Build It and They Will Come?
It's official.
The next installment of Departures will be built on a completely different model. It's going to open up and spill all its guts out, allowing people to search, comment, annotate and share.
I just got back from New York after two long days working with the team at Six Apart - makers of the Movable Type platform on which KCET Local is built, and the developers who will be working on Departures: Venice. I think we have come up with an strategy that will make Departures both a robust online destination and a thriving community.
Among other things, the new Departures will allow users to:
- walk through their favorite neighborhood
- add their own stories and photos
- contribute to a collective narrative of the city
- discuss videos with friends and families
- learn how to produce their own walkthrough the 'hood in an educational "sandbox"
Am I excited? You bet. It was frustrating to produce almost six hours of content for Departures L.A. River and have all of it trapped in an elegant and beautiful - yet completely closed - Flash movie.
Community, aesthetics and pragmatism will coexist in our new Departures and you will be at the center of it.
