Blogging Fringe 2008 April 15, 2008
Posted by Ryan in : Site News, Blogging, Podcasts, Orlando, Events, Trends, Web Sites, Contributors, OrlandoScene, open source , 2 commentsMy Friends,
As you all know, I’ve done this Blogging Fringe thing for the past two years. Sadly, this year looks like I’ll be pulled in more directions than ever before. I’ve been up until 2AM every night for weeks on end and I’m not sure when this will stop.
At the same time, I really love the opportunities the Fringe Festival presents to show off some great groups in Orlando and Internationally, and introduce the world to our potential.
At this point I have received dozens of press releases from faithful producers who would love a mention on the blog. I’d love to contact them, conduct interviews, post them to the site, get everyone excited and oh so much more, but that’s not going to happen.
Some of you have contributed time to this project before, others are simply friends, but you are all tied to the theatre community and you have proven your interest in making our community something special.
My plan for Blogging Fringe this year is to write a small number of posts on my personal blog and have them automatically re-posted to BloggingFringe.com, and I’m going to open that up to everyone in the world. All the content on the site will be release under a Creative Commons license, meaning anyone will be free to re-post and re-mix the work in any medium for non-commercial purposes This includes all archived content on the site as well.
Getting your content posted is simple. We’ll agree on a keyword, something like “bloggingfringe”, or “Orlando Fringe”, something you will only write on your blog if you’d like the content to be seen, and those posts will be re-posted with a link back to your blog. An example of this is on Liberatr.net where all the posts link to the original home instead of inside the site.
This project has never been about my own personal gain - I’ve sunk hundreds (thousands?) of dollars of my money into creating an environment for patrons and artists to have a conversation, but I believe I’ve fallen short of the mark up until now. Beth will be the first person to say that the Fringe website is not the place she’d like this conversation to happen - that’s one great thing about a site like ours.
All the editorial content on Blogging Fringe - the reviews, videos, audio podcasts, will no longer be called Blogging Fringe, but instead Ryan Price Media, Orlando Scene TV and Florida Creatives. These three websites will just be other first-class citizens of the community like anyone else in the world. If I end up being too busy to post many videos, podcasts or blogs, that will show, because they’ll be lost in the ocean of posts created by the blogging Fringe Faithful.
If I have to I’ll paint the administrator password to Blogging Fringe on a canvas and submit the artwork to Visual Fringe. That’s how open this should be. Anna, what’s the entry fee again?
More news on exactly how to get your blogs re-posted to a public, highly visible website for free coming soon. I hope the Fringe itself, the Orlando Weekly, Elizabeth Maupin, Orlando Arts Blog and others will be proud to include their blogs in the list, because the point is visibility, not exclusivity.
The contents of this email are posted at bloggingfringe.com/2008/04/15/blogging-fringe-2008/ in order to make this information as public as I possibly can. If you’d like to contribute, you can start by posting a link to your blog in the comments! All serious submissions (and some not so serious) will be accepted.
Peace,
Ryan Price
321-441-3964
BloggingFringe.com
FloridaCreatives.com
OrlandoScene.TV
BarCampOrlando IZEA Geekout Party April 7, 2008
Posted by Ryan in : Tech, Podcasts, Orlando, Links, Events, Video, Beer, floridacreatives, Entrepreneurship, photos, Contributors, OrlandoScene, BarCamp, Social Media Events , 1 comment so far
This was how I spend 90% of the time at the IZEA GeekOut Party - talking to Tara Lamberson and Dan Kinchen about a Central Florida Tech Association, or something like it.
Thanks to Ted Murphy for throwing the party - we hope to see you on the 21st for Florida Creatives. Also thanks to Adam Teece for hosting the podcasts.
Also appearing in this video: Ted Murphy, Gregg Pollack and a widdle baby
See more videos by Adam at the GeekOut
What every small town local bookstore should do April 1, 2008
Posted by Ryan in : Markteting, HowTo, Video, Film, Shopping, Trends, Books, Travel, Contributors, OrlandoScene, Teaching, open source, Branding, Storytelling, Love , 2 commentsI jsut finished reading Rent Girl
However Michelle Tea and this book are not the subject of this blog. At least, not directly.
I picked up this indy book at an indy book shop - I was on vacation, visiting Tempe, Arizona, walking to Trader Joe’s and Whole Foods, hiking the Grand Canyon, getting yummy sandwiches from the co-op and drinking local beer. And next to the Trader Joe’s in the adobe-colored shopping center (really, they all were) was this little book store, Changing Hands.
Changing Hands Bookstore, Tempe Arizona, corner of McClintock and Guadalupe. There was a café, I think, and there was a section up front with fun games - the kinds of stuff you’d see on the bookshelves of Barnes and Noble next year once they hit critical mass. Like all indy book shops, there was a table near the customer service desk with eye-catching books, new arrivals, and the ever-present signed-or-to-be-signed books. And here was Rent Girl
I only read a few pages on the plane, it was too naughty. I actually couldn’t wrap my head around this book until recently, somehow I feel that by absorbing some women’s media I can try to understand the industry a bit better - things aimed at guys are too easy to understand, low hanging fruit - women’s music, film and books are another beast.
But I digress. I want to plant a seed at Changing Hands in Tempe and Urban Think in Orlando and the Bookmine in Jacksonville, and all the other places where you feel proud buying a naughty graphic novel. This advice isn’t exactly ground-shaking, but I think it makes sense:
Every small town book shop should:
- Print their own books.
- Teach classes about how to print your own books.
- Sell said hand-made and self-published books.
- Sell books by local authors on the internet.
- Show and sell art on the walls.
- Have free and open wi-fi.
- Record video/audio podcasts with visiting authors.
- Have a space in-store and online for customers to have a conversation, either about books or what happened on last night’s LOST.
- Be a place where you want to come to read a book.
- Be a place where you would hang out with your friends.
- Be the first place you want to visit when you get off of work.
- Have space for local groups to hold meetings.
In London I saw a store that only sells Chess and Bridge supplies. They’ve got the largest selection of that stuff you’ve ever seen - no big box store could compete. And on the same block is a store that only sells Flutes. I’m told there’s a store on the other side of the river that only sells French Horns. Granted, in a big city there is a need for places that specialized, but I think even a small town book store can take some tips from these places.
I saw another place that was a grocery, bookstore, gift shop and restaurant all in one. They wouldn’t let me take pictures in there, it was so unique. They press their own olive oil.
In a certain way, Stardust Video & Coffee here in Orlando has achieved so much of what’s on my list, but the utility of the store, renting movies, was not lucrative enough for them, so they opened up to being more cafe-and-performance-space than video rental space. They’ve recently added a second stage with a strict “no dry-humping” policy, and they also sell hard liquor in addition to their amazing selection of beers, decent wine, tea, coffee, baked goods and original food.
I suppose if there was a local printer, they could achieve something similar without needing to do the actual printing themselves, but I guess that’s part of the point of the bookstore, yes?
As a “video and coffee” establishment, I don’t see where Stardust is the last word on video other than the selection, but I always felt like I wasn’t smart enough to rent there, that the right to rent a film was reserved for someone with a more cultured taste than I. However, the Thursday night Broken Speech Poetry Slam or the local rock shows they have are completely accessible, and I’ve played drums on stage at Stardust many times. Maybe that’s just partly attributed to my training as a musician, but why do I feel I’m below the film?
I guess I’m trying to encourage these book shops to become the Third Place that we are all craving here in Orlando right now. In the land of corporate coffee, the local coffee shop has evolved, mostly in order to survive. I think the local bookstore has a few more steps to take before they’re all grown up.
Which bookstores have you noticed fitting into their niche?
…continued…
This is an old meme I found via Tara Hunt and Pinko Marketing. I’ve been trying to describe local media (or at least the goals of the media I’ve been trying to produce) and what’s supposed to be for sale at Petentials and similar sites. The point isn’t to sell 24,000 of an item priced $1 but 1,000 of an item priced $24, let’s say.
Boutique (from my mac dictionary): French, literally ‘small shop,’ via Latin from Greek apothēkē ‘storehouse.’ Compare with bodega .
Some people are getting my reference to boutique mixed up with luxury brands. Personally, I wouldn’t be caught dead with Louis Vuitton bag and I’m sure most Boutiquers wouldn’t be either. The difference, as the diagram suggests (and there are many more differences than I quickly plotted in this image) is the motivations for buying. I said, “Bought for connection” because, as Sanford commented in the previous posts comment section:
“People go out of their way to purchase certain goods - like moleskine notebooks - or buy cheese from specific vendors because it broadcasts something about who they are. This statement can be personal/internal, shared with a small audience…”
The “small shop” concept is the feeling I got at Villandry in London - it was right in the heart of downtown, near the international embassy district, but instead of being generic, they were hyper-specialized. It was the kind of place you’d bring your aunts and uncles who were visiting town, to show off the awesome places that can grown up in your backyard, and they’d sit back and go “I would never buy anything in here, but I’m in awe of the place.” That’s how I feel at Stardust, that’s likely how some folks feel in the front room at Dandelion Communitea, or the co-op area at Infusion Tea in College Park. What does it all mean? How did these people come to create this art, or this custom stationery, or eco-friendly teacups, or press their own olive oil? Why are there hundreds of movies I’ve never heard of, and how in the hell can they organize them by country and director instead of genre? Who does that?
Boutiques do that. The perfect local bookstore would do that.
Take a look at people who use open source software, you’ll find the same aesthetic. Hand-made, personalized, specific, and powerful in the hands of a well-informed user, but you don’t need to be the guy who wrote it to use it or change it. You think there should be a French translation? That’s up to you. A sixth checkbox? Hack it in, contribute it to the repository. Make this the best tool for you, and therefore the best tool for folks who know where to look.
I could go on all night. Maybe I’ll go on this weekend at BarCamp. But I don’t title it “indy bookstore”. What is it?
New Year’s Reflection January 7, 2008
Posted by Ryan in : Site News, Podcasts, Orlando, Liberatr, Web Sites, floridacreatives, Entrepreneurship, Contributors, PodCamp , 1 comment so farLast night, I talked to (more like was interviewed by) Stephen McKenney Steck, the President Emeritus of the local PBS and NPR affiliates here in town. He was very interested in what I’ve done and what I’m doing, and he asked me several times to send him links to everything I talked about. While composing the email, I noticed a pattern. I would talk about the project and then I felt compelled to say “but this is what it’s really supposed to accomplish”. This gets me thinking…
It’s no secret that I’m making most of my bread and butter working for a local startup, but there’s a catch: I can’t keep myself stocked too well with bread and butter this month. This is no slight to Darren, Michael and Kia, it just happens that I need to find some additional sources of income.
I actually had a decent amount of inquiry about my person and my skills pre-holidays, but then the holidays happened and I don’t know the status of any of these requests. I’m thinking it’s time for a little of Plan A, a lot of Plan B. More on Plan B in the future, I promise.
For now, here’s how I described my past work to Mr. Public Broadcasting Himself:
Florida Creatives Happy Hour
The Florida Creatives is a networking group that meets every Third Monday of the month in downtown Orlando. I was inspired to form this group by several usergroups and meetups I’ve participated in the past - we meet in bars, because the best friendships and conversations are often had in the hallways after an event or in the bar across the street. In addition to our standalone after-work events, we’ve also hosted Happy Hours after the Enzian Film Slam and the Orlando Fringe Festival. I’d really like to have a program that lets us get in touch with students, both college and high school, and a long-term goal would be to have a summer camp for High School students to encourage them to pursue creative careers and programs of study.
Our Email Announcement List
Blogging Fringe
A community site built around the Orlando Fringe Festival. The Fringe is arguably the best 2 weeks of the year in Orlando, and I thought it deserved a fan site. I always try to get multiple people involved in writing reviews, posting updates or making videos, and in 2007 we were given the “Fringe of the Fringe” Award, which is exactly what we try to be. I was always hoping that my work on this website would get me some paying jobs, but artists don’t have any money, so it’s mostly a labor of love.
Ryan Price vs. the Media
My personal blog. I talk about media, technology, local happenings and whatever is on my mind.
Orlando Scene TV
The evolution of the Blogging Fringe concept, applied to Central Florida, with the caveat that all the posts would be video-centric, and another collaboration-heavy project. My friend Rebekah Lane is an actress, so she and I produce most of the videos together. We have also had other contributors, each with varying degrees of acting and production experience. I had always hoped this could be an open channel for anyone to submit video, and I hope we can get to that point as a city some day.
Pop Means Cuddle
A show “just for fun” I record with my friend Marc. He runs a music and media review site, and we get some music and interviews with musicians, and we’ve also interviewed the creators of an Internet TV show. So far, it appears we have a little Internet and a little music, which makes lots of sense if you look at the two people who host the show
Liberatr.net
This is the home of any podcast or blog I have produced myself, and those of a few friends. Many of the shows are co-hosted by friends, and 4 of them were produced solely by other authors, while I provided technical support. I had hoped that by having multiple “channels” we could attract a larger audience and become more attractive to advertisers. Now I am seeing the podcasts and blogs as a great way to support a larger content network and vice versa.
I realize as I read these descriptions back to myself that I always state a goal that is very far in the future or very much unrealized. I don’t doubt that if I could quit my job and apply 40+ hours a week to any one of these projects, I could reach said goals.
I have now come up with an even bigger, better project that is a real sink or swim scenario. I must either quit my job and start making money at this idea or decide that I’m still not ready and continue freelancing and consulting for a few years until I come up with another crazy scheme. I suppose this is the same dilemma all entrepreneurs face. The real kicker is the fact that there’s no easy answer to this question: When do you take the plunge?
OSTV ELLA Music Fest Teaser November 18, 2007
Posted by Ryan in : Podcasts, Music, Events, Video, Travel, Liberatr, Contributors, OrlandoScene, Arts , add a commentThe first ever ELLA Music Festival took place at the Rogers Building in downtown Orlando in October 2007. The festival was a celebration of female singer/songwriters and female fronted bands.
In this video, one of the performers, Rachel Goodrich, turns the tables and interviews our host Becky for a change! We also get a sample of Rachel’s musical stylings in the background, recorded upstairs just minutes earlier.
This is just a tiny sample of what happened at the ELLA Fest. Subscribe to OrlandoScene.TV to get updated when new videos are posted.
More videos coming out every week on Miro and iTunes. If you’d like to get involved by suggesting an event or venue for us to highlight, get in touch with us at OrlandoScene.TV - thanks for watching.
2 Weeks Away from Blogging October 19, 2007
Posted by Ryan in : Site News, Blogging, Video, Reviews, Trends, Restaurants, Contributors, OrlandoScene, Storytelling, Friends , 2 commentsI haven’t announced this yet, but in an effort to get Petentials launched that much sooner, I decided I was going to take a month off of blogging - it’s more like 2 weeks off, 2 weeks in England, 2 more weeks off.
Still, I find that in the past several weeks, between moving downtown, ELLA Fest and Drupal Drupal Drupal Drupal Drupal, I’ve missed hearing about what’s going on with my friends and the people I follow but haven’t yet befriended.
Just now I’m having a thought about people I’ve inspired in some way to publish a blog: Katharine, Kait, Becky (coming soon), Kate (with an E), Aleshia, Kyle, and Charlie. I’m not saying I’m the reason they’re blogging, but I had something to do with them installing wordpress or registering their own domain (there are lots more of those people around) or setting up a wordpress.com/Blogger account. These people all have something to say, or wanted to have something to say, and for my part, I helped them find the method of delivery, and if nothing else, I read all the posts they write.
Here’s my attempt to give one of those folks a shove today. My friend Kate (who lives in New York, not London) from Absent-Minded Improv, and SO many other things in Orlando, was having trouble with restaurant reviews last week:
I suppose I have no future as a restaurant critic. Maybe that Guide to Coffee won’t be as likely as I’d hoped.
The ironic thing about this situation, though, is that Kate is a writer - it’s her job, her passion, her chosen profession. I don’t see it as a problem, I see it as a failure to connect with your goals, or perhaps a lack of structure, but cerainly not a lack of something to say or a talent with which to say it. I reply:
I think the reason why you have trouble expressing this in writing is the medium - break out your still camera and switch it to “video” mode. You’re an improviser, you can make this work.
AND/OR
Describe the scene to us, don’t just tell us how it was. Give us a story - if you read any restaurant reviews, you’ll find the best ones are very linear. They really only cover one person’s (at most a small group’s) interaction with the store on a single occasion, with possible recaps of previous or return visits. Reviews are stories. You’re a storyteller. You are powerful. You have it inside you to make me love or hate a coffee shop in New York.
Think about it. Then do it.
The major medium (other than my OrlandoScene.TV videos) where I have made any attempt at storytelling is through the subtle art of screencasting. Search for the word “Flock” on this blog, and you’ll see what I mean… I hope. Instead of just pointing at the buttons, you have to have a real example. That’s why I only screencast when I have a real example to show off. Teaching “in theory” always lacks a bit of that spark (or it does for me). A good teacher can make you care about the project just by making it feel real. This wasn’t always something we achieved in my Digital Media classes at UCF, but when we did, I didn’t mind doing large portions of the work for the project, nor did the other group members.
What’s this all about? Storytelling. That’s why it’s “vs. the Media”. Their storytelling has been tainted by centuries of corporate interest and tradition. The new guard of Digital Medians doesn’t have those blinders on (or we try not to). If we can stop trying to emulate what we grew up with and really create something(s) on our own (and use lots of parenthesis), we can change the world. Being a New Media Marketer, or a Podcaster, or a Vlogger, or a Teacher, or whatever term we may label ourselves with, is about just that — doing it your own way. That’s why I turn down more of the clients that come across my doorstep. They all want something that’s “just enough”, but that’s never enough. They want a story, and I want to give them a story. If I can’t care about the project, I can’t commit to it. Sometimes I can care and I can commit, but I’m just not motivated. That’s a personal problem.
This is getting rant-y and I’m supposed to be somewhere in 4 hours.
Beer Bomb Bus Tour Twitterstream via 30boxes Twapper September 17, 2007
Posted by Ryan in : Tech, Blogging, Orlando, Events, Beer, Reviews, Trends, Web Sites, mashups, Contributors, interface , 1 comment so farLive Tweets from today’s awesome tour.
Hosted by Mike of Shipyard
Twitters courtesy hailtheale johnrife liberatr
Over at m.30boxes.com they’ve got a neat little service called Twapper - “Twitter Mobile for WAP”. I didn’t think much of it until just now when I realized that I only twittered a few times today, but John and Chris wrote several texts. I was even quoted in one of them!
Twapper is so easy you can use it from your cell phone, but it makes a great deal of sense as a web service as well. Think, I wanted to see tweets from just a few users, not all my friends, not just me. No special #tagging or @addressing needed, just a good service. If you want to see more than one stream, just type +bloggingfringe or +johnrife+hailtheale to the end of your URL. I think it has a limit on the number of streams you can combine, but it is ad-hoc groups! Ad-hoc! Buzzword compliant!
Another very useful thing that was omitted from this screenshot (for archival purposes) is a little text box just below the stream that bears the legend “Direct twitter this group only!” That’s a very useful feature, so easy you can operate it from your crappy cellphone browser.
Also, John was inspired to try out some live YouTube as per my suggestion at Friday’s lunch, so check out that link too.
Ryan Price vs. the Media + Mark Baratelli June 29, 2007
Posted by Ryan in : Tech, News, Site News, Podcasts, Orlando, Video, TV, Trends, Web Sites, Contributors , add a commentMark Baratelli and I were talking on Skype chat one Monday and I decided to answer a question of his by recording it to post on my blog… here is the result.
Download Ryan Price vs. the Media + Mark Baratelli
Time: 37:56
During the discussion, we brought up our twitter streams (Ryan’s and Mark B’s), video bookmarking with Viddler, and an interesting blog post on Lost Remote, one of my favorite blogs.
My Odeo Channel (odeo/a57c8c64939548eb)
OrlandoScene.TV and BloggingFringe.com Video on Revver June 20, 2007
Posted by Ryan in : Tech, Site News, Podcasts, Orlando, Video, Film, Trends, Fringe, Liberatr, Restaurants, Entrepreneurship, itunes, statistics, Revver, Contributors, OrlandoScene , 1 comment so farI’m posting this because there should be an 8th video in this widget by the time you see it. I wish this thing would show the videos in reverse order, and perhaps it will - the first video should be OrlandoScene.TV 03 Taste, the second Heart of Coal, etc.
I’ve learned through the very useful and very pretty Revver statistics that about 5% of people who see my video play it to the end, and of those about 8% click on the ad. I think 8.16% ain’t half bad at all - what I wonder is if the “views” includes people who see the player and don’t push play. I don’t think it does.
If you haven’t seen all 8 of these videos yet, they are more than worth watching. If you’re using a feedreader right now, I’m not sure if you can see the player because of JavaScript. You can find my videos on the web at Revver.
OrlandoScene.TV, BloggingFringe.com - that’s where these videos live.
Fringe Discussion Drama June 12, 2007
Posted by Ryan in : Tech, Site News, Blogging, Podcasts, Orlando, Music, Links, Quotes, Events, Video, Reviews, Trends, Fringe, Liberatr, Web Sites, Contributors, Public Relations , add a commentMichael Black, a blogger/webmaster with over a decade of history writing about Montreal Fringe online has decided to lay a verbal smackdown on us at BloggingFringe.com - and I respond in a big way.
Please go read and comment yourself, but for bulletin’s sake, here’s part I of the transcript:
