Boston Media Makers, Meeting Notes, September 7, 2008

Pierre-Loic Assayag, who I know from the old Viant days (at one point we both worked for this digital business consulting firms that rose and fell during the era of irrational exuberance) is now working on Traackr, a fascinating start-up which tracks and compiles social media data and produces a set of performance indexes around popularity, buzz and reach, for users to get a sense of their own performance in their community of interest, and for marketers to find the users they ought to talk to. If you’re an influencer in the top percentiles of your niche, Traackr will help you get seen. They gather performance information on people and qualify them in their specific niches/communities. While traditional marketing is becoming less effective among the wired generations, alternative marketing is tapping into interesting activity outside the mainstream. Traaker is among start-ups addressing this new opportunity, they can help businesses find the people that contribute to their brand and influence customers in ways that traditional marketing can’t.

Anna Pinker works for a multimedia production company producing museum exhibits and blogs at stillindie.com which is building an interesting collection of posts of interest to independent filmmakers.

Julie Donnelly is a journalist with eight years of experience in radio and television, mostly with public and international broadcasters. She hopes to transition to a public affairs or media relations role. She is trying to learn as much as she can about new media and interested in fun video and audio projects. On Twitter she’s djcitymaus and she’s also can be found on LinkedIn and Facebook.

Steve Garfield is now teaching at Boston University and did a recent blog post on trying to mail in his Boston Absentee Ballot that got quite a few hits after he submitted it to CNN iReports. It’s quite a story. Check it out.

Steve mentioned that Bre Pettis has a new show pilot for the History Channel called History Hacker. Looks pretty cool (there’s a trailer on his site at the moment).

Yours truly mentioned that DIY DAYS is coming to Boston. How do independent filmmakers sustain themselves as filmmakers in this day of shifting film distribution systems? How do filmmakers monetize their work and get the word out without mainstream distributor support? DIY DAYS aims to answer these questions with a day of panels, roundtable discussions and workshops. DIY DAYS will be held in Boston on Saturday, October 4th, along with a screenings of From Here to Awesome films the night before on Friday, October 3rd. Both events take place at MassArt.

We’re looking for suggestions and/or volunteer presenters for upcoming Media Tech Tonic sessions, this is a series of monthly demos/seminars on media technology topics for media makers and artists held the third Wednesday of each month at MassArt which allows us to go into more depth on a specific topic than we can during Boston Media Maker meetings.

John Herman is a web video producer, artist, and teacher. He talked about the various web serial productions that he is working on. First looks at ‘Odd Noggin’ and ‘Thomas in Wonkyland’ are on his blog. He is also working a second season of interactive web series Gravityland and the energy conservation reality show EnergySmackdown. Apart from his web video work, he asked for support in promoting an exciting bipartisan grassroots Voter Registration Night that his brother Justin Herman is hosting at the Washington Nationals Stadium. Also John is the host of New Hampshire Media Makers and invites everyone to attend.

Chris Herot (blog | twitter) is an entrepreneur, consultant, working in the digital media space, video conferencing, digital video, digital music, etc. who is currently in the process of starting a company, something in the area of digital media, television, and the internet. He’s looking for creative people to collaborate with.

Jennifer Goodwin runs InternetGIRLfriday.com, a group of virtual assistants that will do your work (administrative, bookkeeping, marketing, websites, shopping carts, project management etc.) so you can have your free time back to do whatever you want with it. They can provide administrative assistants, graphic & web designers, bookkeepers, travel/event planners, marketing & PR gurus, receptionists, computer organizers, lead generators and partners of many business vendors. For freelancers and growing entrepreneurs, just-in-time personnel can help you remain small and nimble as you compete with “the big guys” delivering better quality and lower cost with more efficient resource allocation.

Matt Searles makes ultra modern super awesomeness type experimental electronic music. He also blogs on philosophy, archetypal psychology, comparative myth, music production, composition, aesthetics, new media, guaranteed to creep out a few of your brain cells, as I can attest after listening myself several times. You can keep up with him on Twitter too: mattsearles. Some people are x-axis or y-axis off center, but Matt is z-axis off center (that’s a good thing).

David DeBlaiso (dm Design started doing graphic design, moved to web design, 3D rendering, store redesign, hands-on work with owners, he’s now working at APC as a production designer, he’s interested in where television and the web is going. He suggested that MosaicGlobe is a good place for artists to place their portfolio sites with multiple pages, galleries, blogs, audio, and more.

Sean O’Connor is a filmmaker who made a short mockumentary which is in the festival circuit and is now in the process of writing a feature length feature, he wants to discuss issues of independent filmmaking, DVD release, and alternative distribution. He also wants to get his hands on a Red. So do I, but I’m actually waiting for the Scarlet which I think will be as significant to documentaries today as was the Eclair NPR forty years ago.

Cort Johnson is co-founder of goSwoop, a site that helps international students accomplish their education goals to study in the United States. The site started in Madrid and moved to Boston and now most of the team lives Dhaka. The site seeks to connect international students to students and institutions here and to talk with admissions counsellors, etc. They just launched a newsletter/podcast series, interviewing college counsellors, high school counsellors, and getting this information to interested to students around the world. They are interested in learning how they can get their word out more effectively to students.