MEMORANDUM

Implementation of Web 2.0 innovations for ACV web site.

10.12.06

This memo seeks to outline the possibilities for an evolved site, as well
as the steps that need to be taken to achieve this goal.

STRUCTURE

The following chart shows a rudimentary outline of the structure for the
site.

ACV 2.0

QuickTimeª and a
TIFF (LZW) decompressor
are needed to see this picture.

The three pillars are media, membership, and mediamakers’

resources. The structure presents a space where individuals can
communicate, collaborate, and present and evaluate their work.
The innovative aspects of sites like MySpace and YouTube will be
implemented to ACV. After a user registers with the site, he will have
the ability to communicate with other users, watch, tag and rate all the
media content on the site, as well as respond to any news or other
developments highlighted by the blog. Furthermore, the user will be
able to upload their own media.

The structure lends itself to numerous possibilities for promotion.

Furthermore the top down as well as down up content flow structure

means that the site will be dynamic and constantly evolving.

A USER SCENARIO

The user has been to the site and has registered previously. On the
front page he is informed that there are new videos to watch,
especially a great short film that won at AIFF in 95. Before watching
the film he clicks on the blog entry, and reads some of the discussion –
people are excited, even the director has chimed in. He goes to the
video section and sees that the film is getting some very high ratings
as well and has been watch 15,000 in three days. He watches the film
as well, and gives it 4 stars. This inspires him to shoot his own thing,
especially considering that ACV is running a contest for 30 sec spots
for one of it’s sponsors. He reads the forums and uses classifieds to
find collaborators in his area. He buys some books on filmmaking
recommend by ACV from Amazon. He uploads his video and tries to
promote it to as many people as he can (as well as promoting ACV).
His film does pretty well on the site, and ACV selects it to be screened
at an event/party. He is excited and decides to buy and ACV shirt
before coming, he purchases it on the ACV store. His parents find out,
and decided to donate to ACV. The user also decides to make a bigger
work and submit it to the festival.

In this scenario there are plenty of opportunities for the user to be

exposed to advertising and promotion messages from ACV’s sponsors
and affiliates.

PROJECT WORKFLOW

The process can be broke down into three phases – Design,

Implementation, and Launch.

In the DESIGN phase an Art Director will come up with a consistent

wrapper or graphical look for the whole site. A Programmer will
evaluate the needs of the project and select a CMS (Content
Management System) that will be most effective and robust. The best
CMS (like Joomla and Dragonfly) are open source and free. CMS uses
modules that interact with each other, hence a custom tailored system
can be created akin to building with lego blocks. The back end of these
applications doesn’t require the Administrator to have programming
skills, the whole site can be administered through a GUI web interface.
Though a Programmer will be required to use his knowledge of PhP,
MySql, Java, etc to create tweaks particular to the needs of the project.
Still nothing needs to be built from scratch.

DESIGN phase expenditures – Art Director and Programmer fees.

In the IMPLEMENTATION phase a dedicated server host will be rented

and the site will be loaded onto it. My preliminary research indicates
that there are no licensing fees that have to be paid to Macromedia for
using Flash Video technology, just as Apple doesn’t need to be paid for
distributing Quicktime. The largest expense at this point is the
bandwidth. A minute of reasonable quality flash video is a megabyte. If
ACV broadcasts 30,000 hours a month (whether 1 hour to 30,000
users, or 10 minutes to 180,000 users) it’s bandwidth requirement will
be 1700-2000 gigs per month. My research indicates that this kind of
bandwidth can be purchased for around $200 a month. A backup
strategy will also be implemented.

IMPLEMENTATION phase expenditures – Programmer fee,

Administration fees, Server set-up fee ($200), and Monthly fee ($200
per month).

In the LAUNCH phase the site’s goal is to quickly increase the number
of users and the amount of content available to them. Furthermore, a
comprehensive marketing campaign will maximize the desirability of
participating in ACV or advertising on it.

LAUNCH expenditures – Administration fees, Marketing.

THE ADMINISTRATOR

This is the key position for the site, and should be a dedicated full time
position. This person will be responsible for ensuring that the site
functions optimally, upload and update ACV introduced content,
monitor users’ content and behavior, and provide scheduled reports
who, where, what was clicked and how many times. These reports will
help ACV communicate with advertisers and sponsors and generate
revenue.

CONCLUSION
The technological costs associated with the evolution of the site are
minimal, and the process is feasible with very little personnel.