Party At My Place For Web And Beyond (Subtitled)

Party at My Place

Welcome. Today it’s party at my place or at least an explanation of how I would host a
party online.

REALIZING LA VIE VIRTUELLE
Copyright 2007 Almar van der Krogt @ Virvie.com

My inspiration

First a little about myself. My name is Almar and I’m a Virreal Architect. This means I design
webpresences that hopefully have the same impact as some of the great buildings in the
world. I do get my inspiration from skyscrapers like these in Hong Kong, because they go
beyond their functional needs to house many people: they make a statement.

A place to party

But today I will focus on a place to party: like the mansions where the rich and famous
entertain their friends. I will show you what an online equivalent could look like, including
the tricks to show off to the rest of the world.


An emcompassing
approach

I will go about it in a circumventing fashion to explain the basis for my vision.


First of all there are the nowadays widely spread Social Networks. They have become a
factor in most people’s real lifes. For some they may even be getting a to big a role.


Owning your identity

The key is that part of your identity is connected to these virtual social entities. In an
attempt to get hold of this development Loïc le Meur (now of Seesmic; the video
equivalent of Twitter) started drawing his ‘Social Map’ (see image) which reveals all the
online places where his social relations reside, at this moment!
http://loiclemeur.com/english/2008/03/my-social-map-i.html

Real attention

But the number of Social Networks and their specialties are still increasing. It’s an ongoing
battle for attention that has a real impact. The stars are moving away from the big Social
Networks like MySpace to start their own. For example, 50cent started Thisis50.com to
focus the attention of his fans on him only and of course to make mo’ money ;-)

This is a possibility for us now too.


By means of blogs and proﬁles the ‘common individual’ has all the means to reach internet
fame. It’s through Iskander’s microblog that I learned about this in the ﬁrst place!
But you don’t want to be important to strangers but to the people you know. However
this is still dependant on the Networks you and they joined.

DiSo
Project

Standards are coming to
the rescue
Social
Graph

But the newly developed Internet standards are coming to our rescue. First there are the
Google initiated OpenSocial and more importantly SocialGraph standards, that allow you
to see beyond your current network and ﬁnd your friends in other networks.
Next there is the only recently started DiSo (for Distributed Social Networks) project
which is laying the basis for starting your Social Network from your own domain (e.g.
through a Wordpress installation).
http://www.beachsafety.qut.edu.au/images/heli_rescue.jpg

This is where I am

And that’s exactly where I would want it to be. To come back to the analogy of the
mansion; I want my friends to come over to my place, to join me in the way I live and to
show off my stuff.


Special occasions
But why would you want to be there? Let me tell you about a special occasion that I
watched online; an event I would want to witness again.
I think it was some 7 years ago that I learned about the painter Mark Kostabi. He was an
early experimenter with online auctions and became fascinated by them. After witnessing
collectors virtually ﬁghting over his paintings he started to incorporate their e-mail
addresses in his paintings (like in this painting called “E-Families”). One of the paintings had
two struggling ﬁgures surrounded by e-mail addresses and was called the “Bidding war”. By
sheer accident I watched the online auction of this painting and sure enough the people
that were mentioned on the actual painting were the top bidders at that auction,
overbidding each other over and again.
E-Families by Mark Kostabi, 2000

But this still doesn’t make a party. And hosting a good party (or producing a decent
podcast which is referred to in Stowe Boyds tweet) isn’t something that comes natural.


Make an impression
First let me explain how the right imagery can make a big impression and make your party
worthwhile.
This image shows the stage of the Republican National Convention in 2004. Apart from
these well known American symbols it showed various images of Bush right after 9-11
addressing the rescue workers.
It wasn’t just window dressing but to convince a nation to re-elect this president. It’s a
trick that dates back to the Roman empire. In the book “The Third Media Revolution” it is
mentioned that Ceasar would take to Facebook; he was the ﬁrst to put his face on the
distributed medium of his time and today it workes again!
REALIZING LA VIE VIRTUELLE “How art made the world”, BBC, 2005

Add a soundtrack
Another key element is sound. The MINI Clubman campaigned used it in a very
sophisticated way. After watching an online video with a strong beat of some clubbers
continuing the party in the new Clubman you could leave your phone number to receive
an update as soon as the Clubman would arrive at the dealer. What actually happened is
that almost immediately after submitting your number you would get a phone call with a
recording with the exact same soundtrack and message from the people in the car. The
sound is what made it memorable.

Break the virtual barrier
And even though I’m making a case for an online event, it is also important to break the
virtual barrier.
Any good party involves dancing and movement isn’t something that is conveyed very well
online. Unless you use the little Internet-connected rabbit called Nabaztag: through their
synced movements they can even perform an opera.
Also one could think of somehow connecting a Nintendo Wii and reproduce your
movements online through that means.
REALIZING LA VIE VIRTUELLE “http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vxqGkLQyDiM”

Finally, and this is key to how the rich and famous go about it: make the party known to the
uninvited.
This mock-up shows how a sneak preview can be incorporated in your design. Moving the
mouse on this public page reveals parts of the private (party) page, but through a keyhole.
It’s like the red carpet at the invitation only event.

So in conclusion imagine your own website with your select group of friends enjoying your
pages and your wannabe-friends trying to sneak in.
You can show off your most recent web-art acquisition (for example a variation on
Twistori, clustering the conversations at your party) while the sound of the music on
another page is seeping trough and luring your friends to yet another part of your site...
Thank you
REALIZING LA VIE VIRTUELLE www.twistori.com

Party At My Place For Web And Beyond (Subtitled)

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