Shared Creation Projects

I first came discovered this via a myspace contact, asking me to take a look at his work. So I did and realised that the Medusa Literature blogzine is a writing project that should be covered.

So take a look at: http://www.myspace.com/medusa_litzine

Medusa has been around in print format in quite some time but what you will find here is a Myspace blog turned into a literature magazine; that publishes the work of new writers who are using the medium of social networking to find a place to get their work noticed.

It’s a good use of this medium – an easy way for people to see new works.

Just be warned about one thing. The editorial rules for Medusa allow for the pushing of boundaries so you may find some of the material published offensive or controversial.

Folly – a not for profit digital arts organisation based in Lancashire and

If you have any contemporary sound work take a look a the Folly website for details on how to join in with this project.

Ok it’s time to let you know what I think about my discoveries. The quest was to find a way of representing yourself online - especially if you happen to create a lot of feeds own more than one web page, or just happen to be particularly hooked on web space use.

The traditional; places to this kind of thing are myspace. absolute arts, flickr, YouTube, personal webpages and amongst the many community sites out there. All are good and all help. In recent years the field has become dominated by myspace and facebook. I felt looking at them that both worked in a different way and that both lacked the flexibility to really seriously a complex workload. They are very good at doing a single job - so if all you want is a place to front yourself, chat to friends of seek an audience for or your music, art or films then go to these. Its where the action is at.

If you want more then you need something with more oomph.

I had a look at the feed amalgamator’s. The best being Yahoo Pipes. Great for bringing together material. Not as good as web sites. I think best used to held create feeds from your work on various Web 2.0 style sites and or blogs. The results of which then needs to be housed somewhere.

I thought about Google Pages - good but it didn’t feel quite right (very Goldilocks this post..)

By accident material I was researching for Shared Creation led me to a web site hosted by WetPaint. I looked deeper and found a great editor and all the flexibility of the Wiki. This was the answer. Create your myspace. list on Flickr, Youtube and Absolute Arts etc, write your blogs and make whole using a Wiki. The engine used by Wetpaint is fantastically intuitive - I’ve set up and edit MediaWiki sites in the past and this thing is easier to use. Ease of use is vital - if you are bringing together material you are editing - not the most fun job in the world so you don’t want to be fighting technology when doing it. I manage to build a simple site in almost no time at all. Obviously the more work you invest the better the results,  but its nice to see the prospect of an instant website being true for once.

So to make a great billboard use a Wiki. Its the most flexible publishing tool out there.

Tags: Online, Publishing, RSS, Feeds, Wiki, Wetpaint, Myspace, Facebook, Web, 2.0, Flickr, Blogs, Absolute, Arts