Shared Creation Projects

They in this case are the people with money.

If you review the postings in Shared Creation Projects you will notice some links to Idealo at the end of a number of posts. These are advertisements bought by Idealo for their price comparison site. When I was approached by Idealo - I looked at their site and discovered that they helped provide the tools that Shared Creation readers need at a good price. It seemed like a good match and a deal was struck. For this I thank Idealo very much.

This has gotten me to think - what is the best way to gain advertisers?

It was in the end a bit of a no brainer, but before the answer - here’s some background.

You can go out and tell people how wonderful your site is (or will be) and take on the challenge of hard selling your wares; or you can take the other road - work on your content and let the advertisers come to you. The second approach emphasises the democracy of the web and is very much the legendary web approach. Best summed in the ‘Field of Dreams’ line - “if you build it they will come”. This has been the Shared Creation approach. Write, publish and let the web guide people to you.

The first approach is very much the modern business view. Make sure you can have an idea to reach an audience, get money and then build from there. It may make business sense to encourage the money first - but it is very hard to build from nothing. I’m not saying it doesn’t work - Flickr and YouTube were built on venture capital - on this approach; but unless you have a vast idea and a solid business background - it will probably not help all that much. I’ve met web entrepreneurs - trying this on a business to business approach - and having a hard time of it.

Of course the downside with content first and let your work do the talking is that it takes a bit of an ego, a bit of patience and the ability to finance what you are doing for a while. In a world of instant gratification these are not attributes taken as virtues. But they are the attributes of an artist; and Shared Creation is all about creatively expressing yourself.

So why was deciding between these a nobrainer? Because more sites have become legends from their content and not their backers. Because its the most effective approach for some one working on limited resources and because it makes content king. Content is everything, without it why would anyone come to you?

So whilst getting a big money backer and building a multimillion dollar site may make sense - just expressing yourself can achieve the same results - and all you have to do is what you love.

Isn’t that a no brainer?

Technorati Tags: Blog, Idealo, advertising, Field, Dreams, Create, Ego

I’m going to give you a quick introduction to UK Fan films which can be found at

http://www.ukfanfilms.com/

Running for several years now this site provides a place for fans of film making and fan productions to chat about their interest and exchange information.

I’m going spend some time in UK Fan Films and may report more in the future - in the meantime I think it is well worth a look

You can watch the latest films on our great range of dvd players and compare the prices for all of them.

In the past I’ve mentioned a lot of free software - be it freeware or open source. Most of it has been the latest thing - just out and hoping for the best, occasionally I give an update on something older and more established. Mostly this qualifies as news and goes into the magazine.

This time I have to talk about something really old. Something that has been around since the halcyon days of the Commodore Amiga.

I’m talking about POV-Ray something that since those has days evolved into a really state of the art Ray-Tracing rendering application. Its not a fancy looking 3D modelling application - but apply it to a model or carefully describe a scene with its internal programming language and some really spectacular results can be achieved.

So if you are a 3D artist take a look. It is free (as in Open Source) and could be a useful addition to your toolbox.

But here is the important project bit.

POV-Ray could do with more manpower to work on its future versions. They need writers, programmers, organisers and artists to work on not just the code but just about every aspect of bringing out an updated piece of software.

So use it or get involved - this is a great project to use or get involved in.

If you are looking for more graphics software then check out our shops and prices.

Technorati Tags: POV-Ray,Ray,Trace,Tracing,Software,Open,Source,Project,Help,Use,Amiga

I torn as to whether this should be a news post in the magazine or here in the Projects section. I figured that what I’m about to talk about only grows and exists so long as it is worked on - so its a project.

A Shared Creation group now exists on Facebook. It’s purpose is to allow Facebook members to share with each other what they are doing and to talk to each other about subjects that concern them. I’ll regularly write posts from what goes in that group so that the news can easily spread to a wider audience.

Facebook has millions of users, but news from Facebook on a website like Shared Creation can spread further - faster thanks to search engines and RSS. I think this could be a good combination - the power of social networking and the web working together to help people out.

We’ll have to see how it works out.

Technorati Tags: Collaborate, Community, Facebook, Web

We’ve been through a wet January, celebrated the start of a New Year and Christmas, and even the bruises from our November shoot have gone down.

In other words its to progress the Consumed project again in this unseasonal weather of ours. Unnatural weather seems suitable when making a zombie flick. And yes I am hoping for what is becoming our traditional working on a horror film over Easter trip.

From a producers point of view that means contacting all the Team members and arranging our first meet in over 3 months. My plan for this meet is simple - to read our script again, refresh our memories and work out when to shoot. Going over the script again is important, it needs to be fresh in the mind so that we can take the lessons learned over the pre-film shoot into the main project. It gives us the opportunity to shoot a good script in the style it deserves.

Already a good idea has emerged. That is to make a documentary of the process of creating this film. I love this idea - a no hold bars coverage of the film making put together into a documentary. It is and idea I love and I hope it gets pulled off. If you do like the video blogs don’t worry - more of these will emerge in due course.

So that is where we are - rested, with more ideas and looking forward to shooting again this year.

Plasma tvs are great for watching the latest film. Take a look at our shops today.

Something of a departure here. It’s probably not going to be what you expect.

I’d like you to take a look a Yew Tree Farm - a house renovation project; and now I can hear you cry this is Shared Creation - Not Grand Designs! Well that’s true, but this is why I want you take a look at this blog. First of all - whilst not being updated often it is very personal, in the sense that you can see that this is family working on something that is important for them. Alongside this comes another consideration. Over the years we’ve been plagued by home decorating, buying, selling and doing it up shows. They’ve almost become a parody of themselves, but there is one facet that remains true. Architecture and design are a creative process. This is where design and maths come together to create potentially long lasting creations, but not eternal ones - there is always someone with an eye to redecoration, redesign and renovation. Should we consider houses to be metamorphic art. We all expect houses to change - with the whims and needs of their owners. In fact when our friends do something cool to a house we congratulate them - so does this make houses the true peoples art? We all participate in some fashion throughout our lives.

So enjoy Yew Tree Farm - its a good project - and its given me a chance to raise a few points.

And house project means of course that you get purpose to use all the usual technological creative toys that we frequently mention in Shared Creation - its a useful place for filming, photography, writing, blogging and networking about. Working on a house can be a great muse.

Technorati Tags: article, Blog, Creation, Wales, Writing