helpful. Not really sure where to start on that one.

Locker Talker Revealed

2007-08-31T11:12:00.001-07:00

More info to come...

root canal, great drugs..

2007-08-28T22:25:00.000-07:00

I was a little tipsy when i wrote that. The drugs worked very well. I was hoping that I could incorperate a game into locker stalker. One idea is to guess where a presidential canidate is campaining. The questions can range form simple facts about the state down to particular issues that are affecting the state. I think that facts about the state tied in with issues can be a unique way of asking the questions. A question might be: The state that John Doe is campaining is known for it's wine it's currents govener was a former profesional bodybuilder. Where is John doe campaining?

Little Groggy

2007-08-28T11:27:00.000-07:00

I just had a root cana...fun. I want to work on the Carman Sandiego bit a liitle more. It would have to be attatched to the locker...stalker? One idea i had for it had to to with geography. I have to go to work i will post more tonight.

mLive

2007-08-27T19:03:00.000-07:00

I briefly mentioned mlive. This is what I was talking about.

mlive stirs together news from over 8 seperate reporting outlets in the mid-Michigan area. It's nothing fancy, but it does have RSS feeds and stuff of that nature.

This sort of hub site would be a perfect switchboard for a localized DebateThis.

We also might want to think about organizations like Gannett or Knight Ridder

They specialize in tying together strings of local news outlets under one house. If we went for the company or publishing house, it would spread to a large regional sector. That covers local and could push into national.

Join DebateThis

2007-08-27T18:43:00.001-07:00

DebateThis is a good idea. Join DebateThis.

If you think DebateThis is a great idea and you see a vision for how it would work, please join.

If you think DebateThis is alright but want to come in with some major changes, please join.

If you think DebateThis is terrible but like where it's heart is at and want to change everything, please join.

Please contact Steve
(248) 214-1609
patte294@msu.edu

I really suck and technical and artistic things. So I would love to be the idea man/point person. If you have skill(s) please don't be shy about what they are. Comment here.

We need...
People with creative ideas
People who can maybe draw things
People who can maybe build things
People who can maybe design things
People who can offer advice
People who can offer criticism

Thanks.

Andrea Contact Info

2007-08-27T18:42:00.000-07:00

agosselin@smcvt.edu

Email me if you want more info than that ... I'm not putting it on the blog.

Thanks. Have a good night.

DebateThis

2007-08-27T03:47:00.000-07:00

Hey Everyone,

Sorry I'm late, but I had a lot to say and I wanted to make sure it didnt sound stupid and was relatively easy to understand.

So here it is....

-----------------------------------------------------------------------
DebateThis is a web-based, utility-style application that allows users from all over the country to exercise, share and expose their news knowledge by competing in digital online debates.

DebateThis is a revolution in learning, critical thinking and competition. By creating a forum for people to share conflicting opinions, members of the DebateThis society will have to be well informed of the current events and issues that surround them.

As new media churns out new ideas and ways to gather information, DebateThis is a way to funnel that into something both immediately positive and instantaneously appealing. DebateThis will cultivate news knowledge into competition, competition into status and status into digital fame.

Demographics

DebateThis is aimed at the politically and socially informed, ages 15-30. 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.

How does it Function?

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 and install the browser-embedded software, ala StumbleUpon or Skype.After the software is installed, an icon will appear at the bottom of all stories from participating news organizations.

For example if CNN and The New York Times both pick this up, the icon will appear at the bottom of nearly every story the DebateThis user reads.

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.

Starting/signing up

To begin using DebateThis…

1) A new user must go to DebateThis.com and choose to sign up for a new account, this correlates with the automatic installation of the DebateThis browser-embedded software (think StumbleUpon)

2) After installation the user is than taken to his new Debater homepage. This is similar to a facebook-style community network page complete with interests, contact information, etc. However there are changes for the news and political angles of Debate this. (more on that later)

3) The user may then customize his homepage and Debate settings.

4) That’s it. After the software and customizations, the user is then able to go to any participating news network organization homepage and a DebateThis icon will be selectable at the bottom of every relevant story.

5) Start debating!

DebateThis Homepage

The DebateThis homepage is the hub of the network. This is ground zero for everything in the DebateThis community. It is here where you will find 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.

DebateSpace

DebateSpace is the network of individual Facebook style profiles that features the DebateThis user community. Every registered member of DebateThis receives DebateSpace upon signing up.

DebateSpace comes with contact information, places for relevant pictures, audio, video, progeganda, etc. It also has space for rants, write-ups and blogs.

Instead of a wall, DebateSpace features an ongoing log of all postings from previous debates. The format is similar to an online journal and the user can make comments on his or her performance.

The hook for this is that DebateSpace is completely organic. It is based solely on the number of points a DebateThis user accumulates from competing and debating in various news arenas. The more points a user has, the more he can customize his individual DebateSpace.

Here is an example: A user new to DebateThis will have space for his profile picture, debating log, the standard DebateThis color scheme and basic contact information

A DebateThis master or senior point earner will have purchased (through the point system) space for hundreds of pictures, audio files, videos and weblinks, he will have custom colors, subgroups, dynamic contact information, space for rants, custom widgets and a whole host of other material at his disposal.

The News Arenas

A News Arena is basically a chain of DebateThis debating. With the DebateThis software, any relevant news article by a particiaping news organization can turn into an arena.

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.

**What I’m visualizing for the arena is very hard to convey. But I see the acuall article in a stylized flash format with almost like tree branches of differing debates.**

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

Voting, like everything else, is organic and dependant on user points. A new user can only select “I liked it” or “I didn’t like it” to each member’s post while an advanced user can select a range of options from “This is a horrible argument” to “Apply to promote this user now.” His points may also open up a star system (1/5 to 5/5 stars) and a comment/message system for offering advice or criticism.

The most advanced users may become so high ranking that they, in effect, become moderators who check for the content of posts and may choose to censor or delete posts based on the DebateThis user agreement. (Think GMs in role playing games, etc)

The more points you obtain for users, the more options become available, the more cool stuff unlocks and most importantly… the more famous you become in the community.

There is also a ranking system which correlates with the point system. In other words having 0 to 100 points is the status of “New User” where has having 1,000,000+ points grants the status of “Master” or something cool sounding.

Loose Example: Milestones

00 points: New User Status Obtained
15 points: 100 words of new space available for posting!
30 points: search feature unlocked
45 points: New DebateSpace widget available!
70 points: 15 seconds of Audio posting now available!
100 points: Rookie User Status Obtained
New widget unlocked
New DebateSpace Custom color available!
Etc.

Think gaining rpg levels + a cashing in carnival tickets for junk + gaining status in a community.

**Any post with clearly bellow the belt, over the line, unrelated/spamcious or just plain offensive will be moderated by a team of the site's moderators (probably including senior point earners if they so choose). That user is then subject to loose points, status, privileges or may be outright blocked from usage.**

Why people will eat this up…

Fame, rewards, competition, a chance to be heard, people love critizing everything, people think they know everything, huge political, moral and ethical divide in this country right now.

How is it news relevant…

Its completely based on reading/watching the news, user must be prepared or will get embarrassed, user’s status depends entirely on his or her dedication to news and how well they articulate that.

Why will new organizations like it…

Users absolutely can not debate without going through each article from the news provider, a chance to advertise ‘coolness’, more hits, more excitement for reading generic stuff, more volume.

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

That’s all for now, thanks for reading.

I sent out an email wiht conference call info

2007-08-26T17:32:00.001-07:00

and info about the conference

if ya didn't get it, let me know and i'll forward it

Update: Gathering Info

2007-08-25T16:44:00.000-07:00

Hey Everyone.

Tomorrow I'm going to publish a mega-post about DebateThis. All of its features, positives, negatives, targets, goals, yada. So far, Christina has contributed to the research and has emailed me a few of her thoughts and concerns:

"Hey Steve,
I just wanted to check-in with you about some ideas I had about
DebateThis. If I seem a little nit-picky it's just because I want to
figure out the potential problems now instead of down the road when we're
stuck...

First off, I don't think Micah's idea should be crammed into this idea
unless it's a tiny accessory on the site. The two ideas seem to be aimed
at different things, I don't see a natural connection between the two...

Also, we will need a news organization to run this in the real world, and
I see the appeal of them wanting a 'DebateThis' button on the bottom of
the article, but not any appeal in maintaining the DebateThis site itself
if it's going to take people away from the news organization's site. (evil
$$)

Back when this project started I worked on a debate site idea, and one of
the problems I had was that the community that we create is going to
decide what it wants... and it may totally stray from debate. What if
people just post jokes or irresponsible/unresearched info?

I also worry about the whole 'senior point earner' system. It'll be a
great way to spark competition when the site is new, but once it becomes
established, I worry that new-commers will see how much work they have to
do to gain recognition and get discouraged and leave. Also, we're
assuming that people are going to want to debate multiple things. I think
it is likely that there are people only interested in one debate issue
(ex. Abortion may be important to them, but not the war in Iraq) How do we
make the site appeal to them if they have no desire for the social fame?

I'm not really sure where we go from here. We should talk about the
step-by-step experience a user goes through when they visit the site. If
you want to post this all to the blog to get other people to comment on
what I wrote here, that's cool too."

If anyone wants to join team DebateThis or has other concerns, thoughts or ideas... please let me know before early tomorrow evening.

Thanks guys.

Political PUB style game

2007-08-24T22:01:00.000-07:00

My overall goal for my application was to essentially have a game that would increase your awareness about politics. All of you made some comments that mean a lot of. Unless you’re a person that just likes trivia you won’t be interested in this application. I also did research on how everyone could be on the same leaderboard. Being on the same leaderboard wouldn’t be hard but you might rack up a lot of charges on your phone bill for Internet use. Then people would just delete the application anyway. My initial idea would put this in competition with Tetris or any other java based phone game. The problem is phones are getting more like laptops and politics are not as interesting as Facebook. If I was to do anything with this idea I would go about it all the different. I would aim it at younger children. One game show that I’ll try to model is where in the world is Carmen Sandiego. I watch that show all the time , Most of the time I couldn’t get the answers right on the show unless it was a rerun. But I watched a lot a TV so eventually I learned a lot. I also don’t think people are wanna go to a web site to check their scores. Unless the leader boards were put in a newspaper or attached to a larger application like Facebook I don’t think it would work.

Lock Stocker: summarized

2007-08-24T12:12:00.000-07:00

Here's the summarized list of what we've come up with for the "final discussion/vote":

Features:
*notebooks serving as groups (aka Haverhill High 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. One gripe we had with facebook groups was the show who wants to make a change, but really do nothing to make a change. Therefore, groups about national issues, etc (not so much "Haverhill High Soccer" will instead give you contact info, ideas, ways to go about an action.

*leave "post it" notes to your friends - security was a concern. Because security is our top concern, we discussed making this feature similar to when AIM asks you if you want to accept a message from a user not on your buddy list. That way, you're not accepting strange notes from strange people. Friends are going to only be within your network, not just randoms (also, security purposes).

*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 - Ironically, this is probably our biggest hole, and not for lack of research/discussion/effort. We're still very open to opinions on this, but for now these are what we've narrowed down to our two (I think) options: 1.) Go with a local news sponsor who can gear your news toward your more "local" groups as well as your network. For instance, continuing with the Haverhill High Soccer example, your news could be whatever coverage they are getting from local news sources. These same sources most likely carry, to some extent, basic coverage at a national level (so the story might not be covering every political decision like the NY Times politics section, but it likely will touch on candidates who have been in the area locally. 2.) A national carrier. We discussed how having a larger, national sponsor could have it's advantages, and compared Locker Stocker directly to MySpace in this sense. So for example, CNN might sponsor this site (although it wouldn't necessarily be attached to CNN) and therefore be the news provider. This has its advantages when it comes to national groups/issues (for instance, the Hillary '08 group would receive a lot more news than having a local sponsor). So it's still up in the air, and an opinion outside of our group is definitely being sought!

One other way to connect news was again through the idea of sharing, and joining this idea with groups (we looked into Girl Scouts, 4-H, Catholic Youth Organization, and Camp Fire USA teens). A lot of these groups have a community service involvement component (probably the Interest Projects of the Girl Scouts being the highest). Anyway, a lot of times they are encouraged to "share," which can easily be done through writing ... thus, the idea of the girls writing for a Locker Stocker newspaper. This would prevent the fear of "I heart Justin Timberlake 4eva!" becoming news. They would contributing, but it would be in a more controlled manner.

*Marketing to parents /privacy - we want security to be a high priority. Discussion of no photos (drawings acceptable, but no digital images of yourself) and no need for contact information. This isn't a social networking/educational device to be turned into a method for stalking middle school girls, because quite frankly the idea of that is sickening. No official decision on whether parental permission would be a requirement - what do others think? A plus for parents and educators, and something that would allow this site to stand alone from the mess of others aimed at this demographic.

Remaining questions:
Just to summarize what was mentioned above, our big remaining questions are:
1. National versus local: we've outline above our argument for both
2. Parental permission? Either way, security/privacy is huge for this (look at the stats posted by Kate).
3. Promoting it. Jordan suggested advertising on sites these girls already use (although the whole competition factor might come into play here).

What exists:
We're definitely not saying this is an untapped market, because sites exist that are more than obviously going after this market. What we hope we've created is something that is a mix between social networking and education ... it's not a place where you're going to go to post pictures of your friends, write on walls, and declare your love for a latest movie or song. It's also not a place where you are going to read about how to make your closet better or how to deal when you have a "crush" on your best friends boyfriend. It's also not a site where you go to practice math facts or get a summer reading list. So what is it? It's social networking in that it's connecting other people within your networking and giving you a place to make change. Also, you have the ability to create your own space and the FlipBook feature gives you the option to express yourself and include flowers and sparkly, glittery letters that are found all over these other sites. It has the ability to connect you to other organizations your a member of. Getting them involved in the news is going to help them toward their other projects. They're going to read the news, make their own news, and then write their own news.

And finally...
So there's the reasoning on why Locker Stocker is innovative and news oriented.
We fleshed out all three original ideas and the discussion in one post, so for something more super specific than this, look below, becuase that's what we've been working off since Sunday.

2007-08-23T12:58:00.001-07:00

http://www.media-awareness.ca/english/resources/educational/teaching_backgrounders/internet/popular_childrens_web.cfm

This is an article pretty much bashing sites for not utilizing privacy features on web sites aimed at children. It says that:

88 percent collect children's personal data, but more than a quarter do not have privacy policies, the CME study stated. Less than 26 percent ask for parental permission before collecting the information.

We were sort of mulling over the privacy policy of a children's web site. I really think it needs to be a key feature to the site. The anti-myspace. Parental permission might be pushing it, but who knows, really. Maybe that it something we should be talking about. I don't think we should be giving out personal info at all, not even a picture. Maybe kids can draw their pictures or something, but no pictures. No names of schools besides groups, and groups of that nature can't be viewed by the public, only by people invited into the group by the admin. These are jsut some thoughts. Any ideas?

time to be overwhelmed

2007-08-22T18:53:00.001-07:00

check out http://simplespark.com/catalog/guides/

a list of 5000+ web applications in all kinds of fields.
Totally overwhelming

but might be worth a look to see what kinds of htings are out there being done

And folks - keep posting - anybody still doing music? How're the political guys doing? Give us some updates

Kim

Playground Networking, Now Online

2007-08-22T16:07:00.000-07:00

Hey everyone,
I know we're not really suppose to post full articles/links but rather summarize the article, but this one is really worth reading, especially if we end up contininuing on with the middle school girl demographic. I'll summarize some main points, but definately read it, as it specifically alludes to 14-year-old girls.

Playground Networking, Now Online

Basically, the concept of social networking is becoming increasingly common among this age group. What is being aimed at them, specifically? Avatars, chat, and "adult activities such as e-commerce." It touches on Whyville and the recent changes as Club Penguin.

The argument is these cites claim to be both educating and entertaining Young girls. That's their claim at least. The whole idea of Internet marketing (through ads, etc) is feared to have the capability of having similar effects as TV ads, which can lead to stagnant development, obesity, violence, etc ... as well as the always dangerous brand loyalty (my thoughts: I feel materialism definitely starts at this age, yes?).

Anyway, it's worth a read.

Compilation of MS girls stuff for Kate, Jordan, Andrea

2007-08-21T16:19:00.001-07:00

This is just for us to work in an 1/2 organized manner until we repost our compilation of ideas on Friday, so it can be ignored. If you want to comment on / add to ideas for the middle school girl demographic, it can all be done under one post now, instead of sifting through 3 like before.

Andrea-Beginning Idea
Beginnings to my idea....So these are a couple things that came to mind after last night:
One thing I thought of was definitely based off the Locker Stalker or Stocker or whatever we're calling it these days ... but what's important is there would actually be an actual, all out, middle school locker. Perhaps is something you would add on to an exisiting site (and for this, I'm not just talking about social networking in terms of Facebook/MySpace ... something that could go on the plethora of sites we came up with that already have the attention of these girls. For one, we know messaging is a big thing (who doesn't get excited when they have a Facebook message?). Through this, however, I was imagining the messages would be inside the locker, almost like on Post Its (or a similar paper product idea), written in handwriting -- the whole idea that someone left you a "real" note in your locker. Although this is more the social side of things, I'm sure there are ways we could turn it to incorporate news. There would also be a photo aspect that would work in 2 ways: 1. personal pictures of all your little pink shirt, mini skirt wearing middle school girl friends and 2. for news events ... the whole idea of a picture speaking a thousand words. Dave mentioned the idea of pictures telling stories when were first broke into this group in Ithaca (I remember mentioning the similarities to MSNBC's Week in Pictures). So there could be captions ... or even VIDEO in your locker. The real catch here is the news through text though. In this version of Locker Stalker it would be newspaper clippings in your lockers that would be actual news stories ... maybe with a little animation so they would actually float around your locker and pop up once it's opened (ok I'm thinking way down the road on that one). These would be news stories that would not only affect this demographic, but maybe written in a way to convey a "regular" hard news story, but with details to this level. Koz also originally mentioned the idea of having stories about your friends in the orginal idea, too.
I'm not entirely sold on what I've come up with so far, and my details may not be the best, but it's the idea that I like. I firmly believe they need to be getting this news without it being forced upon them, or without them really realizing it. So if we could come up with a way (better than this) to mix their socializing needs (which we've found out are their prized posession) with their news needs (which they don't realize they have) it'll be the perfect combination.
Comments:
Kate said...
Andrea:Love the first idea. We could combine a lot of ideas from our two sites to develop the greatest site of all time. How, besides the notes (which is way sweet) could we get kids to want to go on it? I'm having the hardest time figuring that out myself.
August 15, 2007 8:21 PM
Andrea said...
Okay for some reason it won't let be edit my idea right now ... but I just had a thought. What if somehow we included a "school newspaper" in the locker ... but it had elements of what a middle school paper would have (i dunno, horoscopes, gossip columns, you get the idea). But there's like blank spots in it (a template ... think InDesign) and then you have a selection of stories that you can drag and drop in to complete your newspapers. But those are actual "news" stories. So you end up with a combination of hard news and girl news.Again, you run into the whole problem of why do they want to complete the newspaper / who says they're going to read it anyway. We have to trick them into it, somehow.
August 16, 2007 4:48 PM
Jon Taylor said...
I really like the direction that you're going in with the middle school demo research. I was thinking about that book Branded that we had to read for VisComm and the ideas from the book are reflected in your approach to this project.I like the concept behind the drag n' drop that the girls can do within their personal lockers - their news, their way. Using the ideas behind Branded, we can easily convince this demo to complete their newspapers - maybe offer incentives if they do - more access, etc.
August 16, 2007 10:13 PM
Jordan said...
love the idea of a locker app on facebook, and maybe we could literally just get it sponsored by the partner from ONA. It kind of goes off of Kim's idea of having something easy and fun like the Washinton Post did. Just make it an app and people can add and take away from their locker and maybe like a little secret wall that only they can read or something. I mean, I doubt it would get the high traffic that some of the older apps do, but it seems really cool.
August 18, 2007 2:30 PM

Jordan-Beginning Idea
I will be working on some sort of news game for our tween girl demographic.Wed Aug 16, 2007 12:30 AMOk so I’ve been brainstorming ideas for the past couple days and looking at more girly web sites and I keep going back to Flip.com… I think I might be obsessed with it. It’s the quintessential tween girl web site, which is probably why I’m obsessed with it – that was not meant to be creepy as much as it was meant to be gay.The great part about it is the girls get to put things they like, an expression of themselves in the flip book and then pick out different background and tacky sparkle letters, etc. But it can be so much more… you can link videos and web sites to it, etc.Here’s a link to one that I made when I was fooling around with it months ago. It was something for my blog (I write a weekly top favorite things in my blog). I never ended up using it or finishing it, but I still thought it would give you all some kind of idea.Jordan’s Flip Book.It also only has one page, which I know defeats the purpose of calling it a flip book, but just imagine more similar pages…Here’s one that Vogue editor-in-chief Anna Wintour made.Now how to add the news to this platform? More coming later. Mull over these ideas (is that the correct phrase?). And I’ll start thinking of the news elements that are or could be involved.
Thursday 9:00 AM
I was thinking of an idea of “Things that affect me” kind of deal since tweens are all about themselves. It kind of plays off of that idea I said for locker stalker of adding like if a photo of you ended up in the paper, you could save it in your locker. This would be a bit different.
The target publication would no doubt be local, probably a local paper or something. And online they would have available their normal content. What I propose is a type of widget where tweens or really, anyone, could highlight text, or click on a picture and an option would be to add to “Their Content.” I don’t know how many papers are putting comics online, but they could do it with those as well. So that would basically just be a personal space where all these things would be collected and archived.
The fun part comes next.
They can put that content into a flipbook like deal. Archiving different articles and events, adding their own commentary and pictures. Telling the story in a different way. They could chose to make it a lot like a timeline. So they could go back to a day or a week and see what was important to them. I think it wouldn’t make sense if we didn’t allow them to add their own pictures, text and content to their archives so they could add that to the book as well.
The flip.com thing is really easy to use as far as erasing and resizing. Sure it’s not the best quality ever, but it seems good enough for teen girls.
Thursday (or I guess technically Friday) 1:00 AM.
I’ve been trying in my head to iron out the details of how to get these girls onto a news web site. It would be nice to add a news element to an existing site, but that makes me nervous because I doubt Flip.com will be at the ONA, nor do I think will many girly fun sites. This will probably be a continuous problem, especially since we really have no clue which organizations will be interested. I almost find this as a huge flaw of the project. We have to create something for news organizations, a very broadly defined thing, but yet it would seem the best ides have a narrower scope about them.
At least last year the people who did it knew they were doing it for AOL or Time Warner or whatever so they already had a strong base to build off of, innovate a new idea for AOL to use. Sounds way easier than just make an idea that’s adaptable to all sorts of demographics, but have no idea what kind of news you’ll be presenting, how much money you’ll have or how many resources will be provided. Or really even, if anyone even will want it.
Anyways, I was thinking about what andrea commented below and it seems to me that the best way to get the kids involved is to force their involvement. (I really didn’t mean for that to sound like we would be inflicting pain on them… ) So let’s say a local paper picks up the idea. Even in a town like mine which has about 50,000 people, I think getting a test group of girls in middle school would be easy. Kids love getting out of class and the local newspaper has a great relationship with the school district. So you pick 50 girls out from different classes, ask them to play with the site and see what they think. Really that would just be a marketing ploy because you know they’ll tell all their friends exactly what they were doing and their jealous friends will want to see for themselves. If it’s cool enough, it will stick. If not, we’ll look like asses and the girls will laugh at us.
Comments:
Kate said...
A). Anna Wintour's flip book was the funniest thing I've seen in recent memory. Thanks for bringing it into my life.B). I really like the idea of using the site the girls are already on, and I like it a lot more than using myspace. Is there a way for the girls to see each others (is it a social network?) Or is it more of just a personal thing. I also wonder if there would be a way to present the girls with the news on the site, as I can't really see a bunch of 11-year-olds running off to CNN as soon as they can post things the affect them.
August 16, 2007 6:43 AM
Andrea said...
Okay first off, Koz you would find the Anna Wintour thing funny. Secondly, I agree with the idea of adding on to another site (probably becuase I, too, had this idea).Now to the new stuff ... I REALLY like the idea of highlighting things you see in a newspaper and using having that added to my content (to sit on the shelf next to your "book" groups and your notes), but there's one problem ... how many middle school girls are visiting their local newspaper site already? And do you blame them? We've seen things that they are interested in through our audience research last week, and plain newspapers sites appear to have zero attraction to them. So although I love this idea in theory, how can we ensure they're going to the site? The end idea/product is great, too. But it goes back to the whole "they're not getting the news" thing. Doesn't it always?
August 16, 2007 4:36 PM
Christina said...
I think the whole 'add to their content' idea is really great, but, like Andrea was saying, there's that big problem of getting the girls to the news site.... What if there were some sort of incentive to adding news content to your flipbook/locker/whatever? What if there were some sort of reward/bait?? That may be a terribly lame suggestion, but think about it.

Kate-Beginning Idea
Locker Stocker (note spelling change)
The basis of this idea would be what we talked about before: A Web site made to look like a simulated locker. The inside would house a section for uploading pictures as well as an area to store books. The books would, in actuality, would be links to differnt groups. For instance, the "Hilary 2008" book would sit on top of the "Haverhill High School Football" book. Each book would house different articles and topics, similar to a message board. Each layer would hold a different set of disscussions. Users could link to articles, videos and pictures. On the door of the locker would be what looked like a newspaper clipping. The clipping would change regularly and would be news delivered to each user based on the groups he or she (she) has chosen as well as a section for top stories. Top stories would apear on everyone's clippings (maybe based on geography?) and would encourage users to gain interest in different subjects and join groups (get books) to talk about them. The stories (could be video) would be writen or broadcast in such a way that younger audiences could activly engage in them and reallt take something out of them. This might be becuase it is easier to read, or because more background is given.Just a start... any ideas?
Comments:
8 Comments -

Show Original Post

Collapse comments

Andrea said...
I reallly really like the idea of group being books in the locker. What I was struggling was with the news thing - with my idea of the newspaper clippings, I feel like you would have to use RSS feeds to know what each person wanted or for their general area (and lete's face it, what 12-year-old girl wants to deal with RSS feeds? At least not the ones we're targeting at). So a broader scope on the news thing would probably be the answer.As for your question of how to get people to come to the site .. that's why I was thinking that the Locker could somehow be an application or something (I'm not good with all the technological wording with everything) that were added to all the existing tween sites out there (think back to the gazillion we all posted). But then again, you get into the whole competition thing. I just really don't think it's necessary for another site ... or I guess more importantly why are they going to join a news one over another one. It all goes back to the whole idea of you have to catch them with the news when they're not looking.Also, should we combine our posts because they're about the same thing? I'm alraedy confused looking back and forth at them both, and I'm writing one of them. Just a thought...
August 16, 2007 4:23 AM
Kate said...
I didn't really invision it as RSS feeds, more as a Pandora-like thing. By choosing groups, the girls would choose what the wanted to recieve news about- it would all be mechanical. They say they like it, so its sent to them- automatically.And you are right. How are we going to pull a Daily Show on them? I was sort of thinking, maybe stupidly, that the site would be hooked up to another, like Flip and Teen Vouge. So, in that case, girls who read Teen Vogue because it makes them look older would see the site and think it was cool and use it. Only problem, kids aren't reading the news already. The locker aspect would allow kids to post pictures and decorate and things which they might think is cool. I guess the draw of being able to really choose the content isn't all that cool either. We could always consider marketing it to adults who would then force kids to use it, haha. We could also market it to those parents who do not allow kids to use myspace and other sites, as an educational alternative. I guess I really envision a combination of Flip and a news site in locker form (corny) where girls will be drawn to the site because they can do whatever they want with the locker, as well as leave notes for each other (which is an idea I loved, Andrea).I don't know, any more thoughts?
August 16, 2007 2:29 PM
Andrea said...
Okay, after reading the comments ideas from me, Kate, and Jordan ... we all have the same problem: we've come up with what the three of us seem to think are pretty decent ideas geare toward these MS girls based on what we found already exists last week ... but we all seem pretty clueless on how to infuse the news into that (although Jordan took a stab at it wiht the highlighting / my content thing). I still say, however, and I think Kate's agreeing ... we can't send them out to find the news. We can't make them responsible for getting the news. Because that's status quo ... and they're not doing it. The news has to already been present on the site / flip book / locker already so they have no choice but to watch it.
August 16, 2007 4:41 PM
Kim Gregson said...
what if you sent them out to write the news? to find the news in their own life/school? instead of finding news on the internet - let them be news creators. Remember - the whole let people tell the stories they think are important, let htem tell the news professionals what they (the consumer) thinks is important as news.then the news goes out from them - to other users, to the general news publicWould that help any with the issues you're discussing (and good job with the back and forth - thanks)
August 16, 2007 8:40 PM
Andrea said...
I really like Kim's idea about sending them out to get the news - then, if they are using it on a social networking site that allows themt to be connected through networks (think Facebook, but maybe like your town or your school instead of "Boston") you could use someone elses news. It could be incorporated with my school newspaper idea somehow (that ideas under my original post).
August 17, 2007 4:00 AM
Christina said...
Maybe this is silly, but if we send 14 year old girls out to write the news, I see it turning into a real fiasco...I think that before long it would be gossip-driven clique-like behavior brought to a whole new level. I can totally see some mean chick writing an article about how the weird girl in English class has a moustache or how how so-and-so was dumped because she was a prude. You know what I'm saying? It's a cool idea to have them write the news, but how do you regulate it and make it responsible and not "I <3 Justin Timberlake 4eva !!"??
August 17, 2007 8:15 AM
Kate said...
Haha, I agree. I think it would be cool and certainly innovative to have girls write the news, but it could get very Cady Heron and Regina George, very quickly. The idea of girls posting there own stuff is really exciting to me, just I don't really see it playing out with any significance. Instead, I'm thinking we could get them in a bunch of ways. Market the site, as strange as this might sound, as a sort of consolation prize. Sure, mom and step-dad won't let you on myspace, but they are letting you go on Locker Stocker. You can still write notes to your friends and set the site up how you want to. I'm envisioning picking music, like myspace. I'm also envisioning a note book, which would be like a flip book, and girls could even link to their actual flipbooks from the Locker.I don't really see how the sire lends itself to becoming an application on another site. I've been trying and can't.I love you all, Kathryn Kozlowski.
August 17, 2007 6:15 PM
Kim Gregson said...
again - you guys have to give up control. The news organizations can't keep control of what is news. The users get to decide.and who decided paris hilton was news? the news organizations. so maybe the little kids won't do much worsehow about tying it in with some writing education/girl scout badge project to get htem writing better news?
August 19, 2007 5:29 PM

The Dave and Kyle Webinar

2007-08-19T18:39:00.000-07:00

Just wrapped up my webinar with Dave. It went like this:

9:30 - Hello? Hello? Is this Kate? No it's Kyle. Where is everyone? I don't know-I'll wait ten minutes.

9:38 - Let's try entering again. Okay.

9:40 - Dave, the meeting was at 8:30. We missed it.

Anyway we're both very sorry for our absent-mindedness. Both of us could swear the blog said 9:30. We hope the meeting went well and that someone could maybe fill us in on the key points of tonight's other Webinar.

sunday chat

2007-08-19T18:25:00.000-07:00

Last things first - the next chat is tentatively scheduled for monday night at 8:30pm instead of Sunday because of everybody moving and getting ready for the start of school. Let me know right away if that doesn't work for you.

With the people preesent at the chat we seem to have narrowed it down to 2 demographics - little girls and politically interested types like the ones who watch the daily show. Interesting ideas were presented for both groups - more on the locker stocker idea and 2 for politics (current event contest on the cellphone and a debate on issues idea with digg features)

For next week they're going to more fully develop the ideas, flesh out the role of the news organization, of the user. Specifics. Examples. List of features, what the user will do. During hte week, they'll post ideas and developments. Look hard for competition or things similar to what they're proposing. Think about hwat makes it innovative. Then before the end of hte day on Friday, each group will post a summary, a final write up of the idea - with all the specifics and details ordered to make the idea as clear as possible for us. We'll all read and post our last round of comments on the idea. On monday we'll go over them again. Ideally we'd pick one idea to develop. If we end up with 2 ideas that are really innovative and well-developed, we'll go forward with two ideas.

The more work ya do now - the easier it will be to make the owrking model and put toegether the presentation.

* We definintely have to make sure there's no competition.
* And we have to identify the innovative angle
* And we have to make sure there's a news tie in, a way for the news organization to tie in. Someone posted about what kinds of news organizations. Think about local news - how could they tie in. Then think about a national organization - would they tie in any way differently? There's more local news organizations so more individual groups would pick it up. The national groups might have more resources but there are few of them. So take time to think at both levels.

If you weren't at the chat, probably a good idea at this point to get into one of the two demographics that seem to have emerged. Or make a really good case right away for something different. The two demos discussed had some good research done about them, the ideas are developing, and features from one project could easily fit in with the other so there's cross over possibilities.

Thanks for all the hard work so far - keep it up.

Marybeth will be on Webinar tonight..

2007-08-19T17:13:00.000-07:00

..looking forward to learning more about your cool ideas.

DebateThis

2007-08-19T15:17:00.000-07:00

So we've basically been mentioning some sort of debate style forum since Devastator day one. I'm really excited about this idea. I think it'll be entertaining, informative and competative enough to create a real user base.

You are the Star.
It would be aimed at the pollitically disgruntled and otherwise informed college demographic: 15-25. 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.

One of the things I came across in my research is that these kids crave fame. This is a whole generation of people who desire a certain level of internet recognition. From Facebook to YouTube to Myspace, the ability for us to see ourselves and for other people to see us has become paramount.

One of the founding pricnipals of DebateThis is that if you are knowledgeable enough and you work hard enough, you WILL be known in this community. You can be famous. You can be infamous. Or you can just be.

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 and install the browser-embedded software, ala StumbleUpon or Skype.

After the software is installed, an icon will appear at the bottom of all stories from participating news organizations. For example if CNN and The New York Times both pick this up, the icon will appear at the bottom of nearly every story the DebateThis user reads.

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 prominately on the articles own arena page (and also linked to each induvidual poster's blog). Other members then come out of the woodwork to counter the arguement, statement or question.

The motivation is that each time a user posts something thought-proviking 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 (or something) 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 knowedlgeable debator that his fame can travel accross 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 (or something).

Other Things
-Any post with clearly bellow the belt, over the line, unrelated/spamcious or just plain offensive will be moderated by a team of the site's moderators (probably including senior point earners if they so choose). That user is then subject to loose points, status, privileges or may be outright blocked from usage.

-The length and extensiveness of every post a user makes while debate (wheter it be video, audio, print or otherwise) is directly correlated with his standing in the community. A top earning, popular member may have up to a full minute more or chunk of white space comapred to a rookie member.

-All the various social networking stuff is here. Every member has a profile and blog all geared towards the community. Again, the amount of information and content that can be posted on this section is determined by community status.

-If a debate is already sparked, a user can always spark a new one. The debates branch off in a cool presentation like a brainstorming bubble chart thing. Flashy and fun and such.

-I want to somehow implement teams, competetion and triva events later on.
-----------------------

Hope you like or hate this idea. Sorry I waited so late to post, I've been thinking about this one for awhile. Ask questions during the conference. It'll be fun.

talk to you then.

Newswarriors

2007-08-19T14:07:00.000-07:00

While I do agree with what Jon just said, that we have too many ideas and too little time, I figure I couldn't call myself a member of Devastator unless I came up with my own project.
A long time ago I pitched an idea that dies swiftly but now that our ideas must be so audience-specific I think it's time for that old stinker to make a return. The target audience is retired old people, the kind who can't figure out their computers and make no effort to do so. It's called Old People News, or something less offensive. Think the Jitterbug cell phone of internet news. The site will feature big pictures and big fonts and no arrested celebrities. Also, there won't be any buttons to push, as the entire paper will be on one page. There will be an option to have Wilford Brimley read you the news, but that costs extra.

Before tonight...

2007-08-19T09:59:00.000-07:00

I think we all have some wonderful ideas going on throughout this group, but they're all spread out among vastly different groups. Now, I'm not sure what the official timeline leading up until Toronto is supposed to be, but we should probably move towards a definitive topic soon, so that we can flesh out the ideas that are already out there within the group.

We should use the data from each of the groups that we already have and make some kind of democratic decision soon. But that's just what I think.

Posting

2007-08-19T09:56:00.000-07:00

Hey Guys,

Sorry I've been absentee on the posting this week, I just got a job near my school and had to scramble to move my life there the day after I got back from NY.... only to find that they have no internet and the guy I usually steal a connection from has moved on.

So I'm going to post allllllll my ideas after a little family function today. If you have time, take a look. (It's called "DebateThis" It's going to be hot.)

Thanks guys.

Tyler's Google mockup would be useful...

2007-08-19T09:49:00.000-07:00

...on a site like www.prettytheworld.com.

In the vein of fan sites, this site - a fan site for Matt Nathanson - has the bare minimum of what's needed for diehard Matt fans like myself, but could use new media elements, like the Google maps feature that Tyler created for Wilco's tour, or some kind of interactive media feature with videos and audio. This site could benefit greatly from some extensive web design to increase fan input and interaction.