February 28, 2008

Danciti and Article19 Are Off the Mark in Their YouTube Criticism

Danciti and Article19 are discouraging dancers and dance companies from using YouTube. And both are critical of New York City Ballet for creating a new video channel on YouTube.

I believe that both Danciti and Article19 are way off the mark. YouTube is one of the most popular websites and their traffic far exceeds sites such as Vimeo and Blip.tv, which the two publications reference.

Here's an Alexa comparison chart of traffic rankings of YouTube, Blip.tv and Vimeo - click image to see larger version of chart:

In addition, Danciti and Article19 make no effort to explore the different types of videos that dancers create (previews, performances, instructional, interviews, rehearsals, dance-on-camera, user-generated content, etc.) for online distribution and the ways that dance videos can be used to engage Internet viewers. They simply conclude that YouTube video quality is bad and inferior, and thus not appropriate for dance.

Danciti writes:

...when you go to put your dance on the Internet, why do you degrade your hard work by using YouTube? Setting aside the campy interface, the poor encoding quality and the mono audio sampling, why do you want your videos to sit in the company of the YouTube userbase?

Article 19 compares video site Vimeo to YouTube:

...Vimeo provides you with a far superior experience to YouTube in terms of uploading and presenting your videos and for your end users in watching and perhaps interacting with your content. The range of features is better, the presentation is better and the embedding options are better. In fact, your users need never visit your Vimeo page at all to see your content.

Article 19 concludes by criticizing New York City Ballet for creating a new YouTube channel: They are "backing the wrong horse." And Danciti follows-up with:

Maybe not the wrong horse, but certainly the losing one. The appeal of YouTube for NYCB is probably the ubiquity of the site as well as the customized channel page that YouTube allows not-for-profits since it allows them to have a more professional presence on the site. But if professionalism is your concern, why even worry about a custom channel when you can embed your own videos in a custom site?

Is Internet Video Quality the Sole Deciding Factor?

Article19 and Danciti are working under the assumption that video quality is just about the only factor that matters when it comes to dance. What evidence do they have to support their contention? If you put higher quality versions of your videos on Blip.tv and Vimeo, what does that mean? Do audiences look at dance videos on YouTube and say, "The quality is inferior to other video sharing sites. As a result of the somewhat grainer feel of this video, I'm not going to buy a ticket to see this dance company." I'm obviously being sarcastic. My point is that if Article19 and Danciti are going to dissuade dancers from using YouTube, they ought to do a better job of explaining why YouTube should not be used. How does it actually hurt dance?

In addition, I've seem some decent quality videos on YouTube. Why don't we figure out what the optimal way is to encode videos for YouTube so that they look their best? Or find reference material that describes the optimal way to encode YouTube videos?

Article19 does explore how to create video for Vimeo. But they don't appear to have tested Vimeo's new high-definition video offerings. Here's the Article19 channel on Vimeo. And here's the HD video gallery on Vimeo.

Conclusion

Yes, video quality could be better on YouTube. But YouTube is a cultural phenomenon that has helped get people excited about dance. So instead of criticizing YouTube, I think that Article19 and Danciti could devote more coverage to how to use video sharing sites to further the artistic, creative, educational and marketing objectives of dancers.

I've always liked how the Anaheim Ballet uses YouTube to get people excited about ballet. Here's one of their recent videos:

Posted by Doug Fox at 10:10 AM - Permalink | Comments (14) | TrackBacks (0)

February 27, 2008

Yesterday's Internet Session at Dance/NYC

I enjoyed conducting an Internet session at Dance/NYC last night. Thanks to everyone who came, and thanks to Michelle Burkhart and Lacey Althouse for organizing and hosting this workshop.

During the first half hour of the program, I highlighted a number of websites and applications that illustrated important trends and developments for the dance community. Here's my Google doc with the sites that I demonstrated - actually, I only showed a fraction of these sites since I wanted most of the program to be spent on Q & A and discussion. (Danciti offers suggestions of additional links for my Google doc.)

Taylor was kind enough to share her thoughts about the program.

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February 25, 2008

Internet Session at Dance/NYC on Tuesday, February 26th

I'm conducting an educational session at Dance/NYC tomorrow (Tuesday, February 26th) at 6:00 PM.

This introductory technology session is just $5.00 and will take place at Dance/NYC's offices:

63 Greene Street, Ste. 605
New York, NY 10012
Google Map link

You can RSVP at the following link.

This workshop will offer a practical overview of how dancers and dance companies can use the Internet for marketing, audience development, publicity, fundraising and related topics. I'll show many examples of how dancers are using video, social networking, blogs and other applications. I'll be asking participants at the beginning of the session what specific Internet questions and interests they have so that the program addresses immediate needs of the audience.

I hope that readers in New York City area can make the program!

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February 22, 2008

I'm Now a Mac Person

I've converted!

After using Microsoft DOS/Windows for more years than I can count, I've joined the ranks of Apple Addicts.

I just bought a MacBook Pro.

And I can't imagine buying another copy of Microsoft Office. There's really no point since I can use Google's hosted applications to create documents and spreadsheets.

I'm off to explore my new life...

Posted by Doug Fox at 8:46 AM - Permalink | Comments (7) | TrackBacks (0)

February 21, 2008

Google Expands Overlay Ad Options for YouTube Videos

Two approaches are now available for monetizing YouTube videos. Both consist of overlay ads that, I think, are the least intrusive form of video advertising available.

With overlay ads, you'll see a sponsorship message added to the bottom portion of the video screen. If you're interested in the ad, you click a button and the ad takes-up the entire video frame until you wish to go back to the video you're watching. This approach to video ads makes more sense to me than pre-roll ads that I thought were so annoying that I ended-up not watching many videos.

Beet.TV has a good write-up of these new ad options along with examples.

Banner Overlay Ads

Beet.TV just uploaded a new Twyla Tharp video:

When I played this video on YouTube, I took a screen shot of the banner ad overlay that appeared a few seconds after I started watching this clip. (Anybody have thoughts about the juxtaposition of this "Be in the Fight" ad with Twyla Tharp?) :

The overlay ad did not appear when I watched the embedded video on Great Dance.

Text Overlay Ads

Beet.TV also links to an example of Google context-sensitive text ads being displayed in the bottom portion of clips. I visited the video section of Bob Vila's how-to-site. I watched a clip about fixing faucets and relevant text ads appeared in the bottom of the screen. Here's a screen shot:

Additional write-ups about YouTube's expanded overlay ad offerings are on ReadWriteWeb and NeeTeeVee.

Posted by Doug Fox at 7:18 AM - Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

February 19, 2008

Create an All Mobile Fund Raising Campaign with Streaming Video

In MobileActive.org, Katrin Verclas writes "Is mobile giving about to take off in the United States?" She points out that non-profits have been stymied in their efforts to raise donations from wireless devices because until recently telecommunication companies were taking 50% of all contributions. [via Beth's Blog]

But now, due to the efforts of Mobile Giving Foundation, SMS-based donations are about to become much more feasible. This Washington, DC-based foundation worked-out a deal between the United Way and the telecommunication carriers whereby the phone companies eliminated all fees and United Way pays 10% of wireless donations to the Mobile Giving Foundation.

The end result was that a short United Way ad ran during the Super Bowl and raised $10,000 from 2,000 contributors via text messages - see commercial that follows. (Here's a detailed write-up about the United Way Super Bowl ad and the process of making a donation).

If non-profits will get to keep 90% of the funds they raise via text message donations, clearly there is now an incentive to explore this fundraising avenue, especially when seeking contributions in small increments from younger audiences.

How Might Dance Companies Create Mobile Fundraising Campaigns?

There are many ways to create videos for promoting online fundraising campaigns. I wrote two weeks ago about choreographer Amanda Gravel's successful campaign to raise money to support breast cancer research.

But what if we wanted to go completely wireless and create a fundraising effort that was 100% mobile? What I describe below is not very practical at this point because most people cannot watch video on their mobile devices. But it is doable and will become increasingly feasible over the next few years.

Latest Developments in Mobile Video

Most YouTube videos are now viewable and uploadable from mobile devices. Boris Willis writes about being able to show his Dance-A-Day videos on a portable media player. Here's what one of Boris' YouTube video pages would look like on a mobile device:

We are also in the early stages of real-time video broadcasting from video-enabled mobile devices. Services such as QIK, LiveCastr and Flixwagon turn your mobile phone into a real-time Internet video broadcast device [via TechCrunch]

Here's a write-up by Neville Hobson on how he used QIK and a Nokia N95 8GB to do real-time video streaming at a conference. Here's the resulting clip so you can see the quality:

And Seero takes the idea of live mobile video broadcasts and combines it with geo-tagging so that broadcasters can geo-code their videos. This way, viewers can access video content that is relevant to their physical location [via Mashable]. Here's the Seero promotional clip.

Putting the Pieces Together

So how would you use these tools to raise money for a dance company, a performance or a cause?

For starters, you would need an existing network of contacts that you could reach immediately - this could be done via an email list, Facebook, YouTube or Twitter. I like Beth Kanter's post from yesterday where she shares how she used her Twitter network to generate 100 messages in 10 minutes for this Flickr photo.

With your network in place, you could then shoot and broadcast live videos. Maybe you point your phone at yourself and talk about your campaign. Maybe you broadcast a few minutes from a rehearsal. Or you broadcast live from a performance. In each case, you would need to sign-up in advance with a service that allows you to accept text-based donations. This way viewers could watch your live videos on their devices and instantly send a text message that specifies the amount of their donation.

The upcoming Seero service I mentioned above is especially interesting because it promises to combine location-specific information with the live feeds. So say you were doing a live broadcast from a rehearsal for a site-specific performance that would be performed in two-hours. Members of your network that were nearby could see a map of the location you were broadcasting from, maybe make a donation and show-up for your performance later in the day.

A piece of cake! Right? Maybe. We are likely to see many of these and similar types of experiments to find out what actually works. In the end, I think mobile devices and video streaming will be great tools for all types of dance.

Posted by Doug Fox at 8:50 AM - Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

February 18, 2008

Crowdsourcing Musicality

I'm always curious about how the collective knowledge and wisdom of the global dance community can be harnessed to provide helpful answers and new insights in to topics related to dance.

Take the concept of "musicality." How could we tap into the range and breadth of experience that dancers, choreographers, writers, instructors, historians and others have about this concept in order to educate audiences and dancers about this idea as well as to present different definitions and perspectives? How could the end result of such crowdsourcing then help new audiences to concert dance better appreciate musicality? And how could social dancers learn to enhance their sense of musicality while on the dance floor?

Posts and Message Threads About "Musicality"

Before offering some suggestions about new possibilities for crowdsourcing musicality, I'd like to link to posts, message threads, articles and videos about musicality that cover different dance forms:

- A 2002 message thread about musicality on Ballet Talk. As you'll see in the numerous messages, there are many, sometimes conflicting, definitions of the nature of musicality as it relates to concert dance.

- If you search the Tango-L Mailing List for "musicality," you'll find a large number of excellent posts (490 with the term "musicality") about what musicality is and how tango dancers can develop their own sense of musicality.

- Johanna of Tangri-la blog has just written a very thoughtful and practical four-part series about tango technique, which includes a post dedicated to musicality.

1. Technical Series Part 1 - Technique
2. Technical Series Part 2 - Rhythm
3. Technical Series Part 3 - Musicality and Musical Expression
4. Technical Series Coda - Style

- Alex of Alex.Tango.Fuego has just compiled a list of YouTube videos that show in very clear terms what is meant by musicality in Argentine Tango. Here's a video of Los Hermanos Macana dancing to Francisco Canaro's "Relíquias Porteñas":

- Don Baarns of The Unlikely Salsero wrote a new post about his teaching me how to hear the rhythm in Salsa and other social dance music. We had an excellent session last week. I think Don is a very good teacher and I particularly appreciate his very structured and incremental approach to education. (I'll update in the next couple of days the Google doc that I created to document my work with Don. Last week I wrote about my work with Don.) The second practice song we are working with is Michael McDonald's "Heard It Though the Grapevine":

- Article about musicality in ballroom dancing by Mark A. Sheldon and Didi von Deck.

- In Part 2 of "Learning the Language of Belly Dance," Shems defines the essence of musicality: "Building Sentences and Beginning to Communicate."

- "Musicality in Tango Dance" by Igor Polk.

- Maria of A Time to Dance reviews performance she saw this past weekend of Mark Morris Dance Group's Dido and Aeneas at George Mason University:

Eighty percent of the choreography was composed of movements familiar to my own vocabulary, and yet the placing, timing, phrasing, musicality, grace, control, and sensitivity of the choreography and dancers awed me more than 30 consecutive fouettes ever could.

Maria always writes in a way that connects with me - I'll get to her mention of "musicality" in next section on crowdsourcing below.

Here are two clips from DVD of Mark Morris' Dido and Aeneas:

Paths to Crowdsourcing Musicality

How can the dance community--across all dance disciplines --build upon the examples above to create a deeper, richer understanding of musicality for dancegoers and dancers?

I think that the Tango-L list is an excellent example of crowdsourcing text-based content from the global tango community. But while there are many links to videos in their messages, a systematic method has not yet been created for organizing videos that relate to a specific topics.

So if we take the subject of musicality, it would be very helpful if we could create a system that showed relationships among different tango videos that highlight various aspects of musicality. We could start by building on the posts by Alex (videos that highlight tango musicality) and Johanna (musicality and musical expression post) to create a shared repository of interconnected knowledge and insight about this topic.

This video repository might take the form of a wiki, or a visualization tool that highlighted relationships among videos. Plus, video annotation tools such as Overlay.tv and Asterpix, that I discussed in last week's post, could be used to highlight musicality in specific sections of video clips. These highlighted video sections could then include embeddable links of their own so that viewers could link to related examples.

For example, take the video above of Los Hermanos Macana dancing to Francisco Canaro's "Relíquias Porteñas." If we wanted to really nail down the concept of musicality, it would be very helpful to be able to watch five couples dancing to this same Francisco Canaro tune and have written commentary by tango dancers as well explaining what they thought were the different approaches to musicality as portrayed in these clips.

This approach to capturing shared knowledge is very powerful and significantly shortens the amount of time it takes a person to acquire specific types of knowledge and insight.

The same types of crowdsourcing can be done for dancegoers who wish to have a better understanding of musicality as it relates to dance performances that they attend.

Sometimes dance writers and critics mention musicality as Maria did in her Mark Morris review. What I would like when I come across this term in a review is access to:

1) A video that highlights one or more specific sections of a performance that are especially good illustrations of what the author means by musicality, and

2) An interconnected library of videos that highlight the musicality of the specific dance company, and relates this sense of musicality (both similarities and differences) to videos of other dancers and dance companies.

This type of linked video gallery would provide a wealth of wisdom for both newcomers to dance and experienced audience members. It would often provide insights and perspectives to dance laypeople (dance audiences that are not writers, critics, academics, researchers, etc.) who would never be able to devote sufficient time to develop a rich understanding of musicality on their own.

Posted by Doug Fox at 10:20 AM - Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

February 15, 2008

Overlay.TV, in Theory, an Intriguing Approach to Monetizing Dance Videos

Imagine that you could create and upload a dance video. While users were watching, they could click on the red shoes you're wearing and purchase them on the spot. Then, you would get a cut of the transaction each time a purchase was made.

I could see this approach to monetizing product placement in videos be appealing to some dancers--although others may feel that it's too commercial.

Overlay.TV, in public beta, is working toward implementing the above and similar scenarios. With their application, you're supposed to be able to grab a video from popular video sharing sites and add overlays to any section of a clip. Then, you can add e-commerce functionality so that viewers can then make purchases.

Unfortunately, I could not even embed a basic link into a video. I grabbed this Argentine Tango video from YouTube:

I figured that it would be a good one to experiment with since the feet were the focus and I wanted to sell the shoes off of the dancer's feet. But I just couldn't get Overlay.TV to work and I tried with Firefox and Internet Explorer.

So I'm very intrigued by this new potential revenue stream from dance videos, but it looks like Overlay.TV will need improvements before it can be used for this purpose.

Here are two blog write-ups about Overlay.TV:

- NewTeeVee: Overlay.tv Users Share Product Placement Bounty (If There Is Such a Thing)

- Mashable: Overlay.TV Lets You Cover Videos With ... Stuff

Posted by Doug Fox at 9:45 AM - Permalink | Comments (13) | TrackBacks (0)

February 13, 2008

Learning to Listen to Salsa Rhythms and Other Social Dance Music

After a bit of a false start last year, I'm back to learning how to listen to salsa music and other social dance music.

I'm working with Don Baarns of The Unlikely Salsero blog. You can read Don's post about this project and I created a public Google document that details this process and the exercises that Don has recommended. This Google doc will be updated as we continue.

As you'll read in Don's post and the Google doc, we are starting with a non-Salsa tune simply because the beat is easy to hear and will help me develop strong, consistent counting skills. It doesn't really matter at this point if we start with a Salsa song or not--even though most will be. We will also delve into Argentine Tango music later on in the process.

Not being able to hear the rhythm in Salsa music has been a real roadblock in my efforts to learn how to Salsa dance. After the progress I've made over the past week working with Don, I'm pretty confident that in 3 to 6 months I'll be able to both hear the "1" in Salsa music on a consistent basis and appreciate the music in ways that I've never been able to.

If you have suggestions of rhythm-learning resources for social dancing that I can add to the Google doc, please let me know. I've added a few links at the bottom of that document.

Much thanks to Don for sharing his advice and experiences, and for helping me to hear the rhythm!

Posted by Doug Fox at 11:00 AM - Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

February 12, 2008

Which Dance Community Has Been Most Transformed By the Internet?

As I've delved into Argentine Tango over the past six weeks, I've been wondering how different dance communities use the Internet and are impacted by the Internet.

Have some dance communities been changed to a greater extent than others as a result of online interactions, resources, education, recommendations and guidance? Or has the Internet only had a modest or limited impact on dance?

I started thinking about these questions over the past two weeks as I've delved into Argentine Tango. For the past three years, I've taken a large number of concert dance classes--mostly modern and jazz and a limited number of ballet, West African and contact improvisation classes.

I started taking Argentine Tango at the beginning of January for a number of reasons. First, I just wanted a change. Second, I've always wanted to become a good social dancer and Argentine Tango has always attracted and intrigued me. Third, my body needs a break from concert dance classes. While I like taking these classes, especially modern, they put a huge strain on my body and I can't even take them without continuing to do the exercises I was taught during physical therapy for my back and hips. So just preparing my body for modern classes is a huge investment in time. With Tango, I just go to classes and practicas and dance, and I'm healthier than I've been for awhile. It's been a lot of fun and I'm being very obsessive about it. I've been taking classes and practicing three to four times a week.

Using the Internet to Learn About Argentine Tango

Since the beginning of January, I've used the Internet extensively to learn about many facets of Tango. I think it's fair to say that I've used the Internet to a much great extent than I've ever used it to help me with modern and other concert dance classes I've taken:

Argentine Tango Instructional Videos

There are thousands of tango videos that are either intended for instructional purposes or can be used to learn tango. One of my favorites is the instructional video podcast series on iTunes, Dario's Tango Guide, from Dario Da Silva. Here's a screen shot from his guide on how to do the Grapevine (Giro):

Dario Da Silva has a blog as well. I'm going to email him and encourage him to create more instructional podcasts.

And here's the YouTube video channel for Homer Ladas. He has uploaded more than 40 tango videos to supplement his classes. He calls his series "Didactic Tango Class Demos." Here's a video dedicated to leg wraps, which he opens with an introduction to what he and his partner are about to demonstrate:

By the way, the YouTube video controls are terrible for starting and stopping video clips, which I need to do to figure out how to replicate the moves demonstrated in the video. So I use a YouTube ripper to download Flash videos. Once the video is on my hard drive, I've been using a flash video converter I already have, Flash Video MX, to watch, tag and playback YouTube videos. This software program lets me progress one frame at a time, which is something you can't do while watching video on YouTube. If you know of a better solution, please let me know. With iTunes, the video controls have everything I need to watch Dario's videos.

A Growing Group of Very Helpful Tango Bloggers

Since I've started taking tango classes, I've been reading many of the tango blogs and posting comments to them. (See my post about Tango bloggers and visit the right-hand column of Great Dance for a listing of Tango blogs).

Since yesterday, two tango bloggers were kind enough to follow-up on a question of mine about musicality and musical expression: Johanna in Tangri-la and Alex in Alex.Tango.Fuego. I very much appreciate the in-depth responses.

Tango Music Compilations

As I study Tango, I'm beginning to learn more about the music played at Milongas. So far I've found two good starting points: Guides to Tango Music for Social Dancing, which is a very extensive resource for anything and everything you want to know about tango music--this is an excellent place to begin. And the Tango Djuke Box includes a listing of neo-tango tracks (the links are to UK iTunes and not all songs are available for the US iTunes, but most are). If you know of other music resources, please let me know.

Tango Discussion List

The Tango-L Archive is a very active message board with intelligent, helpful discussions covering a variety of issues related to Tango. I started with searches for "beginner," "YouTube" and "Musicality" and the insights are simply invaluable.

Getting Back to My Opening Question

From my brief exploration of Tango over the past six weeks, I know that the Internet has been invaluable to me - both the Tangueros/Tangueras who have been kind enough to help and give me direction, and the instant access to instructional, musical and other resources. As a result, I think that I will learn more quickly about the culture, history and practices of Argentine Tango and will find the dancing itself more fulfilling. I also imagine, at some point, I'll meet and dance with the tango dancers I meet online.

When I was taking concert dance classes, it was always a struggle for me to use the Internet in a way that would help me develop as a dancer. The types of resources and direction that I was hoping to find just didn't materialize in a way that made sense for me. I really don't want this comment to be viewed as a criticism of the modern and other dance communities. I'm just trying to understand what the difference is between concert dance and social dancing as they relate to the online world. Maybe I'm more of a dancer at heart than a watcher of dance so there are certain types of interactions and content I'm looking for online. In addition, modern dance classes are very much dependent on the instructor to teach his or her method/approach and there's much less of a shared tradition or practice as there are with social dance forms.

From a broader perspective, I'm interested in trying to answer my opening question about which dance community has been transformed the most by the Internet? To answer this question, one would have to understand how the online interactions, collaborations, sharing and content distribution contribute to transforming the types of community and dancing that emerge and take place at, say, Milongas. Like other media, has the Internet brought the global tango community closer together? Are there more people going to Milongas as a result of the Internet? Are more people knowledgeable about the culture, traditions and music as a result of the web?

Then, the same and similar questions would have to be asked about other social dance as well as concert dance forms to reach an answer.

My initial answer is that overall social dance forms have probably been transformed to a greater extent than concert dance forms. I'd like to know what others think.

Posted by Doug Fox at 10:10 AM - Permalink | Comments (5) | TrackBacks (0)

February 11, 2008

How Are Dancers Using the Internet? I'm Always Looking for Stories

In terms of my blog, I think that among the most practical and helpful types of blog posts are those that provide concrete examples of how dancers and dance companies use the Internet for creative, marketing, revenue-generation, educational and other purposes.

To pick two of many examples, I especially enjoy writing stories such as:

- The Columbia Ballet Collaborative Promotes Performance on Facebook, and

- Last week's Dancer Raises Money with ChipIn, Twitter and YouTube to Fight Breast Cancer

Even though these mini-case studies don't always generate the most comments, they illustrate how one's colleagues are putting the Internet to work in practical ways.

I would like to write more of these stories, which often include short interviews. So I'd like your help and suggestions. If you have a story to share or know of stories I ought to cover, please let me know.

I'm essentially looking for examples of how dancers and dance companies are using the Internet, their website and social media tools in productive, profitable and innovative ways. Posts might relate to any of the following:

- Redesign of website and the strategy behind this effort
- Social media campaigns (social networking, video and related offerings)
- New approaches to increasing online revenue
- Using the Internet to expand audiences
- Using online tools to reach beyond traditional dance audiences
- Distributing dance in new ways via the Internet
- Developing new approaches to seeking online participation such as user-generated media
- Other uses and applications for the Internet

Thanks!!!

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February 7, 2008

Dancer Raises Money with ChipIn, Twitter and YouTube to Fight Breast Cancer

Boston-based choreographer and dancer Amanda Gravel (her Social Honeycomb blog and LinkedIn profile) conducted an online fundraising campaign last year in conjunction with a November benefit concert to raise money for the fight against breast cancer.

Amanda reached out to her friends and others by using fundraising badges, Twitter, YouTube, Flickr, blogs and other tools. Her campaign was successful and resulted in raising $988 online and a total of $1,650.

Here's her post about this fundraising drive, Flickr photos from the benefit concert, and a video clip:

Amanda was kind enough to answer my questions about her fundraising effort by email:

Can you provide some background about your fundraising efforts for the Susan G. Komen foundation?

Every year, The Dance Place, Inc. in Worcester, Massachusetts puts on a benefit concert where all the proceeds go to the Susan G. Komen foundation. Carolyn Pluff, the owner of the studio, has always been a mentor for me and provided a second home for all her dancers. She had had a stressful year, so I decided to surprise her at the November show with a secret piece and a check. Carolyn is very hard to surprise, but we pulled it off and in the process raised a lot of money for a worthy cause.

Why and how did you use ChipIn? Do you have to be a not-for-profit to use this application?

A friend in the social media space pointed me to ChipIn when I mentioned I wanted to do my own fundraising for the show. ChipIn was extremely easy to use. You sign up for the service, create your widget with a fundraising goal and then you can embed and link to your ChipIn campaign all across the Web. I think you can use the service for any type of fundraising--whether you're a fraternity that wants to raise money for a Spring Break trip or if a Girl Scout troop wants to raise money for a local animal shelter, you can create a ChipIn widget to help your endeavors.

How did you promote your fundraising effort?

I mainly usedTwitter to promote my fundraiser. I asked my Twitter friends to donate and to spread the word, and the response was overwhelming. I used my blog, Social Honeycomb, and YouTube to show my video and the ChipIn widget as well. Social media friends like Chris Brogan, Beth Kanter, Laura Fitton and Kyle Flaherty all posted about me and encouraged others to join in.

Did everybody pay who committed to paying? Or, the financial transaction happens on the spot? Do you first get the donations and give to your cause or does money go directly to the cause you're supporting?

The payment is through PayPal, so it's virtually immediate. The money went into my personal PayPal account and on the day of the show I wrote a check to Susan G. Komen.

What advice do you have for dancers/dance companies who want to raise money online for their upcoming performances, their outreach efforts or causes that they support?

Be sincere in your efforts. Tell a story and give people a reason to donate. Make people feel that they are part of something bigger than just handing you $10 or clicking a widget on their computer. There are so many channels and communities you can tap into as long as you are authentic and sincere in your interactions. Twitter, YouTube, Ning communities, blogs...people are out there on the Web and if you establish relationships now, you'll have a strong network of supporters in place for the time when you want to raise money, volunteers or awareness.

Posted by Doug Fox at 10:20 AM - Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

February 6, 2008

Internet Dance Videos Ought to Be Very, Very Long

When you talk to people about how long web videos ought to be, most will say they should be about 3-5 minutes. At this length, viewers will pay attention long enough to actually watch the entire clip.

But is this really a valid premise when it comes to dance videos?

I doubt it.

I think a good starting point is to figure out how new types of helpful and interesting dance videos can be created for the Internet that will better enable viewers to relate to, connect with, experience and learn about dance in new ways.

So here's one very specific example of what I'm getting at--one based on my emerging obsession with Argentine Tango.

The "walk" is the most important foundation block of tango. I would be delighted to come across a long video, maybe 30 to 60 minutes in length, that demonstrated and described how to walk. I'd like to see examples of both leaders and followers walking, each shot from multiple angles. I'd like to see the instructors demonstrate different styles of walking to various genres of tango music. I'd like to get lots of tips about balance and the changing of weight from one leg to the other. I'd like advice about how to develop one's own walking style. And, finally, I'd like to be given exercises so I can practice my walk for the next year.

The problem with tango classes is that there is just not enough time for this extended focus on walking. The beauty of video is that instructors can delve into the challenges and possibilities of walking for a large online audience of tango dancers around the world who would appreciate this type of focused guidance.

The video still has to be interesting and well made to capture the attention of viewers. But starting with the premise that videos have to be short may not be a good point of departure.

Posted by Doug Fox at 11:27 AM - Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

February 4, 2008

Videoblog from Prix de Lausanne Ballet Competition

The Prix de Lausanne has a videoblog for their ballet competition that ended in Switzerland this past weekend. The blog features interviews and excerpts of the participants including this one of Jade-Ashley from Australia:

They've posted a large collection of videos over the past few days, which you can also access from the dance competition's YouTube channel.

[via Susan Kim on The Winger]

Posted by Doug Fox at 7:02 AM - Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

February 1, 2008

Search 200 Dance Blogs and Additional Ways to Track the Dance Blogosphere

I'm finishing-up the creation and updating of tools for tracking and searching the growing number of dance blogs.

Here's an update:

- You can search 200+ dance blogs on the following page. I created this customized search engine with Google Co-op.

- I continue to add new dance blogs to comprehensive blogroll in right-hand column of Great Dance home page.

- I've updated the OPML file that includes the RSS feed information for all dance blogs I'm tracking. You can download this OPML file and then import it into your favorite feed reader software program. For example, if you use Google Reader, you can import this file directly into this application and immediately start following the latest posts from all dance blogs.

- Much thanks to those who have added their comments to my recent post "Open Thread: Write About Your Dance Blog." If you have a dance blog, I'd like to invite you to add your comment about the focus of your blog and what you believe to be the benefits of blogging.

- Blog feeds can be tracked and aggregated in many different ways. Here's a public page I created on Page Flakes that tracks Argentine Tango blogs. In addition, you'll see that I've added "Flakes" to monitor the latest "Argentine Tango" videos from popular video sites. A public home page would be an ideal way to display your own dance videos, pictures, favorite songs, upcoming performances and classes, and profiles from Facebook and Myspace - all in a centralized location.

Posted by Doug Fox at 9:10 AM - Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)