Okay, so yesterday I got to talking about this new, pretty major idea I've recently had, concerning a "lite" version of the arts center I've been working on for the last year and a half (which I am calling here the Unnamed Arts Center [or UAC] for now, since I have yet to register its actual name or purchase its URL). That is, I think I've finally come up with a way for the center to go ahead and open for business as soon as this September, so as to go ahead and start having successes and building a fan base; but in a way so that we don't get saddled with the kind of reputation most such organizations get, that it is being run by artists who don't really know what they're doing, and so therefore is a waste of time to support. (Here are part 1 and part 2, for those who missed it; and yeah, you'll probably need to read it first for today's entry to make sense.) Anyway, yesterday I got to detailing all the various local products and services UAC would likely attempt in its first year - live events, books, t-shirts, a membership program and the like - and how such things will hopefully fit into the center's overall success.

Oh, but this doesn't even begin to touch on what will undoubtedly be the most important key to the center's success - namely, a cutting-edge website holding the entire organization together, using all the latest Web 2.0 bells and whistles in order to deliver precisely the information each of our niche audiences are looking for, in precisely whatever way works best in their own lives. Because, let's face it, amazing things are going on with websites these days, and a well-run one can easily bring you more attention and garner more fans than any physical event or product you release in the real world; but if you're at my site in the first place, you don't really need to be told that, do you? And in fact this would be a key goal of UAC's website as well; to not only get the latest information about the center out to the public, but also to offer a tremendous amount of free artistic content there as well, not to mention getting our customers to generate some of the site's content too, not to mention tracking what other people are saying about the center around the rest of the blogosphere.

And it all starts, of course, with our old friend the content management system (or CMS - which in the case of my center will most likely be Movable Type). Ah, content management systems - how I love them so! See, most people think of CMSs as only being good for maintaining a blog; this is, after all, what 99 percent of all CMSs are used for, and it was blogs that inspired the invention of CMSs in the first place. But as I've been learning over the last year of using Movable Type myself, a CMS can in actuality be a profoundly more powerful thing than simply a blog automator, if you use such a system smartly and understand its natural strengths and weaknesses; in fact, a good CMS used smartly can keep track of all sorts of things, not only blog entries but MP3s, electronic books, collections of images, video files and the like.

I mean, just check out the main category page of my own website for ample proof of what I'm talking about. See, the key to a smart CMS is what's called its categorization abilities; that is, its ability to let you assign different categories to each blog entry that you post, as a way of helping your visitors understand in quick general terms what that entry is about. Movable Type, in fact, has an amazing categorization system; one that lets you create an infinite amount of categories, that lets you create "subcategories" off the main list, that lets you assign as many of these categories to a particular blog entry as you want, with even a simplified way to assign each category its own permanent web page and its own permanent RSS feed.

And so, just as my own category list will eventually be the key to making sense of this website, and the 10,000 separate pieces of content that will eventually be found here (once I'm finally done importing all my old archives, that is), so too will a categorization system be the key to making sense of the arts center's website, and the hopefully 2,000 to 3,000 pieces of content we will be generating there over our first year of operations. Because let's face it, I want to be churning out a lot of free content at the center's website once we're up and running; because with no budget to speak of, this will be pretty much our main chance to make new fans - by releasing free MP3s of all our live events, free electronic books by local writers, free poems and stories that local artists have donated to us (in return for free admission to our live events), customer-written reviews of UAC events and publications, customer-written essays about artistic topics, FAQs explaining our products and services, podcast episodes, audio interviews with touring and local writers, and just on and on and on. Well, and of course news about the center itself, which is where most company-sponsored blogs begin and end.

So instead of having to build special sections of the site for each of these types of material, and constantly having to move things around and fuss with it all, we'll instead simply be able to upload each of these items as their own blog entry, and then assign whatever categories that particular item belongs to. So let's say, for example, that you're a working poet yourself in Chicago (and that your name is Jane Smith, just to make things easy), and that last week you performed a poem called "Shattered Glass" or whatever at our slam. So then the next day, when we post an MP3 of that performance to the website, we'll be able to assign not only a category to it named "Poetry | Feburary 2006," but also one called "MP3s | February 2006" and one called "Jane Smith." And so that way your recording will end up appearing in a number of different ways, depending on the specific way that visitor is looking through our content: that is, clicking on a specific date will bring up your file, along with everyone else who performed that night; while clicking on "Poetry" will also bring up your file, along with all the text-based poetry we posted that month; while clicking on "MP3s" will also bring up your file, along with all other audio material uploaded that month (including not only slam performances, but interviews and podcast episodes); while clicking on "Jane Smith" will bring up your file as well, along with any other material you might have at the site, be it other audio files, text, your bio or whatever.

In effect, it creates a special stand-alone page for each and every artist who ends up getting involved with the center; one with its own URL (say, like [uac.org/janesmith.html], for example), and also generating its own RSS feed. And that's pretty cool, I think, because it suddenly gives that artist a lot of power; they can not only run a link to the page at their own blog, much like how a person might link currently to their MySpace account, but fans of that artist will be able to subscribe to that page as well, and get instantly notified each time that artist posts new material at the site, without being bothered by the other 2,990 entries we'll be posting that year. And instead of tracking just one type of that artist's content, like what happens at so many other artistic websites (you know, where you have to go to one section to read that artist's work, then another section to listen to their audio files, and then yet another section to read their bio), every bit of it would show up on this main page instead. And that's exciting, at least in my opinion, because it's a completely free way to profoundly support the center's mission: that is, to provide as much additional resources, opportunities, exposure and revenue to Chicago's underground artists as we can.

And then of course this is the way the rest of the site would be run as well; we would have a "Podcast" category, and a "Electronic Books" category, and a "News" category (detailing the latest developments with the center, and the latest official show announcements), and a "Frequently Asked Questions" category (with separate entries, for example, concerning your rights as a UAC Fellow, how to suggest a show idea, how to volunteer, how to submit a manuscript, how to apply to be a host, etc etc etc) - I mean, literally, as many categories as we would possibly want to add. And to make things even simpler for visitors, even the title of each entry would clearly indicate what that entry concerned; so for example, if we just happened to book Douglas Coupland or whoever for a future show, and were now ready to announce it at the site, the entry containing that announcement would be titled, "UAC News: Douglas Coupland to appear November 22." And so that way, if you're one of those silly people who are still reading blogs the old-fashioned way (that is, by actually going to the front page of the blog...ya Luddite!), you would not only see each and every single piece of content the center has uploaded that day, but also titled in a way so that you could easily scan the page with your eyes, and quickly find whatever information interests you the most. (And let's not forget that there will be a "master" RSS feed as well, also for delivering each and every single bit of content the center uploads to the site.)

Oh, but Jesus, the benefits don't even stop there; because under such a system, for example, we wouldn't even have to write press releases - and Lordy, how wonderful exactly would that be? Instead we could just send the RSS address for the "News" category out to all the media outlets in town, and let them simply subscribe to it; and that way they're getting all the latest news about the center at the same exact time as the general public, in the same exact way, using only one blog entry we'd have to write, versus composing a second press release for the same information and emailing it to dozens of places all over the city. And this I hope will make the media people happy as well; because hey, I've worked for newspapers before myself, so can attest to just how many dozens upon dozens of press releases a typical paper will get in a typical week, and just what an unbelievable pain in the ass it is to wade through them all, just to find the specific info you need for that week's events calendar. So hopefully this will be a way to streamline this process for them as well, and to deliver the relevant information they need in a much simpler, much quicker way, which with any luck will make even the press like us a little more because of our website.

Of course, all you blogosphere smartypants already know exactly what we're talking about here, when it comes to the latest theories about small business and marketing; we're talking about the 'long tail' theory, of course, first made popular by Wired magazine's Chris Anderson, which basically states that in the age we're now living, a business can do really well for itself by offering a whole bunch of little things instead of just a few big ones, relying on just a tiny amount of customers for each thing, that eventually adds up to a big huge amount of customers. And boy, talk about describing my arts center in a nutshell - because this is precisely what we'll be basing our operations on as well, the idea of simply releasing as many different weird little things as we can possibly afford to do, and to rely on just a tiny amount of people who might be interested in any one particular thing. (That is, the idea that maybe 10 percent of our audience is interested in the slam and nothing else; while another 10 percent is interested in the podcast and nothing else; while another 10 percent is interested in the electronic books and nothing else.)

But see, the key to the 'long tail' theory is this - that you have to make it as easy as humanly possible for each of your niche audiences to find the exact material they're looking for, or else there's no point in even offering such a wide range of items in the first place. And so that, for example, is the reason a place like Amazon can take advantage of the long tail, while a place like Borders cannot; because when you're physically standing in a physical bookstore, you can't just snap your fingers and have the exact book you're looking for magically appear in your hands, while at Amazon this is precisely what you can do. And so this of course is key to my own center's success as well, when it comes to the website; that if you're interested in the podcast, for example, you're able to find the pocast within the first five seconds of your visit, or if you're interested in a particular artist, you're able to find that artist within the first five seconds of your visit. And the categories, the search engine, the RSS feeds, all the rest, will hopefully allow people to do this, and also to subscribe to just the specific information they're seeking, so that they don't have to deal with anything else if they don't want to.

Ah, but then, you see, there's still a final section of the website that I haven't even mentioned yet; and frankly, this is the one section I'm personally most excited about, and that also holds the greatest chances of the center getting mentioned by such juggernauts as Boing Boing or Slashdot, which is a section I plan on calling the "Sandbox." And what is the Sandbox? Well, that's easy - it'll be a place where we convince Fellows to release a certain amount of their work under a Creative Commons license, in order to let other artists "mash up" that material for free; that is, to create an interesting new audio interpretation of that piece, or a new visual design of that piece, or a new animation of that piece, or whatever else they feel like doing with it. Imagine.... Imagine a Flash designer, with a incredibly cool new project they're working on, but who doesn't have any interesting literary content to go with all his funky little animations. Imagine a student filmmaker, who has to make a ten-minute video for her final project, but who doesn't have a clue what to make the video about. Imagine a calligrapher or graphic designer, trying to build up their portfolio, who is absolutely sick to death of having to always use Bible quotes and other public-domain material.

Are you starting to understand the potential the Sandbox has, people? Are you starting to understand why I'm so damn excited about this? If run the right way, and mentioned by the right people, the Sandbox I think has the potential to be the most popular thing at the entire UAC website; and in a universe where everything goes right, it even has the potential to make international cult stars out of some of our Fellows, in the same manner as Rocketboom or those comedy dudes who were recently hired by Saturday Night Live. And wow, I'll admit it, even the idea alone gives me goosebumps; creating such potentials, after all, is the entire reason I decided to open this arts center in the first place.

So anyway, I'm about to run out of space today, so I guess this is where I'll leave things for now; and then tomorrow I'll finish up this three-day series, and talk about all the remaining things of this "lite" plan that I haven't gotten to mention yet - like who exactly is Nikki Patin, and why exactly I'm so excited that she's getting involved; plus how much money all of this is going to take, in order to be ready to open in September (in a nutshell, somewhere around $500, a far cry from the $100,000 needed for the full plan); and of course the details of how our Membership program is going to work as well, under such a lite plan. And that's tomorrow, so hopefully I'll see you again then!