After a welcome soiree at the Barbarian Group’s offices tonight, the extra large San Francisco club Mighty will take a break from the club drugs in favor of something much more addicting: the Internet. The web trends group ROFLcon (ironically named after the mid-90s chat room acronym) is anticipating a crowd of 300 for its first ROFLthing, a night of short presentations and cocktails to celebrate–well–Internet culture, of course. If Upcoming.com creator Andy Baio talking about the cult of unwilling celebrity doesn’t get you in the door, maybe “Microhumor and The State of the LOL” from I Can Has Cheezburger‘s Ben Huh will.
ROFLcon founder Tim Hwang, who spends his days working in business development for Creative Commons and blogging at the catch-all U.S. Bureau of Fabulous Bitches, says the event should “serve as a nice state of the union for where things are at and what people are talking about.” Hwang (not to be confused with the Google attention-grabbing Korean singer) started ROFLcon in 2007 with a group of friends to address the question of whether it was possible to get the entire Internet in one room simultaneously. Barring that, the annual get-togethers now draw several hundred computer scientists and social media buffs, many of whom are as interested as Hwang in how to aggregate social networks and content, or, as he says, “clean up the mess that Web 2.0 has created.” If all goes well, NYC could get their own ROFLthing this winter, followed by Toronto.
For more, visit JoshSpear.com.
This is actually Dolores Park on a Saturday, but it closely resembles the area around 18th and Dolores on a summer weekday.
After being holed up on the couch with a less than pleasant sinus infection (tiny violins), I just have to know: who are these fellow San Franciscans I see merrymaking on weekday afternoons? It’s not the Europeans on holiday in Union Square that I’m confused about (the value of the Euro is reason enough) but the coffeeshop-ing and park-going local set.
Initially I assumed I was seeing students from USF on summer vacation, but most of the people who are up and around seem older than that. Yet they seem too relaxed to be entrepreneurs, even ones with their second round of funding. The city seems to be full of upwardly mobile post-grads who, in lieu of punching the clock, find 2 PM on a Tuesday the perfect time for lunch with friends.
My roommate’s upscale boutique is closed on Mondays, and yesterday afternoon I woke up from a DayQuil haze to find a group of her friends over. Perfect! A good chance to find out who these 20 and 30-somethings are and when (if ever) they go to work. But by the chance I got up to ask, they were out the door–and en route to Ocean Beach.
One part audience engagement, one part marketing, and with a few techniques from Barack Obama’s online outreach team’s playbook thrown in, IndieGoGo could be a Godsend for independent filmmakers. After filtering by location and topic, the social marketplace invites film fans to learn more about projects currently being developed (not to mention throw a few dollars their way). Not only do films generate an early fan base before release, but the site creates a simple way for producers to know who their audiences are and the kinds of perks they’re interested in, whether it be credits in the film or visits to the set. Berkeley-based IndieGoGo opened shop earlier this year but has already helped a Polish film about a Jewish dwarf who hid in garbage cans to survive the Holocaust and a mockumentary web series about 1970s rockers achieve their fundraising goals.
Danae Ringelmann, one of three co-founders who spearheads film finance efforts, calls the network’s Do It With Others (DIWO, a collaborative approach with DIY spirit) outlook a good way to be proactive since distributors aren’t solely responsible for generating fans anymore. While people who liked a film could previously only support it by buying a physical copy, this model encourages transparency to create a more inclusive relationship between filmmakers and open source-familiar fans. Consider it mini patronage at its finest.
For more information, visit JoshSpear.com and see a video description from one of Ringelmann’s co-founders, Slava Rubin, speaking at the recent New Media Expo.
Maybe it’s just exhaustion from seeing nymph-looking males in little black hats all night at Cassanova recently, but this photo from RVCA’s film opening for the bike tricks film Council of Doom looks like it could have been anywhere. A little creativity fellow twenty-somethings? Please?
“We know you’re dying to show off your single-speed bike with gold handlebars,” reads the upcoming San Francisco Outside Lands festival information for concertgoers. Don’t be too turned off — what better way to celebrate Radiohead being the first artist to play in Golden Gate Park at night? Manu Chao, M. Ward, Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings will also be playing on August 22, 23, and 24, respectively.
The festival has a decent CrowdFire networking component where music fans (and those who would want to hear the music while holding onto their $225) can find and upload videos, audio, and blog posts. The online experience also has more information on greening the three-day experience than on its vendors — how very Bay Area.
Full coverage on JoshSpear.com.
In the midst of getting my eyelashes stuck in my open water swim goggles at triathlon practice the other day, I tried to think happy thoughts. People I care about…wine…good work…yoga…SF…
Bingo–what better way to raise money for leukemia research and the upcoming Monterey triathlon than a charity yoga class? Local all-star instructor Debbie Mobley has offered to lead a class next month and Bend Yoga is graciously donating space. Claire Williams will be assisting and giving us extra attention. Up dog? Yes please!
We’ll plan to get together for a love-filled, fun-for-all-levels vinyasa flow class.
Bend Yoga charity class for Team in Training
Saturday, August 30
4-5:30 PM
405 Arguello Blvd, #200
Celebration to follow
$20 suggested donation
Donations are tax deductible and enable life-saving research. You can also make contributions online.
Space is limited to the first 15, so please let me know if you’ll be able to attend. We can loan mats for those who don’t have them. Danke.
I’m most excited for open source social effort Workbook Project to bring their audience-selected film festival and conference to the city this weekend. First, on Friday, filmgoers are invited to use their mobile phones to select which of 22 films will be screened in the evening at Mint Plaza. On Sunday, the DIY Days summit at bar/gallery 111 Minna will tackle the ever-increasing difficulty of independent film finance and distribution. Some of my favorite people from film network IndieGoGo and production house Mekanism will be presenting, and a variety of program directors, content acquisitions gurus, and producers will be in attendance (although only one self-described Mega Professional Amateur Comic Artist has signed up so far). The August 17 program will be gratis thanks to distribution festival From Here to Awesome and Current TV. Of particular interest to Bay Area content creators are daytime panels on audience building and the blanket “craft of cross-media.”
Visit joshspear.com to see the full details.
