How Just Talking About Your Creative Experiments Can Help Them Succeed

from the getting-the-word-out dept

Thu, Nov 10th 2011 3:10pm — Mike Masnick

You may recall that, last week, we wrote a short post about Kevin Clark's discussion of his Cucumbers & Gin project, which was a music video of an original classical composition by Clark, played on violin. What we thought was interesting about that was that Clark argued that even though the project had not made money directly, it was a success in many non-monetary ways. After we posted that, the story got picked up in a few different places, including actress Felicia Day tweeting about it. Clark has come back to note that just talking about his project on Step2 seems to have made the project itself much more successful:

As a result of posting here the project got a positive mention on Alarm Will Sound's facebook page for the Noteflight integration (I've worked with them on a commission project for Ken Ueno in the past), Mike Masnick (hi there!) wrote us up on Techdirt, which then got tweeted by Felicia Day, and blogged about by Minnesota Public Radio.

It's been fun to watch the viewcount on the video and my own site traffic over the last few days. I've been keeping the crew from the film up to date on the spike and it's been really great for them to see this day's work from last April paying off in some not insignificant internet outlets.

We can't promise that Felicia Day and Minnesota Public Radio will take notice of your project if you post about it over at Step2, but apparently it doesn't hurt your chances...

Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.

Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.

While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.

–The Techdirt Team

Filed Under: business models, case studies, kevin clark, success

9 Comments

If you liked this post, you may also be interested in...

Reader Comments

Subscribe: RSS

View by: Time | Thread

out_of_the_blue, 10 Nov 2011 @ 4:11pm

Great! Now somebody scrape together a $100M...
so you can prove Mike's movie example from his "can't compete" piece.

By the way, WHAT clever 'dirty won the ten thousand in the Step2 video contest? Looked for that the other day, but didn't seem to be on the front page...

(Trying to post again when got blank page in response...)
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Killercool (profile), 10 Nov 2011 @ 4:32pm

Re: Great! Now somebody scrape together a $100M...
... I usually understand what you are saying, even if I (vehemently) disagree with you.

This time, I just don't know what you're talking about in the first part of your comment.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
PaulT (profile), 10 Nov 2011 @ 11:11pm

Re: Great! Now somebody scrape together a $100M...
Why are you obsessed with the $100 million figure? Even accounting for inflation, most of my favourite movies cost less than that. None of my favourite books or albums cost anything like that.

"WHAT clever 'dirty won the ten thousand in the Step2 video contest? "

Has someone won it yet? These things usually take a couple of weeks to judge after the closing date.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Anonymous Coward, 11 Nov 2011 @ 3:31am

"We can't promise that Felicia Day and Minnesota Public Radio will take notice of your project if you post about it over at Step2, but apparently it doesn't hurt your chances..."

Talk about desperation. Mike, come on. Outside of you own posts, Step2 is effectively dead. Give it up already.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Anonymous Coward, 11 Nov 2011 @ 4:08am

Re:
Let me also add that this story appeared "out of order", and makes me think that you are posting them away from the top story to avoid people looking at them. You might link here later and say "we have already shown you that...", but most people will never have seen the original story, because it was never at the top of the page.

WTG!
[ link to this | view in thread ]
PaulT (profile), 11 Nov 2011 @ 4:16am

Re:
If it's so irrelevant, why can't you stop talking about it?
[ link to this | view in thread ]
PaulT (profile), 11 Nov 2011 @ 4:20am

Re: Re:
"most people will never have seen the original story, because it was never at the top of the page"

Is your scroll button broken? Your RSS feed? All the stories appear fine in my browser and RSS reader, and I'm capable of scrolling down to see any stories I missed since my last visit.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
The Groove Tiger (profile), 11 Nov 2011 @ 6:25am

Re: Re: Great! Now somebody scrape together a $100M...
He's just butthurt that Waterworld wasn't a critical success.

I suppose that's where he derives his name from.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
PaulT (profile), 11 Nov 2011 @ 7:16am

Re: Re: Re: Great! Now somebody scrape together a $100M...
That would be funny. While Waterworld wasn't anywhere near as much of a commercial failure as it was a critical failure, it certainly didn't make back its budget on its theatrical run. In fact, most big-budget movies have such high advertising costs that they often don't make back their production budget until the secondary markets kick in (if ever, according to Hollywood accounting).

By his logic, that means that the theatrical model doesn't work. I suppose we should scrap them because studios can't depend on them for 100% of their revenue...
[ link to this | view in thread ]