New Online Hangouts
I've been busy investigating and participating in three interesting and new interactive communities recently, including:
- Zoetrope Virtual Studios - Zoetrope is the name for the production company, studio, and various other interests of the Coppola family, including all of their films (most recently, Lost in Translation, directed by Sofia Coppola, which is quite interesting and worthy of seeing). They also have a magazine, Zoetrope All-Story, which I have submitted stories to in the past. While doing some market research one day, I stumbled upon their Virtual Studio, a place where writers, actors, directors, and musicmakers gather together to comment on each other's work and share industry knowledge. The place is big and sprawling, covering almost every aspect of media, and there's a fair amount of people new to the game taking part, but there's also a real feeling of camaraderie that I haven't seen since graduating. I'm reviewing and submitting stories for review there as a spur to get more focused on my writing (something I often have trouble doing between the normal job and my leisure interests). I'm happy with it so far.
- Tribe.net - Tribe is the latest incarnation of those Web sites that try to assist networking, which if you really look at it, probably started as early as the Internet allowed people to define subject headers. It's still a startup, but it seems to combine some of the more positive aspects of Craigslist and Yahoo! groups, enabling both discussion and exchange. There's not that many people on it yet, but it will be interesting to see how it grows.
- Game Neverending - I had signed up for the beta of this multi-user dungeon social experiment over a year ago, so it was quite a surprise to receive the invitation to come join earlier this week. The actual game part has not begun yet (there was an earlier version, called the "prototype" that is now making way for the "beta," and then "the real game" will be introduced next year), but people are gathering now, forming groups and connections, in anticipation of the beta opening. There's really not much to see there yet, but the enthusiasm of the pioneers (from the "prototype") and the professionalism of the software itself (which runs in Flash, so is non-browser, non-operating system specific) is impressive. I'm looking forward to seeing what this turns into.
If you're involved in any of these, please drop me a line (I'm registered as "Mister Write" for GNE) so that I can expand my networks.
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