Why this project is so important for the Arts
I think that Nathalie and I are coming to a shocking revelation, maybe a convergence of concepts exposed by this technology suite, ideas once connected, once loosely defined, but coming together in all of its profundity. It has been more than two years since Nathalie and I conceived, dissected and documented over an inspiring few days at the highest level beautiful and pure vision for what this approach would mean, could mean to the arts industry, the reason we gave up so much of our time and every dime of resources to codify. To make it real, the rest depending on divine providence, timing and word of mouth.
Well, we dug so hard into the details of making industry contacts, Nathalie is the connection queen in the Arts because she is such a pure artist, programming 800 plus functions across seven portals representing the inter-ralated business types in one grand data model and economy. Add in the customized Telligent CS social nettwork, and a secure video streaming server. People thought we were nuts. Well the point is that all of the details and nuances of such an endeavor took us away from those days of almost emotional intensity of the vision, like at the beginning. And, we needed to remain low key, below the radar in a way, so we could not shout it from the mountaintops, but we wanted to. Especially hard on Nathalie, who had to walk a fine line in the public while I stared at a computer.
Now the phase one development phase is nearing its end. We have a WORKING system that creates the interactions and monetary business functions neccessary to power great improvement, fluidity and revenue from digital HD content. We have successfully codified what we envisioned, and the right contacts and industry support are starting to fall into place. Our focus NOW can start in earnest as we approach launch, start the buzz. Buzz about what? The vision that inspired this whole project is now is returning to us, but now the means is here with it, reality has come home.. It's a whole new world and now that we just might reach that grand vision, we are humbled by its enormity, honored to have this possibility for the good of many arts professionals, and it does scare the ... out of us a bit, as rightfully it should.
Ultimate success is less about the money and more about getting the word out, en-mass, for the good of the arts and humanity. It's going to take alot of good people, fellow believers, participants and benefactors, friends we have yet to meet. Our world of performing and visual arts is suffering, companies are cutting back or closing down, travel budgets have been slashed, many performing artists can barely tweek a living and dare I say there is an apathy in the public domain about the arts, possibly worsened by few choices and high cost, and with the demise, a piece of beauty and culture goes with it. Add the entanglement of copy rights that hamstring performers and lock great performances away from public enjoyment because ownership is so convoluted and no legal or technical royalty generating mechanism existed. There has to be a better way - and there is very very soon - at least a start - in Artistes du Globe. We have a higher vision, one that leverages technology and gets great art and our public together as only possible in the digital domain. Doing it right will greatly widen the audience, enhance sales at the box office and into the living room.
I reached out today to a respected professional in the Arts as it pertains to Technology. My cold-call reach out to Rebecca at AudienceWorks caused me to reflect on why Artistes du Globe is so important to the wellbeing of the struggling arts industry and art lovers. We simply have to assure artistic expression enriches our culture and that of our offspring, and theirs. The problems of who gets paid and how is the content secured has been solved, in a big way. It is because it is a bridge between all us art lovers and consumers in the emerging broadband, interactive entertainment and learning world. That was and is the vision - that of consumers, artists, producers, art schools and teachers using these new secure interactive media technologies, connecting as a community and around their content with the public and paying everyone their royalties in real time. Reduce the cost and provide on-demand high quality diversity for art consumers to enjoy great performances and images, benefiting the arts in a direct way, and humanity thought our humanitarian support and Foundation.
I want to share what I sent to Rebecca today, as it is my best attempt so far to put this vision/technology into a quick compelling read. The rest, the core vision is beyond the description. I leave for us all to discover some of the nuances as it all begins to come together.
We can make a difference together. I can't wait to say "We ARE making a difference together"
My best....
_____________
Rebecca,
I recently learned about your company and your work in social network consulting in the Arts. It appears that there may be some synergies we should explore.
I am Jackson Ball, the President and CTO of Artistes du Globe, Inc. My partner is Nathalie Grosshenny, the CEO of the company. We have built and are very soon to launch what we believe is a first of its kind and dedicated to the Arts. We bring together dance, opera, symphony, modern arts and other artistic expressions under one powerful platform. We have a full featured Social Network combined with an HD streaming video network with strong content protection combined with a real time payment system allowing art producers to monetize digitized shows and pay all the supporting artists in real time. Not like UTube, this is a solid business model and the latest HD streaming technologies.
The community is based on Telligent CS Enterprise, the same core technology that powers MySpace, Microsoft, Dell, and Electronic Arts social networks, among others. Not cheap for us to buy, but it has a huge feature set that we needed, including unlimited Blogs, Forums, Wikis, Media Galleries, Groups, deep art-oriented Profiles, private conversations, RSS feeds, mass email-gateway, live links to Facebook, Twitter, etc. We have customized the Community with a Calendar of events with Google Map links to the venue and to ticket sales outlets. It also supports the ability of users anywhere to drill down and see what events in what genre are available in their selected geographic area. We have a multi-directional ecommerce system allowing commerce members to do business online for props, instruments, tickets, costumes, etc. (Think about that a moment - an multi-store ecommerce system within a Community environment for the Arts) We have a Jobs and Auditions function and a very powerful nested Group capability which allows Producers or groups to have their own mini-community (public or private) within the overall global arts community. This gives smaller groups all the power of an enterprise class platform with public/private tools, while being integrated within the context of the total Arts community. This essentially de-fragments the efforts and cohesion and brings greater awareness, and more utility than any isolated social network approach - and keeps it focused on the Arts world. How many times have we heard about low "attendance" with these isolated social network approaches. How many times have we heard about being lost in a sea of non arts members in a horizontal approach like Facebook, UTube and others. They have their place. Artistes du Globe is a great compliment to these needed platforms and connects them, but gives the vertical appeal that the horizontals cannot.
The Art-Serve system is a full blown content delivery system for premium quality videos and images streamed to TV's computers and mobile devices. In encompasses consumers, producers, artists, art schools, teachers, galleries and humanitarians. Producers can have us host the content for outbound streaming, or can host LIVE events that can be both upload and outbound streamed. They can decide how many views over what time period and in what country the show can be viewed. We have developed a synthetic currency called Acorns. Producers can easily designate all of the various artists, stage hands, musicians, etc, that should earn a royalty, and how many royalty Acorns they earn with each Subscriber purchase. The system calculates everyone's proper earnings which can then be credited to their credit card or by check. End users (we call them Subscribers) will be able to select from an unprecedented array of art styles to watch on virtually any device from TVs to computers to mobile devices, all streamed as FLASH and AIR content - the same technology that TiVo and others in the OpenScreen council just announced they are moving to. Since content is streamed and dumped, not downloaded, there is much tighter control and without the need for traditional provisioned networks, everyones costs are lower. All of the content streams in an encrypted state to prevent network piracy. The Adobe FMIS Server we purchased is 100% interactive and monitors the actual connection to the end user and delivers the right bit rate for maximum user experience. It seamlessly switches bit rate versions in real time based on changing network conditions. The interactive functions support e-learning and "virtual studios" so art teachers/choreographers and students/artists can connect and collaborate in real time using their TVs, computers and web cams. Teachers can even be paid in Acorns according to student enrollment.
There is more to discuss, but at this point I wanted to give you the 1000 foot view of what we are launching this Spring. We need the help of people like you to help us do the public launch correctly and successfully. We have been purposely below the radar, but the launch sequence needs to start soon. We are not VC funded, we did this out of pocket and are debt free. My development team in Dallas, Toronto and Burlington are at the final stage and the final $20K. HOORAY!
Please take a look at our web site and review these documents linked below. Please get back with me at your convenience to discuss how you might help us in approaching the world that you live and breathe in every day and the world that Nathalie and I love and want to help so much.
http://www.artistesduglobe.com/Docs/ArtistesDuGlobe_InterviewArticle.pdf
http://www.artistesduglobe.com/Docs/HowDoYouThrive.pdf
http://staging.artistesduglobe.com/blogs/default.aspx?GroupID=8
Feel free to send this email over to others that might have a hand in this opportunity. My mobile phone is 678-234-2821 and is often the best way to reach me.