the dance blog of the future
lotta and i met with doug fox last week. he’s the founder and main contributor of the great dance blog, which has a broader dance focus than this one. he told us about his plans to expand his blog; they are amazing and ambitious and you can read about them in his post on the topic on his blog.
basically, he wants to expand his blog so that it becomes a platform for many dance blogs, a portal where one can go to find all kind of information about dance. there might be temporary blogs that chronicle short-term projects; longer-term ones that are small and few people would otherwise hear about; fundraising blogs; video blogs; etc! and he’d sell advertising to companies affiliated with dance in order to make it worth his time and effort.
i’m very impressed, for many reasons. first, it strikes me as an amazing business opportunity that will also benefit modern dance. here is an art form that has a small number of very passionate devotees who generally know little about business and are very disparate. separately, little gets communicated to the general public. together, however, and with the assistance of someone who does have some business savvy, there’s a chance to make some noise, convey some ideas.
it’s also fortuitous that one of the few advantages of dance, from a business perspective, is that it looks good in pictures and on camera. you tube, hello?
i’m also a bit jealous of doug. i’ve seen some of the ideas he’s pursued on his blog–video interviews with the head of nyc’s dance theater workshop, for example, and discussions about recent exhibits featuring dance–and they’re very cool and creative. to be able to follow one’s curiousity full time and write about whatever seems interesting at the time strikes me as pretty great.
one last thing of note: i got the impression from doug that people in nyc have been more hospitable than dc folks to his ideas about expanding and being revolutionary. not too surprising, i know, but still interesting. i guess new york will always be new york, filled with innovators who are interested in pushing boundaries. in comparison, dc will always be a provincial town. still, it made me kind of sad.
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I hate comparing to NYC.
Comment by Ilana — August 8, 2007 @ 9:17 am
Well, then, move to NY if the community isn’t forward thinking enough for you here. Many who do eventually return to DC and those who don’t, best wishes to them.
Comment by dcdancer — August 8, 2007 @ 2:32 pm
wahoo, bring it on!!! just kidding. y’all both have a point. dc is dc, it’s its own place and has good things and bad. i do think it’s ok to examine one’s self–and by extension one’s community, town, country, etc–and think about how it could be better, but only to a certain degree. perhaps it’s time i sang the praises of this town (and this country) a little more.
Comment by Amanda Abrams — August 8, 2007 @ 2:43 pm
What I think should be remembered is exactly how difficult it is to make it work in the arts - everywhere. Yes, in new york there is more going on. Yes, perhaps there is also a larger market for innovative work. But is that true ‘per capita.’ New York is a much larger market. They aren’t handing out grants or opportunities up there either. Clearly your boy Doug is hussling. Good for him, and us. What I’m not clear about from the post - and the follow ups - is what ’should be happening here’ that is not.
Comment by Rob Bettmann — August 10, 2007 @ 7:42 pm
I wonder about how robust the dance scene online needs to be. Is our community that interested in Doug’s blog model? I was just in a conversation w/a dc dancer who was saying that she finds it cofusing, too much to look at, too busy and prefers the dcdanceblog format - just to share one person’s opinion. Also, I recently took dance metro dc’s little survey about workshops and noticed questions about would I be interested in webcasts and podcasts of workshops to which I answered “no.” There are some industries, like the independent music industry, that are there, for sure and into robust online tools - but are we?
This was an attempt to speak to Rob’s question, and ended up just leading to more questions..
Comment by Ilana — August 12, 2007 @ 8:48 am
these are good points…i certainly agree that each town/community has its strong and weak points, and i would in no way argue that nyc is an easier place to be an artist than here. i think doug’s point was simply that folks here weren’t as open to thinking about bigger possibilities, or being innovative, in the way he was interested in. but it’s true, ilana, that maybe the technology aspect simply doesn’t interest people here–i know, for example, that it’s not my thing. and perhaps it’s just true that in a much bigger pond, there’s a greater possibility of finding folks with multiple interests (technology and dance, or dance and business, etc). perhaps it’s simply an issue of proportions.
Comment by Amanda Abrams — August 13, 2007 @ 7:08 am
Amanda,
Thanks for post about my plans to expand Great Dance.
I’d like to follow-up on some of the above comments - it was good to read what everybody had to say about this topic.
Rob points out how difficult a project like this is in the arts world and the lack of grants for dancers in NYC and DC. Yes, this project is challenging and there are a number of risks. That said I’m very optimistic about making this work by providing a platform for both dancers and audiences to communicate and connect with dance in new ways. I started having preliminary conversations with a diverse range of dancers last week. The conversations were very good and I don’t think it will take too long before blogs are up and running for dancers, dance companies, filmmakers and instructors who are producing high-quality content.
On the financial side, I think there is a need for creating completely new business models for dancers and dance companies–funding through traditional channels simply is not close to sufficient for many dancers. So my approach is based upon creating quality content, which contributes to building larger traffic and new audiences–by more traffic, I mean hundreds of thousands of unique visitors per month in a relatively short time-frame and growing from there. With a large number of visitors, it is possible to create multiple revenue streams including:
- Revenue splits with dancers from advertising and corporate sponsorship,
- A funding software program for generating financial contributions for specific dance and performance projects, and, in turn, providing tangible benefits for contributors,
- Increased visibility for participating bloggers, which will lead to more bookings, grants and licensing opportunities, and
- Experimentation with different approaches to selling digital dance content via the Internet.
As things stand now, there is virtually no experimentation with the above approaches to generating online revenue for dancers.
A few thoughts in response to Ilana’s comment:
Fair point about visitors to my blog being overwhelmed with the interface. One of key challenges is creating an accessible and easy-to-navigate new home page that will provide quick access to all the blogs and recent posts.
I agree that putting educational dance workshops on the web in the form of webcasts/podcasts could easily be very boring.
The main question, I think, is what would actually make for good, compelling content that people would actually read and watch. This is my challenge now and that is why I want to collaborate with dancers who want to share their work, ideas and explorations in engaging ways.
When looking at dance on the Internet today, we really don’t have much to go on. Websites for dance companies aren’t very good, dance reviews are not of interest to a large readership base, and most community boards don’t have thoughtful and worthwhile discussions.
The beauty of blogs is that writers/content producers speak in the first person, they take responsibility for their content and the subsequent conversations, and use different media, including video, to connect directly with audiences in new ways.
To the question of NYC vs. DC:
As Amanda writes, my personal experience has been that dance-makers in NYC have been more receptive to exploring where I’m going with my expanded dance platform than in DC. Why is this the case? Maybe it’s a market-size issue as Rob writes, maybe more dancers in New York are interested in applications for the Internet and technology, or maybe I haven’t reached out to enough dancers here in DC. Regarding the last point, I have sometimes felt disconnected from the local dance community so this feeling could definitely play a role in who I speak with or don’t speak with.
Hope the above is helpful. Sorry if the part about revenue models sounds like a sales pitch–I just wanted to explain my plans.
I’d definitely appreciate thoughts and feedback.
Comment by Doug Fox — August 13, 2007 @ 10:03 am