Crowdsourcing

My first real experience with crowdsourcing was last year for my 495 film. During talks about making plans for funding our short student film the use of Indiegogo and Kickstarter were brought up. Both Indiegogo and Kickstarter are crowdsourcing websites where you are able to set up pages for whatever your project is and they crowdfund.

We chose to do a Indiegogo and for the most part it was very effective. We set a goal for what we were wanting to raise and we reached our goal. However, the main reason this worked is because we got funding from our close family and friends as opposed to random people and a real "crowd." That idea really only seems to work if there is already a "crowd" in place, like with the Veronica Mars movie. Since there was already a big show following it was much easier for them to get funding than it was for a small film like ours, which had no guarantee as to what the funding would get them.

The Wikipedia concept I think is incredibly interesting. I like the idea of using so many minds to form something. It seems to be so true that two minds are better than one (thoughtful minds, that is). It is interesting how many people want to have a voice on things like Wikipedia and how important it is to take advantage of crowdsourcing opportunities.

I really do like the idea of crowdsourcing. Even with the frames that we are making for class, i love seeing all the of the work that everyone else has done. It is so interesting to see how each individual sees similar figures so differently. Crowdsourcing really manifests itself well in the creative community because each person has such different creativity!

Media Fast

So I finished the media fast on friday. I decided to do the 3 days that we ended up having off from school because of the snow. I think this might have made it a bit easier in some aspects and a lot harder in others. Firstly being: all I wanted to do was lay in bed and watch movies on the snow days. As an alternative I read a lot during this period. It also forced me to do other things like clean my room (which it was in desperate need of), do laundry, start on homework early and even get some writing accomplished. I did go out to the beach bars Thursday night which was an interesting experience. I was with a group of friends and I couldn't help but notice that they spent an absurd amount of time on their phones. At the bar it was a welcome relief to hear some music! It was definitely really hard trying to stay off my phone. It is like an impulse to check it all the time, even when nothing has happened on it. Another thing i found very difficult was driving in a silent car. Luckily I only drove one day of my fast. It honestly made me feel a bit insane. I found it became harder and harder to shut my brain off and it was almost exhausting to never have the relief of a media distraction. Silence did present a lot of insight and creativity in my writing and also just about my life. I was able to give my full attention to challenges I was presented with, whether I liked it or not. I was definitely glad for it to be over though. I like movies/tv too much, I like music too much, and I was happy to get it all back.