great research william!

ill also post some visual inspiration links on the weekend. then u and qin can get started on doing the draft graphics for the websites (focus on layout, and including all the pages/items on each page that we need. maybe also focus on colour, but dont worry about detailed/quality graphics at all just yet). the logos/colours should b decided before the weekend is over, hopefully...

pages you dont need specific graphics for: forum page (cause we will use an existing free php forum)

the domain names for both sites are done. and the hosting folder is

public_html/hodyhong/eclipseorg

and

public_html/hodyhong/redsunorg

u can access those folders right? ur sharing hody's site5?

william/qin: could u have the homepage and secondary page graphics as Photoshop files, ready by thursday next week (28th) so i can then slice them up and make them into html files/etc

(upload them to the website folders on site5)

Some sites and thoughts

Hello web mongooses, I'll just post some links to some websites that I have looked at so far:

• Aleph - previously known as Aum Shinrikyo; famous for the sarin gas attack at a Tokyo subway in 1995. I'm not sure what this organisation does nowadays, as their website is not exactly very informative -_-. All I know is that their website looks very, very happy and bright, and it has some articles about steps "to live a better life", meditation, yoga, and stuff like that. LOTS of articles where they try explaining and disassociate the new group with their past. Aleph is trying to show their new face to the public through this bright-looking website, but we leave the site still not knowing anything new about this mysterious organisation!
• Exclusive Brethren - a conservative Christian sect. Their members are not supposed to watch television, listen to radio, use the internet, or vote, amongst other things. Rule-breaking leads to excommunication, the loss of contact with all family members and the loss of business networks (quite Red Sun-like in some ways) Has powerful political lobbying power; recently they have won special dispensation from the Howard Government for their members in the recent WorkChoices law. Anyway, their website is really a boring site, looks like something done based on a template. At first glance it even looks like those placeholder content they put in websites that you go to as a result of typo. However, they have lots of content.
• Unification Church - website of a Christianity-based new religious movement (NRM). Again, this is quite boring.... I guess these people recruit more from real contact (face-to-face), rather than through internet....
• Scientology - everyone knows about this 'religion' already. This is professionally done, but looks very 'corporate'.
  

Of the sites above, only the first one (and prob. the second one) can be considered mysterious organisations (although the second one seems to be quite open to reveal information). Scientology's website is probably the only one that looks professional (this is the direction that we wanna go for Red Sun's site, right?)

• Peebs.net - an anti-Exclusive Brethren (EB) website. With forums, information on the sect, guestbook (for guests of the site but also for EB escapees who wants to leave comments), testimonies, news clippings. Reasonably packed with information.

----------------------------

Some points:

• It's interesting to see that websites of the cult organisations don't necessarily have an inviting or professional look even though they are quite big and have been around for some time.
  
• Looking at some of the site, I think it's a good idea to have a 'library' or resource section, where we have (fake) news articles about Red Sun in either Red Sun's site or Eclipse's one, or even both. Of course the type of news that goes to Red Sun's site will be very different from the Eclipse site.

----------------------------

Anyway I haven't planned the visual style exactly, but basically it should be:

• Red Sun's site: professional, bright, but still mysterious (not much info) - I think main page we could have photos of people with happy faces, smiling.... main colors: still depends on the final logo, but should be sth like yellowish, creamy color and some red... the history page will be important; the more detailed history we have here the better, especially the early history, then as we go on, there is gradually less details on the more recent history, maybe? (= more mysterious as the organisation grows, so less things can be revealed to public) ie. old history can be told in detail, but recent history is written in a vague sort of way ... also could have testimonials from happy members.... not so sure what we could tell about what activities the members do within the organisation (we cant really talk about the drug can't we?) any ideas regading this? are they actually using the site as a way to recruit or just so that people know of its existence? ...
• Eclipse's site: less professional than red sun; however, it wouldnt be downright amateurish, too. I think Eclipse's site must have been around for quite some time and their site could have developed along the time... colour will be black dominated i suppose .... it will have really LOTS of believable, authentic-sounding material for people to listen, watch, and read (this will be extremely challenging to pull off) videos, podcasts, newsp. clips... opinions from experts etc. .... then forums.. this is sth that I reckon we should do, however, do you guys think we should do a real forum, or just a simulation of a forum? forum needs lots of entries, and that could be a problem....

Well those are my random thoughts for now... will post later if sth else comes up... now it's time to sleeeeeeep....

timeline for information release

hey guys,

concept group will make a weekly schedule of what information from the story can be release for each particular week.

so, in your case steph, dont write something in the email/profiles that reveals anything thats not scheduled to be released yet..

wot to do next

ok guys,

ive had a talk with william on msn, and we sort of have a plan.

william will be in charge of the graphics for both the websites and I will be in charge of the code/technical side (html,css,php, etc)

steph, u read a lot, u like sci-fi, so we assuming ur good at writing. so ull b in charge of writing the fake chain mails pretending to be someone from the rebel group or wotever; you'll write up fake posts on the rebels' blogs, keep the myspace profiles going/alive (try messaging other users and get them to add u to their friends list). kyle has finished the final story which we all have to stick to. so now u can write whatever u want in the email/blog/myspace/forum as long as it ties in nicely with the general story.

eka and qin, you will help with the website graphics and come up with ideas with steph on what to add to the emails/blogs/myspaces/forum


==========================

what we should be doing this week:

steph, yours is the only area that can be started right now: the chain mails and myspace profiles.

can everyone else read kyles story and get un understanding of what both redsun and eclipse are about, and then find website examples for visual inspiration for both groups. post the urls in here.

timeline

WEEK 10 (by sunday):

> wikipedia entries: Redsun, Eclipse

> my space profiles: some individual eclipse member profiles (using anonymity), some people from the public that comment on redsun/eclipse

> chain mail: from Eclipse (will send to everyone on both blogs, and get everyone to send it to all the email contacts they have)

> set up some eclipse member blogs on Blogger

HOLIDAY WEEK

> set up skype number and answering machine for redsun AND eclipse.

> draft version of redsun official public website: sections -> who we are, what we do, contact us (use skype number).

> draft version of eclipse website: sections -> video, podcasts (audio), eclipse member section (need an account), who we are, what we do, events(?), contact us, forum, eclipse blog (not individual, like above)

WEEK 11

> present work in progress in class

> add (more) content to blogs, myspace profiles, wikipedia

> finalise redsun website: final graphics, set up domain name, add extra content(?)

> finalise eclipse website: final graphics, domain name, get people to join the forum and write lots of posts, add videos from video team to video section, get the Accounts up and running

WEEK 12

> present final look for websites and content, in class.

> add more content from other groups onto website

> continue necessary development, bug fixing

WEEK 13

> finish off any work that needs doing

> check up on how all the web stuff (wiki, email, blogs, myspaces) is going...add more stuff if its dying

IMPORTANT!!!!

we need to register 2 domain names as soon as possible, because it can take a while for DNS servers to detect them...and the biggest problem is that we then have to submit the urls to google and yahoo, and it can take over a whole week for the url to get into their Index... this is only vital if we want our website to come up when people do a search...

and also, that means 2 urls = over 40 bucks....so about 2.5 bucks per person...

skype

ok, we'll check it out and set it up. we'll get a dollar off everyone when we get back from the holiday week...ill pay for the thing, so everyone has to pay me back! :P

thanx hody, for getting the info on that. ill do more research into its features and how to get it going.

about the telephone number we are getting

hi people
about the skype thingy that we talk about today, to get a australian number that we can actually let people call.. online...
I check the price already... it is 10 euro for 3 months, which I think it is really nothing when 20 people pay for it... 1 dollar a person....
then we can use that phone number as the repel contacts and record messages.... cool ha?

do we really wanna transfer this entire blog, all the contents and users, to another blog....cause that will take hours...

Password-protected blogs (or something like that)

Hey guys, do we still need a password-protected blog like suggested earlier today in class? WordPress can be set to hide posts from unregistered users or authors using this plugin. I haven't tried that though.... (mmm should this be posted on the main blog instead?)

>>>>selected web components for production<<<<

thanx steph!!

ok heres the plan so far? add stuff if ive forgotten something

phase 1:

> wikipedia entries: Redsun, Eclipse

> my space profiles: coorporate Redsun profile, some individual eclipse member profiles (using anonymity)

> chain mail: from Eclipse (will send to everyone on both blogs, and get everyone to send it to all the email contacts they have)

> set up some eclipse member blogs on Blogger

phase 2:

> set up skype number and answering machine

> redsun official public website: sections: who we are, what we do, contact us.

> eclipse website: sections: video, podcasts (audio), eclipse member section (need an account), who we are, what we do, events(?), contact us, forum, eclipse blog (not individual, like above)



ps: change Eclipse to wotever name we end up agreeing on

Web

Hello,

If anyone has anything for the presentation tomorrow please send it to Kyle. 1000 apologies for not having done it all myself but until yesterday i was still digesting the brief. Hope it all goes well...

At the moment all i have to mention is MAYBE:
- the web blogs/forums for either side
- maybe online videos of cult news/events

...anything else???.. PLEASE HELP???

meegs