Tthip Wrote:Are you going to be breaking out the new site on the 1st?
Good question, not entirely sure. I want to do a beta test of a couple of things first, so I might, will probably open it up to you guys for a few days first.
Then, a month later, there will be a launch of the all new, super fantastic Hip Club . . . this is going to be pretty incredible . . .
While a couple of things are still being finalized, it will be something a long the lines of Pearl Jam's Ten Club, with a few twists from the hip and a few more by Me, or, you could say I am double twisting the hip twist. . . . you'll be able to get a <!-- e --><a href="mailto:yourname@thehip.com">yourname@thehip.com</a><!-- e --> email address, for one thing, then there are the extra incredible sessions that I have recorded, at the board in Bath house, of some of the darndest music you ever heard.
then there will be the suprises - the stuff I have in store for you, the stuff the band has in store for you.
This is a pretty massive undertaking, if I do say so myself. It has been inspired and is all about and for the fans, on many diffrent levels. There is stuff that you will have to pay for, but I will tell you right here and right now, it will be worth it. There is also stuff that you won't have to pay for.
There will be something for everyone.
I've build a database and a mechanism to archive fan and band assets. . . . I call it, The Hipstory Project - I think I have settled on that name.
It's inspired by both Hip Base it self, and a visiting Professor at CCAT, which is the Canadian Centre for Arts and Technology located at the University of waterloo. His name is Phil Graham and he a brilliant, funny man. I sat on a panel with him last year, and we've been friends ever since.
He is here from Australia on a Canadian Research Grant, and his area of expertise, is the collection and storage of digital assets. In his case, he is working on a project called the digital junkyard, where unused and misc digital assets are stored, under a creative commons license for people to use.
He is also a musician and know a lot of really smart people, whom he has introduced me to. Some of them are high tech librarians. One of them, designed a program for cnn to help reporters and editor find specifi images in video. As in, descriptive video search . . . pretty complex very interesting.
So these tow folks are experts and building and designing digital libraries and I thought to myself. I can do that . . . and I did. So then I added my own twist and applied it to a rock band with a community of fans and presto, the Hipstory Project.
Lance has kindly given me access to the HIp base's data, and I am going to augment it with mine and then, release the archive to the wolves, as it were.
Now, the thing is, the archive is pretty empty. I mean I have put some things in it, but more has to go in it. I mean there are almost 20 years of stuff, we'll call it, that I want to make it's way into the mother ship. Then there is the future.
So I have built the infrastructure, have the designs done, have integrated a lot of it, have a lot of data inputed, made it searchable, have keywords and descriptions and titles for a lot of thing and dates . . . it's the dates that I am worrried about, quite frankly, as they are not all accurate and I the user has actually too many things they can do, so I have to take some of these away, at least for a while and make it more straight forward.
So, then, I decided that maybe i can open up the data to people to augment that part of it as well, and then I started seeing all the stuff that people have collected and I thought that this needed to be archived too, but in one place . . .
Anyway, so I picked my friend Phil, the Professor's brain who is a world leader, literally, in storing and organizing digital junk, as he calls it and created this thing that I am about to set loose and well, it's not quite finished and it never will be - which is part of the point I guess, so I will be releasing it, in versions . . .well, in stages we'll call it.
So this, on top of the all new, super fantastic Hip Club. It's not really called that, but I like the way it rolls off the tounge. . . so Phil has been bugging me to come a lead one of his class seminar's at UofW, for international users, UofW, is sort of like America's MIT, I guess you could say . . . so that's what I did yesturday and I spent a good chunk of time telling them about the Hip Story Project, what it was, how it worked, it's functionality etc. and so, to answer your question . . . something will go up. I'm not sure what, but know, deep in your heart, your soul, that I am making and creating, a labour of love for you, for you and for you, for all of us.
There will be a cool photo album thing. This will be interactive and has the structure to turn into something completely crazy down the road - I'll suprise ou one day. Then there is the media player, then sample's of all the songs, links to buy all the songs - for you know, new fans - all the lyrics are there, then there is a post card engine and the stuff that you would expect to find in a regular site. . . . except different, cause it's the hip and they're letting me create the ultimate band site, and they have the patience to deal with me and they see the vision and are letting me run with it . . .
Creative. I went through about ten different creative concepts until I ended up here. Personally, it's the strucutre of the site that I love. I worked with my man Ryan throughout the proces and we have a love hate relation ship, the two of us. . . so we had a lot of back and forth about a LOT of things . . . and after much compromise came to this version . the image at the top will change . . . and to wrap up this long winded mini essay, save up your Hip stories, I want them. The thing for the Whig made me choke for a second, because I've been working on this for a while now, but then I thought, awesome, I ain't a dumbass after all . . . let me know what you think.
Well, I could write about this all night but then I wouldn't get any work done . . .I'm not rereading this, so I hope it sort of makes sense and is a little bit cohesive and that the spelling is not too bad . . .
MAv.
![[Image: sitecomp.jpg]](http://www.tenplusone.com/thehip/images/sitecomp.jpg)
