A Swarm of Angels

[Samuel Rose]

http://www.smartmobs.com/archive/2006/09/19/a_swarm_of_ange.html

What?:

A Swarm of Angels is about making a £1 million movie and giving it
away to one million people in one year. By using the Internet to gather
together 50,000 people willing to pay £25 to join an exclusive global
online community-The Swarm-the project's ambition is to make the
world's first Internet-funded, crewed and distributed feature film.

Who?: Team.

How?:

FUND / FILM / FLOW

1. Fund the project. Call for collaborators. Publicize and create
marketing materials. Gather the first 1000 members. Develop the project
and infrastructure. Start script development. Open the project up to
more members.
2. Film. Collaborate. Develop scripts using a 'wiki'. Crew
through The Swarm. Funding drive for
pre-production/production/post-production. Create marketing and final
materials.
3. Flow. Master materials. Create spin-off materials. Publicize.
Burn. Upload. Seed. Download. View. Remix. Share.

Why?:

I think people would rather pay £25 or so to be part of an
entertainment experience for over a year. Especially one based around
the creation of an inspirational, cult project. A Swarm of Angels has
the opportunity to make a mark on film and Internet history.

In purely material terms, the social and networking benefits of The
Swarm should be value for money enough. If you add to this the access
to to the filmmaking editorial process, the planned Collectors Edition
DVD and other Swarm-only merchandise, it becomes a steal.

http://www.aswarmofangels.com/

This combines open business w/ Pinko Marketing.

[Scott Brooks]

when i first read this ....i was like ....oh not not anonth.........whoa ...wait a sec ....they have the kleptones .......they have the kleptones ....."In tune with developing the remix credentials of this project, I have the awesome news that The Kleptones are joining the Swarm, and lending their musical expertise in creating a soundtrack, and inputting on related media creation for ASOA, including podcast creation, etc."

This is getting cooler and cooler as i read .....

FYI The Kelptones - A night at the Hip Hopera kicks ass!!!!! wickedly cool mash up of Queen with everyone else who has taken thier music ....grab it ....of course it is free for download !

looks like a cool project .....makes that group book look like a kid project ...

cheers

scott

[The Verve]

This is a great initiative although it doesn't seem to be taking off
very fast. I remember running across this site several months ago and
not much appears to have changed. Member sign-up is slow going at best
although they do have a few high profile contributors (i.e. Kleptones
and Cory Doctorow) which should help. Maybe they'll find the tipping
point eventually. I'm a big fan of community based projects but have
yet to see a perfect example of this concept in execution. Could it be
a matter of 'too many cooks in the kitchen'? Let's hope this catches
on. It will be a great learning experience for all of us.

Question - has anyone joined the Swarm? Why or why not?

[Samuel Rose]

They claim in this blog posting:

http://www.aswarmofangels.com.nyud.net:8080/2006/08/getting-open-thinking-through-gated-communities/

That they are trying not to "overbuild", to keep things manageable. My
blog posting abou them have apparently given them a little boost. See:

http://www.aswarmofangels.com/2006/09/3-common-questions-before-signing/

I think they are going to definitely find the amount of people they
need. They say that they are not actively seeking out new participants
in a "viral" way. But, rather, they are looking for existing "Swam"
members to draw in new members. (quote from blog post above):

"A Swarm of Angels doesn't rely on 'sneezers' to propagate the
project virally, but on an escalating echo of trusted voices,
predominantly from Angels within the gated community. The ecology of
the community is paramount to it's vibrancy, and pace of growth has
to be regulated to safeguard that.

This is all a way of saying it is quite a high wire act. But,
particularly from recent Angels drawn to the project because of it's
crowdsourcing credentials, there is an exhortation not to rush sign ups
and promotion, but to get the balance right."

I have not joined because I do not have the time to dedicate. But, I am
highly interested in the models and processes they are using. And, of
course, in the way that they 'market" this, too.

Sam Rose

http://socialsynergy.typepad.com/

[The Verve]

Thanks Sam. I see what they're doing now. It's similar to gmail when it
launched - qualified users recruiting other qualified users.. I guess
this is a smart strategy considering the contribution (intellectual and
financial) required from each member. This would at least help to
filter out the "riff raff" if you will.

Jason

[matthanson]

Good discussion. Nice to see you're getting the strategy...(I'll tell
you a secret: if it expanded too quickly we'd have too much to do:
currently I'm turning down all offline press anyway, as I haven't got
through to all the online communities I want to yet. Anyway, it's a
nice position to be in, picking and choosing media outlets -- a
strategy I think quite different from the usual online blow-out of Web
2.0 outfits).

We're having a voting day today/tomorrow. Come along ;)

http://www.aswarmofangels.com/2006/09/swarm-voting-day/