Final Assignment: Digital Distribution

            To better reach my target audience of college-age students, I plan on submitting my digital media production to the Calumet Theatre homepage so they can upload it to the Club Indigo page.  Because my medium choice depends on audience interest in the club, adding an informational PowerPoint to the main page will help me reach my audience and inform them about Club Indigo while stimulating further interest in going to a movie and dinner event.  By making sure the PowerPoint functions off of the Club Indigo home site, I feel that the interaction between my audience and my presentation will help achieve a Web 2.0 method of sharing the information in the digital realm.

            To better understand how my audience will interact with my presentation, it is important to understand just what components of Web 2.0 will be important to the PowerPoint and potential viewers.  By putting the presentation online as a link to the PowerPoint, I am giving the audience the opportunity to learn more about the club through a digital medium.  According to the Boyd article, one of the four main goals of Web 2.0 is stimulation, which is also a main factor in my decision to have the theatre host my presentation (Boyd).  A stimulated audience is an interested audience, and an interested audience will be far more likely to attend a club event than those who are uninformed.  The other benefit to having my PowerPoint on the Calumet Theatre homepage is it will help the theatre get attention by the amount of traffic that looks for the page or presentation through a search engine like Google or Bing (Wallace).  An increase in site traffic for the theatre not only helps the odds of my presentation being seen by my target audience, but also helps Calumet Theatre generate revenue it can then use for advertisements of its own, furthering the Web 2.0 network of interactivity among members.

            For other aspects of Web 2.0, I can see a forum developing for the theatre page so they can vote on future meals/movies or create a review section so new member can get a better understanding of how the club functions and what themes they would like to try and attend.  This collective intelligence is the main point Tim O’Reilly was making in the article we read about what Web 2.0 is and how it functions as an “upgrade” of the internet used years ago (O’Reilly).  Even if the forum is a simple discussion or wiki, the benefit to having an interactive community of Club Indigo patrons would be a great way for members to share stories and show their friends all that they are missing out on (Wikipedia).  For members to have a say and learn about the club before attending is similar to the theory in the Wright article on Wired.com that states Web 2.0 members now learn by doing rather than reading (Wright).  An open-source forum could also help the Calumet Theatre start their own message boards or forum links that could be used in junction to help promote the events that are coming up or require input before performance time.

            By focusing on the key aspects of Web 2.0 as they relate to audience interaction, uploading my PowerPoint for Club Indigo to the Calumet Theatre home site would help promote the site and attract the intended audience.  Introduction of interactivity with the media is a great way to get people interested in a topic, so it only makes sense that my audience should have a way of viewing and promoting my advertisement in their own ways.  Every person who views the PowerPoint and visits the Club Indigo site is one more potential patron, which has been my goal since beginning my digital media production.

Sources

Boyd, Danah. "Streams of Content, Limited Attention." Danah. N.p., 17 2009. Web. 13 Dec 2012. <http://www.danah.org/papers/talks/Web2Expo.html>.

O'Reilly, Tim. "What is Web 2.0." O'Reilly. O'Reilly, 30 2005. Web. 13 Dec 2012. <http://oreilly.com/pub/a/web2/archive/what-is-web-20.html?page=1>.

"Internet Forum." Wikipedia. Wikipedia, 13 2012. Web. 13 Dec 2012.

Wallace, David. "Web 2.0 Technologies and Search Visibility." Search Engine Watch. N.p., 18 2006. Web. 13 Dec 2012. <http://searchenginewatch.com/article/2066711/Web-2.0-Technologies-and-Search-Visibility>.

Wright, Will. "Dream Machines." Wired. 20006: n. page. Web. 16 Dec. 2012. <http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/14.04/wright.html>.