XERXES ATLAS - THE WORLD'S FIRST WIKI-MUSICAL

Poor words. As they get more popular, as we give them more love, we also keep trying to shove in new meaning to see if they can take it.

In the technology industry, this happens over and over. Take "cloud computing," which used to mean something pretty specific and now means essentially "on the Internet" as far as I can tell. Outside the technology industry, take "news," which also used to mean something, and now is a muddy mess of news/editorial/advertising.

So we've probably been guilty of this too. We decided that we needed to coin a new word for our project and we've come up with wiki-musical and wik-emusical. I'm still in two minds as to which one is best - Wik-emusical places emphasis on the electronic (internet) creation of the project but I'm wondering if this would lead people to think that it was a musical that you could only see on the internet.. which of course isn't true.

Wiki of course is easily understood if you've heard of wikipedia - the online user-generated Encyclopedia. And that's exactly what we're doing but with a musical.

Inspiration for this post came from this blog on opensource.com: http://opensource.com/business/10/4/word-community-losing-its-meaning

I came across another fantastic article today. The premise is that you don't need a superstar status to make it in the creative business. All you need is to connect with 1000 true fans. Read the article here: http://www.kk.org/thetechnium/archives/2008/03/1000_true_fans.php

We're making a promo video for our project to raise money and awareness. In keeping with the spirit of the project, we're making this an open event. Want to be a XA video star then come along and prove it! Event details on facebook: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=104366236267321&index=1

Jade Wood interviews Chad Carter, one of the directors for Xerxes Atlas. He's our friendly 'numbers guy' with a smile to match his skill.  

Jade: A couple of months ago I put up a post with a video of a presentation of Mike Masnick showcasing his Music Business formula using Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails as his case study.This is another great post from Masnick but it gives other examples of lesser known artists it's working for too:

In simplest terms, the model can be defined as:

Connect with Fans (CwF) + Reason to Buy (RtB) = The Business Model

Sound simple? It is, if you understand the basics -- and it can be incredibly lucrative. The problem, of course, is that very few seem to fully understand how this model works. However, let's go through some examples.

Trent Reznor, the man behind the band Nine Inch Nails, has done so many experiments that show how this model works that it's difficult to describe them all. He's become a true leader in showing how this model works in a way that has earned him millions while making fans happy, rather than turning them into the enemy.

Read the full article here: http://techdirt.com/articles/20091119/1634117011.shtml

Photo by Burns!

I've been visiting lawyers. They've got their own take on our ideas. What's they're referring to is known as "CC+". Sounds like a programming language, but it's not.

This generation: It's a story about community and collaboration on a scale never seen before. It's about the cosmic compendium of knowledge Wikipedia and the million-channel people's network YouTube and the online metropolis MySpace. It's about the many wresting power from the few and helping one another for nothing and how that will not only change the world, but also change the way the world changes.

Read  more:

This one is for all you academics out there. It gives a history of Copyright law and what it was intended for and how it's now not serving it's original purpose.

Bridget is our grey hair, she's got lots of life experience and is passionate about exploring how to do things in new ways.

Bridget talks about what inspires her about the project, what skills she brings to our team and what challenges she's faced in being involved.

It starting raining 5 minutes after we shot this! That's New Zealand for you - '4 seasons in one day'.

Yes we're being facetious.

In the wake of the story in Publisher's Weekly that "publishers may lose as many $3 billion to online book piracy" is a sudden realization of a much greater threat to the viability of the industry book. Apparently, more than 2 billion pounds have been "loaned" last year by a cabal of organisms found in almost every American city and town. Using the same advanced mathematical projections used in the study cited by Publishers Weekly, Go To Hellman has calculated that the publishers could lose sales opportunities totaling over 100 billion dollars a year, losses dating back to at least the year 2000. These lost sales dwarf online piracy reported.