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Proposal from knightcontest.com

Interactive Narratives 2.0 ((http://interactivenarratives.org/) )

Primary Contact Name

Mr. Andrew DeVigal

Describe your project

I launched Interactive Narratives back in July 2003. It began as personal bookmarking system where I can keep track of multimedia packages as I lectured and conducted workshops at The Poynter Institute and around the country. I quickly discovered that such a database had widespread usefulness and appeal. Common feedback from folks throughout the industry was that they felt isolated during their multimedia reporting and editing process. Times have changed. A bit. There are certainly more journalists and other storytellers out there with the passion to tell their narratives in multimedia. But there's also a lot of data smog that clog up the ability to see what's great and how we can learn from each other. Today's web 2.0 universe empowers the users to help create social networks and connect with each other. But there's still the need to distinguish the powerful and insightful stories. Time is too short to sift through the YouTubes of the world. In comes Interactive Narratives 2.0. (IN2.0) My goal is to turn Interactive Narratives into a truly community-based site through direct user engagement, user entries into the database, ratings systems and comments. In addition, new features will allow multimedia storytellers to connect directly with each other to share, explore, inspire and, potentially, collaborate. And back-end goal is not to re-invent the web 2.0 wheel but to develop a steering wheel so the community can help guide and lead the way to effective storytelling and narratives. I'd like to take the current website of Interactive Narratives and make it into a truly social network website for telling interactive stories on the web from both professional and citizen journalists alike. The documents attached are the project plans, wireframes and visual mockups we have already started to make this update to the site. I should also note that the Online News Association has agreed to pay $10,000 to help fund a portion of this plan.

Primary Contact Email

Organization or Business Name

Interactive Narratives

Who would want to use it and why?

Multimedia journalists, citizen journalists or anyone with an interactive story to share would be able to put up content or links to be reviewed by their peers and community. The community of interactive storytellers is relatively insular developing their packages often times alone or in a much smaller shop. IN2.0 will bridge these gaps. The success through these connections is to help each other in developing even stronger and powerful stories through collaborative reporting, editing and producing. Photographers will connect with like minded editors. Producers will find interactive developers with the same passion. Visual designers will align with similar database thinkers. And so on as storytellers across many backgrounds are collaborating beyond geographic or, for that matter, specialty limits.

Why are you the best person or organization to develop this project?

nteractive Narratives has the best database for this type off material out there. A community that contributes to this knowledge base would only make it better. And I would also argue that I am not the best person to develop this project even further. I’ve done as much as I can do at this point. I see the community as the best organization that can develop this project to the next level. This proposal would just allow me to put the right folks in play to allow the Open Source community make it the site it should be…a community for multimedia storytellers.

U.S. State

NY

Country

United States

What potentially bigger thing might happen if everything went perfectly and the stars all aligned?

The big picture of this project is to surface the stories that may not have the distribution level of major news organizations. This can be achieved beyond the ability to raise the awareness of stories through its rating and user-commenting system. But if the stars were all aligned, an over-arching work flow as a result of the collaboration inside IN2.0 comes from two storytellers from distinct backgrounds come together to tell a multimedia narrative that maybe not have been possible be before. To be more specific, there's this scenario between two typical IN2.0 persona: Freelance photographer, Justin Light, has been covering the continued atrocities happening inside a specific orphanage in Vietnam. But the sounds can add another depth to his narrative. He has an audio recorder but he's otherwise ill-equipped to edit and piece the story together. He also feels that his time is better served by reporting on the stories. Juggling too much might jeopardize his ability to capture the right moments. Justin has been a fan of IN2.0. He's created a community of his own. He's been inspired from the work linked to from the site. Through one of his communities, Justin connected with a multimedia producer, Laura Web. Laura is a New York based freelance producer who's done work with other photographers. Through Interactive Narratives, Justin posted his editing and production needs and described his story he's been reporting from in Vietnam. Laura, who speaks a little Vietnamese and has enjoyed frequent visits to the land, was drawn to Justin's pitch. They connect, agree on an arrangement and set expectations. Production is done mostly over the Internet with a few raw materials shipped. Collaboration ensues. From there, the distribution sky is the limit. Ultimately, this powerful and moving package is again linked to from Interactive Narratives. The community is moved. Another generation of interactive storytellers is inspired and connect to tell those untold stories.

How will you be able to measure whether or not your project has really made a difference?

The yardstick measuring the difference would be the quality of exchanges on the site. I think the site would have made a difference if the conversations lead to rich learning opportunities, point to amazing interactive work that may not have been widely spread before and if the stories produced are from connections made through the site. This can all be discovered through the exchanges on Interactive Narratives 2.0.

Requested amount from Knight News Challenge

$100000

What unmet need does your proposal answer?

IN2.0 will truly be gathering place for multimedia storytellers. It's not a place for just professionals but also freelancers, students and citizen journalists telling stories in interactive narratives. The site will go beyond the critiques. The site will go beyond collecting the blog postings into one space. To recite the answer to question #6, this site will gather those storytellers that care of the high-standards of their narratives. There is no other place on the web that has truly brought together the doers of multimedia storytelling and inspire collaboration. And no other site is taking the challenge of pushing those messages across other social networks out there.

Total cost of project, including all sources of funding

$110000

What specific, unique opportunity do you see that will make this project more successful than others trying to fill that general

Interactive Narratives, in many ways, already has a built-in audience from the last 3 years. It also has a built-in database of resources and interactive stories that the bloggers is now only catching up to. And it has a rich historical perspective of where we've been. The goal isn't to replicate the conversation happening in the blogosphere but rather enhance it as well as surfacing the voices of the individuals in the crowd. The co-branding with ONA will also allow us to maintain the focus on journalism and yet open it all forms of storytelling. In addition, another distinctive approach to Interactive Narratives is the brevity of the general message. There are times when brevity key and when the message is told in short form. Multimedia storytellers, as with many journalists, are busy. Many need to re-learn a craft, explore new opportunities to tell a story and be inspired from discussion. But it's also very important to focus on the story gathering process. Hence, most folks I know appreciate the brevity of a message. Messages in the critique portion of the site will be kept to 300 words or less.

Expected amount of time to complete project (in whole years):

1years

How will people learn about what you are doing?

We're planning to launch the site with ONA so the built-in audience will allow us to get the word out with the new functionality of the site and the redesign. Also, this proposal includes Facebook app development that will allow us to tap into the audience of the multimedia and storytelling community within that space. In addition, we plan on building out widgets for iGoogle as well as NetVibes to allow for portable tools to help engage our users beyond the site. Obviously the richness of the database and the catalog of rich interactive narratives will keep our users coming back for inspiration and engagement. The collaboration aspect will fill the need of exchanging ideas and projects throughout the site. Multimedia journalists, citizen journalists, students or anyone with an interactive story to share would be able to put up content or links to be reviewed by their peers and community. The community of interactive storytellers is relatively insular developing their packages often times alone or in a much smaller shop. Developing a true community where we can learn from each other would only make our stories even more compelling and engaging.

Do you have any other funding or investment? We’re interested in knowing who else is interested in your project.

ONA has given us a $10,000 supporting grant to help us do the initial redesign of the site. This will allow pay for a couple of developers to help with restructuring the user interface as well as enhance some of the user profiles and logins functionality. The proposal will cover the intended develop with social network hooks, staffing to ensure the quality of contributions and initial dialogue within the space. The Poynter Institute has expressed interest in using our IN2.0 API feed to display and interact within Poynter.org. NetVibes is prepared in helping us create a NetVibes Universe specially for Interactive Narratives.

Are you working with anyone else to complete this project? If so, please give names and what they would do?

The initial development team is currently working on the visual design phase of the redesign of Interactive Narratives 2.0. This initial team includes a programmer, designer and developer. Our PHP/MySQL programmer, Ervic Aquino, has been with this project since the original concept in 2003. Ervic developed the original database and has since maintained the upkeep of the site through his servers, all in-kind. My brother and previous-business partner from DeVigal Design, is re-designing the visual look. And a CSS mark-up developer, Jason Speck, will be translating the visual mock-ups to web specifications. During the next phase of Interactive Narratives 2.0, or 2.1 to be exact, I've asked a few advising folks to come on board to help in the new direction of the interactivity. The advising board include Keith Jenkins of the Washington Post, Joe Weiss of SoundSlides and Regina McCombs of the Star Tribune. They will help determine the direction and useful of certain functionalities to the site. The site announced the redesign about a week and have already over 100 folks signed up as early beta-testers. The who's who on this list that will tremendously contribute to the guidance phase include Richard Koci Hernandez from The San Jose Mercury News, Seth Gitner from Roanoke Times, Mindy McAdams of University of Florida, John Poole of NPR and Rex Sorgatz of Fimoculous. Additional team members have yet to be named if this proposal goes through. But known requirements would include a quality assurance moderator, widget developers (facebook, netvibes, firefox extensions) and back-end developers that enhance the user experience and improve some of the functionality.

Who else is working in this area? How does your work fit into the larger context of work in this area?

There are certainly several voices in this space "talking" about multimedia or other aspects of interactivity and photojournalism. Blog sites and blogging tools have certainly empowered several people to step on their soap-boxes and express their ideas and critiques. That's a good thing. Mindy, Koci and Angela have their blogs. Panoramist Gary O'Brien just launched his blog this week. (Links to these sites below). Other sites maintain a message boards of sorts that focus on photojournalism or the tools of video cameras. All of these voices are great for the conversation. And Interactive Narratives 2.0 by no means is to replace these. But rather, IN2.0, hopes to add their voices to the community of professional and citizen journalism who care about the democratic society and to help in the discussion of telling compelling stories and maintaining the high-standards of journalism. IN2.0 would be a gathering place for storytellers to find inspiration, resources and opportunities for collaboration. Interactive Narratives...where storytellers unite.

What do you guarantee will happen if you complete the activities in this proposal?

I will guarantee that a team will be in place to develop and continue to maintain a site for continued engagement with the community. I will guarantee that the initial development team will take the site from a catalog of inspiring multimedia packages to a site for learning, engagement and collaboration. The initial team is made up of a visual web-designer, a CSS-markup interactive artist and a PHP/MySQL developer. This specific team is already in play. This proposal will help continue the initial team development as well secure the assistance of OpenSocial, widgets and 3rd-party applications development. The proposal will also include a moderator that will maintain the high level of quality to the site for the initial 18-month period. LAST NOTE: I submitted files in my initial proposal. I'm attaching three new files which are the current visual mockups to the redesign. If you need me to reattach the previous files, please do let me know. Thank you.