Going deeper Village Underground
For my Lab project I'm sorting out (art studios and performance space) Village Underground's online content and have spent the day looking at the competition. It would be great if you suggest more sites or venues to this Google Document: http://bit.ly/8XdnrB
All links are available here too as I've forgotten how to embed on Posterous.
Here's an overview of my conclusions so far:
Calender
Needs to have a strong visual impact, text comes on the click through. Click through video as in Sadlers Wells site is very good- if it's not too time consuming to source video. Don't think we need to split VU content into genres (like Barbican for example). I also want to look into running VU's calender for easy updates. What do you think of this?
Podcast
It would seem that the long podcast doesn't do that well, those sites that have them don't update that often. Short and sharp seems to be the order of the day. I like the fact that some sites are flexible content wise Tate and Barbican are very good at this. One thing is certain it needs to have RSS and drop into iTunes etc.
Video
Most venues have a channel on YouTube but some make it more difficult to be found on YouTube with often no link through from site. This maybe due to web designers wanting the public to visit the website first for content. Infact London Phil insists the exclusive content is on their site first. Again, it's good to have a mix of stuff: archive, promo, interviews, flip snatches etc
Text
Seems to be on the whole concise and to the point. New sites shy away from loads of text heavy reviews and previews. Liverpool Phils blog is excellent as they have a strong figurehead in the shape of their chief conductor. Therefore there's loads of comments, feedback etc. VU has Jarvis Cocker do a week long residency at the venue, this would have been a good time to mobilise a blog!
Social Media
Mostly act as wire services but some are better than others at maintaining a community. Facebook sometimes has good plugins like the good flickr one for Flickr. Would like to know what some of the Social Media bunch think about some of these companies SM presence.
Would welcome any comment, will probably feed back about all of this to the client on Tuesday morning.
