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Thanks to everyone who has volunteered so far. If you are new to this project, visit the "About" section below and watch the previous video entry by clicking the "older" link located above this week’s clip.
Also in the "About" section, I posted a map detailing where I’ll be when around the United States. Like always, if you live even relatively close to anywhere along my route in the continental United States, I want you to send me an email and volunteer to house, feed, and drive me to my next location. We’ve been receiving a great deal of volunteers, but we have many to go still! Let’s make this crazy experiment work!
Around America in 2.0 – "Turning strangers into BFFs since ‘07."Â
Come and get me America!
In 11 days, the official request video will be placed on YouTube asking viewers to take me around the country. My thoughts? Well…
Have you ever taken a test, dated someone, participated in a project that/who seemed so incredibly intimidating, you get butterflies in your stomach just thinking about it. Yep, that’s how I feel about AA2.0. Literally, what scares me is that I think it might actually happen. That’s the scary part.
I’ve spoken with the creators of somewhat similar projects recently, and they started the planning process years in advance. How long exactly did I start planning for my project that starts in 11 days? I started in May. May.
However, I realize that this is partially my point. Web 2.0 is immediate in its nature. Relationships are formed, videos are posted, and people express themselves in incredibly short increments of time. Thus, it seems natural for this project to have such minimal planning.
Right?
It’s quite ironic. I was told to read Andrew Keen’s The Cult of the Amateur yesterday for work. My last big story series before starting AA2.0 is on citizen journalism and emerging technologies surrounding the industry.
Well, I feel that Keen may have some interesting points. He is skeptical of web 2.0 because he feels that only through the sheer volume of one’s voice can one break through the rest of the crowd. Meaning, if you have 34 million bloggers out there that consider themselves reporters, it’s practically immpossible to break through the static. Not too mention, a great deal of these citizen journalists have no formal training in reporting or fact checking, therefore, making their rants baseless and sloppy. He seems to be turned off by the unformal nature of it all. Understandable.
I get it. Right or wrong, he has a point. It reminds me of a metaphor I heard recently. My boss referred to the communal culture of the web 2.0 industry as an overloaded stage full of actors. All these actors are waving their arms and jumping left and right, doing anything to entertain the audience. However, the problem is that the chairs in the theater are all empty. The audience has vanished.
The individuals that used to fill these seats have since become entertainers themselves and are now on stage waving their arms and jumping left and right along side everyone else.
Things are shaping up – spent Friday relaxing, Saturday was spent arranging a few details for the project, Saturday night was spent sleeping in dirt along side a campfire in Pennsylvania, and all of Sunday was spent writing and designing information for the trip. Above is a picture of a map that will be chopped up and used as a banner for the site.
Well, the designs are completely done for the website. All looks good. The developer now has everything and we should be up and running in no time. I’ll be shooting along a new video entry as soon as possible. Things are just a bit crazy right now. This video blog as short lived and chaotic as it has been will no longer be necessary.
These next two weeks or four weeks rather are going to be insane. I’m still trying to get a bit more monetary sponsorship, which is looking good. Shooting the “initial request video” soon. Trying to score one more monetary sponsor and one sponsor for electronic equipment. Looking to score a label to work with in order to provide some music to the videos.
Anyway, check out the solidified “About” page. That is the official “what is he doing” section that will be placed on the website.
One more thing – if anyone has thoughts on a domain name, email me. I need to purchase one tonight. Aroundamerica.com is taken, but Aroundamerica.tv is open. Are we far enough along in online video content to be confident about a “.tv” domain?
*Note – Since I initially published this post a few months ago, I have since purchased and am now running www.aroundamericaproject.com. The blog that you are reading has since become more or less defunct, but still appears first when you Google my name and sometimes the project name. Darn Google algorithms. Anyway, go to the other site now! It’ll be fun, I promise.
