January 15, 2008

Week 1

Introduction 

MODULE I

Overview of Online Communities

January 22, 2008

Week 2

Blogs, Wikis, Social Networks

January 29, 2008

Week 3

Micro and niche communities.  Local communities. Newspapers

Guest Speaker(s:

• Sue Cross, Vice President/Online, U.S. Newspaper Markets, Associated
  Press
• Sarah Nordgren, director of state news reports, Associated Press

Readings: New Media Bibliography (http://poynter.org/content/content_view.asp?id=899&sid=26) , Your Guide to Micro-blogging and Twitter (http://www.pbs.org/mediashift/2007/05/for_the_uberconnectedyour_guid.html), USC Annenberg Online Journalism review (http://www.ojr.org/), Can Newspapers Be Saved? (http://www.readership.org/news/newspaper_next.asp)

Adam Clayton Powell III (2005) Reinventing Local News Chapter IV “Local News on the Internet (85-102)

Explore: http://www.kingdomofloathing.com, http://xkcd.com/, http://magnatune.com

February 5, 2008

Week 4

The communities of virtual worlds and games

Featured Speaker:

• Cory Ondrejka, co-founder of Second Life, former CTO of Linden Lab

Readings: Henry Jenkins “Collective Intelligence” (http://web.mit.edu/cms/People/henry3/collective%20intelligence.html)

Betsy Book “Virtual World Business Brands” (http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/Delivery.cfm/SSRN_ID736823_code366012.pdf?abstractid=736823&mirid=1)

Explore: Visit www.curse.com, http://www.stratics.com/, http://www.penny-arcade.com/, http://nwn.blogs.com/.  How do these sites approach communities compared to those you visited in the previous weeks?  Join http://secondlife.com, http://www.there.com/, http://www.vmtv.com/, https://signup.worldofwarcraft.com/trial/10dayfreetrial.htm, https://secure.eve-online.com/ft

MODULE II

Business of Online Communities

February 12, 2008

Week 5

Going viral:  Viral marketing, viral distribution of content, spreading the word, SEO

Guest Speaker(s): TBD

• Clinton Schaff, Sr. Director of Social Media Marketing, M80

• Gregory Markel, Founder/President of Infuse Creative

Readings: 10 Predictions Survey & Results (http://www.connectedmarketing.org/2007/06/06/10-predictions-survey-input-and-results/), Naked Conversations, chapter one (http://redcouch.typepad.com/weblog/2005/02/chapter_1.html), The Customer Evangelist Manifesto (http://www.changethis.com/1.CustomerEvangelist#), Unleashing the Ideavirus (http://www.sethgodin.com/ideavirus/01-getit.html, pp. 1-18)

Explore: http://bookmooch.com, http://www.wordofmouthbook.com/freestuff.php, WOMMA Word of Mouth Essentials (http://womma.org/essentials/), Cluetrain Manifesto 95 Theses (http://cluetrain.com/book/), Excerpts from Anatomy of Buzz (click ‘content’ on http://www.emanuel-rosen.com/)

In class examples: Coke/Mentos video, Matt Damon/Sarah Silverman video, Will It Blend? Chuck Norris,  Gigya widget examples

February 19, 2008

Week 6

Intellectual Property and other regulatory issues

Guest Speaker(s):

• Michael S. Overing, Attorney and leader in digital media law

Readings: James Grimmelmann “Virtual Borders” (http://www.firstmonday.org/issues/issue11_2/grimmelmann/)

Larry Lessig “Free Culture: Chapter 10 - Property” (http://www.free-culture.cc/freeculture.pdf)

Second Life banking announcement (http://blog.secondlife.com/2008/01/08/new-policy-regarding-in-world-banks/)

Viacom sues YouTube (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/6446193.stm)

History of Grokster (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grokster)

Explore: http://youtube.com, http://flickr.com, download and explore Miro (http://www.getmiro.com/).  Think about what you would do if you found your content on one of these sites.  Would you know what to do?

February 26, 2008

Week 7

INTERLUDE

Mid-term Class Check-In

Discussion of Class Projects

March 4, 2008

Week 8

 Monetizing, venture capital, and starting up

 Guest Speaker(s):

• David Pollock, Senior Managing Director, Bear Stearns & Co., Inc.

MODULE III

People & Online Communities

March 11, 2008

Week 9

Managing a community.  Evangelizing vs. responsibilities to your company. Customer service

Guest Speaker(s):

• Janice Rohn of Yellowpages.com (an AT&T company) and expert on user experience.  
• Cyn Skyberg, Linden Lab's VP of Customer Relations

March 18, 2008

              Spring Break:  NO CLASS

March 25, 2008

Week 10

Attracting people, converting, and retaining. Why are they here?

Guest Speaker(s):

• Todd Rosenberg, New Business Development, Userplane.
  
  

April 1, 2008

Week 11

Special issues: kids and other vulnerable populations, predators and other dangers, privacy

Guest Speaker(s): TBD

MODULE IV

Future of Online Communities

April 8, 2008

Week 12

Going Mobile

Guest Speaker(s):

• Charlie Nooney, Chairman and CEO of MobiTV

Readings: 

• The Mobile Generation: Global Transformations at the Cellular Level By The Aspen Instutute.  Download PDF from http://www.aspeninstitute.

April 15, 2008

Week 13

The future of virtual worlds

Guest Speaker(s): TBD

April 22, 2008

Week 14

User Generated Content, mash-ups, etc.  Politics and political campaigns.

Guest Speaker(s):

• Jason Kirk, VP MySpaceTV, formerly Director of Marketing and Content

Reading: Aspen Institute “Media, Creativity, and the Public Good”

April 29, 2008

Week 15: "Final class"

Student Presentations

*All papers AND presentations to be emailed to instructors before 5 pm 4/29.

May 6, 2008

Week 16: "Final week"

Student Presentations