wwp@yahoogroups.com:
Re: Future of the World Wide Panorama - Part One
G. Donald Bain 2004-Jul-27 00:29:00
Ayrton,
Sorry about the Northern hemisphere orientation. You will notice that
Landis and I have been careful to avoid winter/summer/spring/fall in
the names. I was actually thinking of the old Beach Boys song "We've
been having fun all summer long...".
Don
On Jul 26, 2004, at 5:19 PM, A Y R T O N wrote:
> First of all, Congratulations
> -I'll try to keep participating everytime
> -4 times a year sounds perfect to me
> -One weekend each time, sounds good too
> -All 3 domains are perfect, very good idea
> -Just QuickTime is wonderfull. No ipox pls.
> -Just remember that your idea about "all summer long" is not VALID all
> over the world. Like here in South America now is WINTER !!! And I
> agree with Landis that such a wide time-event will weak the "event"
> nature of the project.
>
> So Keep on movin ! :- )
> Sincerely
>
> Ayrton Camargo
>
>
> On 26/07/2004, at 20:09, G. Donald Bain wrote:
>
>> This is the first of four planned discussion documents about the
>> future
>> of the World Wide Panorama. Please respond (to the YahooGroups wwp
>> list) with your thoughts.
>>
>> Timing and Hosting
>>
>> There has been a lot of enthusiasm for continuing the WWP with future
>> events, and questions about whether this will be possible.
>>
>> Landis and I are agreed it is worth keeping it going for the
>> foreseeable future. I can see at least two more events (September and
>> December of this year), and probably continuing into 2005.
>>
>> How Long?
>>
>> The biggest factor is whether there will be continuing support from
>> participants. If the number of people contributing panoramas drops
>> off,
>> that may be a sign that it is time to stop. We had 180 the first
>> time,
>> 120 the second. If we continue to have over a hundred participants
>> per
>> event I will consider it viable.
>>
>> A second factor is if the world in general continues to be
>> interested.
>> I see no problem here -- most people out there still have never seen
>> a
>> VR panorama (except maybe a tiny real estate tour). If we continue
>> with
>> the same high quality and varied subject matter of the first two
>> events, we are guaranteed of public interest.
>>
>> An aspect of this is publicity. So far we have done very well, and
>> have
>> hardly been trying. I have purposely not publicized this second event
>> too vigorously, until I am able to resolve some issues of bandwidth.
>>
>> The third major factor is whether we will be able to get staffing to
>> run future events. Landis and I are committed to at least a couple
>> more. And there have been numerous volunteers offering to help.
>>
>> We deliberately kept this project as simple as possible from the very
>> beginning, to minimize the demands on the producers. We will
>> gradually
>> add features in future events, but cautiously. A greater degree of
>> automation (on-line forms for submission, and automatic generation of
>> html pages from that data) will hopefully reduce the amount of labor
>> necessary.
>>
>> Fourth: issues of disk space and bandwidth. Luckily we have major
>> institutional support here - the University of California. Despite a
>> state budget crisis, I foresee no problems.
>>
>> I was able to purchase a new server specifically for this project,
>> which should be able to handle very heavy traffic. The first event
>> had
>> such a peak of popularity that I was obliged to take the site
>> off-line
>> for several hours because it was impacting work in my department. But
>> this was a local problem only, the amount of bandwidth we use is a
>> drop
>> in the ocean for this huge campus. In the next few weeks I will be
>> working to obtain a more direct connection to the internet backbone,
>> so
>> external WWP traffic doesn't impact local service.
>>
>> There have been suggestions that we use a url that is less cumbersome
>> than geoimages.berkeley.edu/wwp.? As long as we are depending on the
>> university for support, we cannot use a commercial url. It's a matter
>> of quid pro quo -- Geo-Images supports the WWP, and in return gets
>> some
>> credit for it.
>>
>> But to forestall possible problems, I personally registered
>> worldwidepanorama.com, wwpano.com, and wwpano.org, all of which point
>> to the Geo-Images site. We may want to start using one of these in
>> publicizing the site -- it's much easier to remember a short url you
>> have heard on the radio or read in a newspaper. Using the domain
>> dot-org (for non-profit organization) is more appropriate than
>> dot-com,
>> which implies a commercial venture. But many people assume every url
>> ends in dot-com, and browsers auto-complete urls that way.
>>
>> For an object lesson in why it might be necessary to register
>> wwpano.com when we would prefer wwpano.org, try going to
>> http://iqtvra.com -- but be sure nobody is looking over your shoulder
>> at the time!
>>
>> Fifth, and finally, this project needs to remain hassle-free. Keeping
>> it non-commercial will help a lot. The way we have all contributors
>> maintain sole copyright to their work also avoids complications.?
>> Having only a small group in charge (so far just Landis and me) is
>> important. Limiting content to one media technology (QuickTime) will
>> avoid many problems. To put it bluntly, if it begins to take too much
>> of my time, generates controversy, or stops being fun, I will have to
>> withdraw my support. As I remember, that was what killed off the
>> Wrinkle in Time series.
>>
>> How Often?
>>
>> Personally, I think the world NEEDS a periodic reminder of how great
>> VR
>> photography is. Hans Nyberg provides one great example per week. The
>> WWP can't do that, but I think a showcase of a hundred or more images
>> every three months is reasonable.
>>
>> The media always want something new, and you don't get much publicity
>> for a new edition of an existing work. So we need to make each event
>> unique. I will be giving my ideas about future themes tomorrow
>> (please
>> hold discussion on this topic until then).
>>
>> Though each event is unique, there is great strength in a continuing
>> project. Each event generates a large number of links and search
>> engine
>> entries. Each of these lead back to the overall project, where people
>> discover the other events. People will remember "the world wide
>> panorama" and go back to it, even if they have not heard of the most
>> recent event.
>>
>> Will the participants find quarterly events to be too often? I hope
>> not, but only time will tell. Challenging and intriguing themes will
>> be
>> important in motivating ourselves. Positive feedback, in the form of
>> public and peer recognition, will be another factor.
>>
>> It is not necessary for everyone to participate every time.? If we
>> have, for example, a pool of 200 potential participants, and each
>> chooses to participate only twice a year, we still have 100 for each
>> event.
>>
>> When?
>>
>> When Rabbett invented the "Wrinkle in Time" he chose the date,
>> December
>> 21, more or less impulsively. I pointed out that it was the Winter
>> Solstice, and he subsequently tied the "wrinkles" to the solstices
>> and
>> equinoxes. We have followed this plan in the World Wide Panoramas.
>>
>> I like the idea of following the solar calendar this way. It is
>> universal and cross-cultural. Many cultures recognize the
>> significance
>> of these dates, but none can claim them as their exclusive own.
>>
>> A solstice/equinox is not actually a day, it is a moment in time
>> (technically, a position in space). This will occur at different
>> times
>> and even on different days for different longitudes (time zones)
>> around
>> the earth.
>>
>> The first WWP was held on a single day. This caused some problems,
>> with
>> religious observance, and above all with uncooperative weather. No
>> doubt we missed a few potential participants because of business and
>> family obligations on that day.
>>
>> The second WWP was more lenient. The Solstice occurred on a Monday
>> (for
>> some), but the event included the entire adjacent weekend. This gave
>> more flexibility with the weather, and time for many of us to travel
>> to
>> an official world heritage site.
>>
>> I think all future WWP events should be for a weekend or more. How
>> much
>> more is open to discussion. The next Equinox falls in the middle of a
>> week (Wednesday, September 22) - should we designate the entire week,
>> and one weekend, maybe both weekends?
>>
>> At one time I proposed to Landis that the September theme be "all
>> summer long", and accept panoramas taken anytime since the last event
>> (i.e. June 19 to September 21). He pointed out that this would weaken
>> the "event" nature of the project, which is important for publicity.
>> Your thoughts?
>>
>> ----------
>> These are my thoughts for today. Please post your ideas on timing and
>> hosting to the YahooGroups-wwp list.
>>
>> Tomorrow I will introduce the topic of "themes", which should be a
>> lot
>> of fun (hold discussion of themes until then, please).
>>
>> Don
>>
>>
>>
>> ------
>> The World-Wide Panorama
>>
>> For more information:
>> -Visit the web site at http://GeoImages.Berkeley.edu/wwp.html
>>
>>
>>
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>
>
>
> ------
> The World-Wide Panorama
>
> For more information:
> -Visit the web site at http://GeoImages.Berkeley.edu/wwp.html
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
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>
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