Like so many of us, John Batelle (of Wired, Industry Standard and FM fame) noticed as cell phones replaced the lighter as the ubiquitous expression of enthusiasm in the hands of the concert crowd. But John went one step further and set out to take advantage of this shift to change the concert experience.
His vision was to create a "place where all of us can share and produce our experiences: a many to many celebration of live music, in real time, as well as an ongoing, living archive of what has happened, and what might happen next."
The official "About Us" seems even more ambitious: "Created by Outside Lands and Federated Media, and presented by Windows, CrowdFire is an online and onsite destination where music, culture and technology enthusiasts participate in a massive, crowdsourced act of digital media creation."
Now CrowdFire.net is beta. The inaugural live event, the Outside Lands festival in San Francisco has come and gone. There are now videos, photos and a smattering of comments on the site. The site promises more features to come. But so far it's not as exciting as I'd hoped. Maybe it's just early days. Or maybe it's hard to get real community going around an ephemeral event.
Maybe when the new features are added, it will become more engaging. Maybe it will gain momentum as more events are queued up and a stable community can start to gather around it. Maybe they'll be able to create opportunities between events to keep the conversation going. Or maybe it'll be another well-intentioned casualty at the intersection of music and technology.
Any bets?
David Lewis
Strategists & Planners