Latest Articles

Search Party: Interview with Kevin Ryan

Organisations are predicted to spend an increasing share of their marketing budgets on search engine optimisation in 2009. But what are the new themes and issues that will tax organisations in their efforts to make the most of search?

more

Break for the Borders

Book retailer Borders has become the latest retailer to use social media marketing. New Media Knowledge spoke to industry players about how this sector can gain from a conversational approach.

more

Business Briefing: How to Sell on the Web

Being able to compete online is a major area which small and medium-sized businesses in particular need advice. New Media Knowledge interviewed sales specialist Sean McPheat for some words of wisdom.

more

• ‘Mega Monday’ Bucks High Street Woes
• Measure for Measure: Meeting the Analytics Challenge
• Straight from the Horsesmouth
• North and South: The UK Digital Media Divide
• Business Briefing: Where Next for Venture Capitalists?
• Social Media in Practice: BBC Radio 5 Live
• Conservationists Embrace Social Media

Related Articles

• The Eyes Have It

  Findings from the Poynter EyeTrack07 research into how people read online and in print discovered that a much larger percentage of story text was read online than in print publications. Ian Delaney reports. more

• The Germ of an Idea

  Creativity is the single most important factor in viral marketing argues Colin Reeves of Viralfever. Because viral communication is peer-generated, if your concept is dull and boring it will not travel virally, however widely it is seeded. more

• I Want My IPTV - Key Themes

  The intersection of TV and video, a TV and teclo market ripe for disprution, the role of the EPG, trust in brands and the rise of user-generated content were among the key themes to emerge from NMK's 'I Want My IPTV' half-day event (in association with Mike Butcher) held on 25th May, says Paul Robinson... more

Launching a Website

NMK user Chris Drewery thought launching a website about festivals would be easy. But as he's finding out, there's more to consider than he originally thought.

OK so here I am typing this blog, during my lunch break of all times, it’s weird in today’s busy and hectic world that we all live and work in that any of us get anything done, let alone come up with new ideas or business ventures that have the potential to succeed. Anyway enough about that on with the blog.

So hello there my name is Chris, I’m 21 and work in IT in the financial Banking sector. I work hard and party harder and if there is one place your guaranteed to find me on a hot summer's day it is at a Music Festival, but none of that one day street parade nonsense - I’m talking about the booking the day off work to secure our tickets, the checking your email over and over again at 3am in anticipation to see if your payment conformation for the tickets has dropped into your inbox kind of festivals. Over the last few years I’ve been to Reading, Glastonbury, Leeds, T in the Park, V Festival and a string of others which would quite frankly bore you if you weren’t interested.

Anyway on with the show.

My idea for the website which I am currently building and developing was hit upon last year whilst I was at Glastonbury, we where all laughing and joking around our campsite about launching a website called Festival Reunited, where working on the same principle as FriendsReunited, people could log on and get in touch with the people they lost contact with at festivals. Interesting idea I hear you say, well before we go any further, it won’t work. Trust me on this one, I’ve sat down thought this through countless times, spoken to various people, and it’s just not feasible. Why I hear you ask? Well let's do the maths. Your average festival goer will attend one or even two festivals a year. The average festival will last 2, possibly 3 days, so that’s 72hrs (ish) that you have to make friends and get to know them in a good enough capacity that you want to contact them again. On top of that, everybody that is everybody takes their mobile phone with them to a festival:

• It’s easier to contact your friends when you get separated or need to organise to meet-up
• We hate the fact that we would be back in the dark ages without them
• It’s a fashion accessory that even children as young as 10 have, hell even my granddad has a mobile phone, and he’s 85, AND a pacemaker to think of it… hang on… surely those too don’t go well together?

So yeah, anyway, with today’s modern world of technology available at even festivals, nothing stops people from exchanging telephone numbers and keeping in contact that way, it’s probably cheaper and more convenient for them. Anyway, yes, the website... the more and more I have sat around and thought about it the more and more I keep thinking, hey, you know what, this isn’t actually a bad idea. A single website where people can log onto, talk to each other, view each others photos and share their experiences of festivals. Hell, why not even go the whole nine yards and lay out the red carpet to cover anything and everything, it could be like a central location resource where people can meet people with similar interests, buy/sell/exchange tickets, offer advice, tell stories, buy camping equipment, play online java/flash games, sign up to mailing lists... Even go the additional length to do album reviews, articles about bands and the ones to watch and the ones not to watch. You know, similar to NME but well better!

If you haven’t been to a festival then you are certainly missing out. The hardest part is at the end, the morning after it has all ended you wake up in the middle of a field instantly aware that it is all over and that the “festival atmosphere” has flown south until next year. Commuting on the train to work then becomes a daily chore and you start to realise that not everyone is as friendly or even approachable in real life as they are at a festival. Yeah, you do start to be able to pick out the few people who go to festivals and you get talking to them but it’s just not the same. It’s hard to explain, I guess you really have to “live” a festival to understand where I’m coming from on this one.

So anyway with this idea becoming stronger and stronger, and so many thoughts of what potential it has popping into my head left right and centre, in fact all over the shop, I decided to get on with the show. If I have learned one thing in business so far it is that anybody can sit around and talk about doing something but very few actually get off their butts and do it. And with my enthusiasm and passion I’m very confident that it will be a winner. If not, I’ll be damn proud saying yeah I had a “vision” and gave it my best shot, it didn’t work but you know what, you learn by your mistakes, and next time it will be bigger and better. If you just take a look at my previous experience with Hangoverweekend, it was good, had - and still has come to think of it - potential but failed because I wasn’t receiving the support that I needed from people that were meant to be helping me with it. In return all of the users became what can only be described as inbred and started up their own circle groups within the community and frankly made it not a very nice place to be, I guess you could compare it to a schoolyard where the bullies get away with everything and the teachers did nothing about it.

But there’s a whole new assault plan on the horizon for Hangoverweekend it will work and I will change it around and be known as “Chris the guy who managed to turn Hangoverweekend from bad to good.” My favourite quote at the moment has to be “Through all the chaos and confusion a leader will emerge” so onwards and upwards onto bigger and better things. What was it that a TV advert says “You're either with us or without” an interesting response was received by the users when I mentioned that to them a few days ago.

Anyways I’ve registered the domain name www.festivalgroupies.com, to this day I still have no idea how I came up with the name so I’m working on the principle of “who knows where thoughts come from they just appear” ethos. I‘ve found the web hosting package that I think will suit the sites needs, plenty of web hosting for photos to be uploaded and lots of gadgety little extras such as database back ends and support for various scripts that I know will help push us forward and assist us in what I have planned. All I need now is the content. I’ve found that I’m really good when it comes down to the techie backend stuff but when it comes to the content I just fall flat on my face. Yes, I can write one or two things, but to keep them updated and to add to the content, now that I just find boring, in fact I’m surprised I’ve managed to get this far with this blog! So on the content front, I’m going to need an editor of some description and then it hits me who better to be an editor of festivalgroupies.com than a festival groupie themselves somebody who is like me really, but swap the love for technology to the love for media and BINGO the winning combination! And you know what is even better I know just the person! Her name is Sarah, she’s 22, I’ve known her for 11 months now and surprise surprise we met at Glastonbury last year. Once quick phone call later and we’re in business, she’s as passionate about the idea as I am so I know that we are onto a winner.

Ok we’re nothing special at the moment but I can see the bigger picture and in all honesty we’re moving towards it very quickly. The site went live with its soft launch just over a month ago we’re receiving something like 100 unique visits a days and have had some interesting interest from freelance journalists and photographers who would like to be involved. The plan at this stage is to build the site up over this year, publicising it at festivals, gigs & events really make a name for ourselves and then have the official launch next year just before the festival season kicks off, who knows where it will lead the possibilities are really endless but one thing is for sure if I am so passionate about this idea it sure as hell will be a winner.

What I would love is to put NMK to the test – if the site really is about sharing knowledge then share some of your knowledge with me. If you’re an agency, copywriter, web analyst, hell, even a business school graduate and you think you could give me some advice on festivalgroupies.com I’d love to hear from you. You can get in touch by leaving a message for me here.