August Challenge Announcement
While there were obvious reasons for delaying the announcement of the May Challenge until it was about to be underway, there is every reason to give you plenty of time to prepare for the August Challenge...
The August Challenge will center around YouTube videos. YouTube is perhaps the fastest growing and among the most influential websites in the entire internet. Countless videos are watched by millions daily, and the best among them become sensations that travel the globe and change minds.
Your challenge for August is to make a YouTube video. There are but two requirements: that you (1) advocate peace in Iraq and (2) make some reference or mention of One Million Blogs for Peace. (You may mention other websites as well, or aspects of the peace movement, and of course give yourself the credit for creating the video!)
For the competition part of the challenge, videos cannot be posted on YouTube until August 1st. The winners will be determined by those who have the most views at the end of the day on August 30th. You may make multiple videos - as many as you want!
This should give you ample time - nearly two months - to come up with a subject, plot, and to create your YouTube video. And you need not think just in terms of traditional videos. Some of the most persuasive videos on YouTube have been made with still images and a song in the background. Or even just one stagnant image and a person's voice. Or a humble $15 webcam.
Be creative, be passionate, and express your views about the situation in Iraq. Inspire the masses!
Feel free to post questions or comments, especially if you need help with designing videos or other technical issues.
In the meantime, while you're working on that, I am trying to come up with more ideas for Virtual Rallies, taking into account the perspectives some of you have expressed in response to this week's Tuesday Topic. Stay tuned for announcements about those.
As always, please keep ideas for such rallies or other actions coming so we can make the best use of our ever-growing movement!
Labels: Challenges, Strategy, Virtual Rallies
3 Comments:
I have a minor objection to the criteria for winning the August Challenge: I definitely think that the quality, not quantity, of videos should be emphasized. I would suggest an alternative approach to determine the winner that is based on some measure of quality, like a combination of the top video's rating and number of views. For example, let us hypothetically suppose that 100 people participate and post YouTube videos. Of these 100 people, 20 produce a video that gets an overall 5-star rating on YouTube by the end of August. The winner would automatically come from this group of 20. The winner of the challenge would be the 5-star video that got the most views by the end of August. Or, as an alternative, perhaps it could be the 5-star video that was Favorited the most times. I think something along these lines would encourage people to produce good, well-thought-out videos with meaningful dialogue and points, rather than a bombardment of lesser-quality productions. Just a suggestion.
This is good feedback, Red.
I may instead offer a few different prizes... one for most favorited, one for highest rating, etc.
Generally, number of views are pretty well correlated to how well received a video is by the YouTube audience. As views go up, so do favorites, and so do the ratings. And the point of this contest is to get the word out, so more views are good. But obviously we don't want people getting the word out with garbage.
Additionally, it should be clarified that while one can create several videos, each one will be competing on its own. So if you create 500 videos, each of them counts as one entry vying for views and favorites; you do not get to combine the numbers for all the videos you create.
Please continue to comment on this and I will be able to refine and perfect the standards being used by the time we get to August 1st.
Might I suggest that you post an actual YouTube announcing the August Challenge, similar to what the Rational Response Squad did with the blasphemy challenge?
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