VO-BB - 20 YEARS OLD!

[JBarrett]

I have an idea for a new web site that I feel could be a valuable resource for the voiceover community. I realize the following is rather wordy, but please bear with me while I explain what led me to this idea, and describe my initial plans for its execution.

The Problem
There's a lot of great information online about the wonderful world of voiceover, including the massive archives here. However, there's currently no easy way to keep track of it all. For example, let's say I want to find information on marketing my voiceover services. Where could I go to look for this information?

• I could use the search feature here to find threads based on the keyword "marketing", but it's not an exact science. It still requires scanning through the search results to see which threads are actually relevant to the subject of the search, as the word "marketing" could easily pop up in discussions that have very little to do with that subject.
  
• There are very informative marketing tidbits to be found on blogs, but even with an RSS aggregator to track your favorite bloggers, it still means weeding through the collection if you're trying to recall where you read a certain post that caught your attention some time in the past.
  
• A Google search is another option if you want to peruse the broader expanse of the web, but that can also be somewhat hit-or-miss.
  

I could go on, but in short, all of this valuable information is currently disconnected and difficult to track.

The Solution
As I began my push into the world of voiceover earlier this year, I saw the tip of this voiceover information iceberg, and knew that if I wanted to make effective use of it, I needed some way to track it. The problem-solver in me developed a plan to create a database that would contain links to as much of this information as possible, so that I could find information on any subject quickly and easily. I felt that others might benefit from this collection as well, so that pretty much cemented my plan to create The VO Database.

What Is It?
The VO Database web site will be a simple categorized list of links. Want information on marketing? Simply look under the "Marketing" category, and you'll find links pointing to various places online with information on marketing your voiceover business, whether that information is in a forum post, someone's blog, a Yahoo group, a podcast, etc.

For the interface, my initial thought is to use a simple folder-style organization, with top-level categories containing more focused subcategories. It's possible that a search feature could also be added as the collection grows, but ideally I would like the categories to be as organized and intuitive as possible so that searching won't be needed.

Each link will only need to be entered into the database once, even if it could possibly fall under multiple categories. My goal is to add some cross-referencing features, so that when looking at a link under Marketing, for example, you can see if the content at that link also applies to other categories, and have links to jump to those categories. Each entry will also point to the root of the associated source site, and there will be a page available to view links for all source sites.

How Are You Gonna Pull This Off?
Very slowly. First off, I'm totally comfortable with the idea of building the back-end to make this all work. I'm nearing the end of another personal endeavor that involves using HTML, PHP, mySQL, CSS, and JavaScript to create a content-management system for an online art "club", and I could fairly easily adapt that to work for The VO Database.

The biggest challenge will be keeping the whole thing up-to-date. I can only do so much on my own, so at some point I'm going to need outside help to add new links. I'm hesitant to allow the open submission of links via a form, though, as that will just mean a lot of effort to prevent spam links from entering the database. One alternative is to enlist assistance from folks to act as co-admins on the site. Another idea would be to require all submissions to be sent as PM's on specific VO forums (there are other fourms??), which would allow more people to contribute, while also adding a level of filtering. I realize that both of these also have their drawbacks, so I'm open to hearing other ideas.


So there it is! I'd love to hear any and all thoughts on this idea. The goal is to make it a useful resource for all VO artists, so feel free to voice your opinions if there's something you'd like to see (or not see, as the case may be) on this site. As I get more concrete pieces put together, I'll post to the Critique forum for feedback.
_________________
Justin S. Barrett
http://www.justinsbarrett.com/

[Jeffrey Kafer]

you mean something like this?

http://www.voiceoverresourceguide.com/
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Jeff
http://JeffreyKafer.com
Voice-overload Web comic: http://voice-overload.com

[dange]

Wow, thanks, that's a great website! Anything out there for Philly?

[JBarrett]

Jeffrey,

Yes and no...but mostly no. From what I can see, The Voiceover Resource Guide is primarily about tracking tangible resources in specific physical locations. My intention with The VO Database is to track the intangibles, like what Bob Souer said on his blog about a marketing concept, or a comment you made here on the forum about a certain microphone, or Pat Fraleys tips about dialects in the recent Voices.com podcast. Those items are all tracked and organized in their own individual spheres (forums, blogs, podcast show notes), but there currently isn't a resource (that I'm aware of) that will point someone to ALL of those types of information based on specific topics. There will be other things in the database as well, but the main purpose is to collect links to all the scattered nuggets of information that currently do not have a single index.
_________________
Justin S. Barrett
http://www.justinsbarrett.com/

[asnively]

You know, Justin-- if you set this up as a wiki, then it might be easier for you to maintain. No?
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[jrodriguez315]

[JBarrett]

[Jeffrey Kafer]

[JBarrett]

Google is good, but it's still missing the human element. It still requires the user to visit each site to see if it's relevant to what is desired.

As a test, I did a Google search for "voiceover dialects". In the first page of results, none of the links gave concrete tips on dialects. What did come up were sites where people offered VO services in various dialects, news articles about Pat Fraley's contribution to the Voiceover Experts podcast where he talks about dialects, generic articles about voiceover and the importance of understanding dialects, etc. The news bits about Fraley's podcast involvement are the closest, but it's still just news. I want to point directly to useful information about specific topics, such as a link to the Voices.com page where someone can download that Voiceover Experts episode featuring Pat. If Pat (or anyone else) is doing a class about dialects, I want a link to details on that class to also fall under the "Dialects" heading (along with being co-listed under an "Events" heading). If there are products that help people work on dialects, those will also go there. I've focused most of the talk on blog posts, forum posts, podcasts, etc., but there are other things that could go into the system as well that would be equally useful.

I totally understand that this is going to be a massive undertaking. The time needed to create the back-end workings of the site will be miniscule compared to the time needed to populate it with links, and I'm totally cool with that. I don't expect it to happen overnight. It's going to take time to fill it with information, and yes, getting help in that arena would be very useful. Out of everything to be discussed about this idea, that's probably the thing I would like the most input on at this time. Is anyone here willing to help in some way? Do you have ideas on how to organize the input of data from different sources? I've got some ideas of my own on additional tools that could be developed to help simplify the process of adding things like blog entries and forum posts.

I know this is a lot to soak up right now, but as I start preparing the site prototype and get it online for folks to check out, hopefully its purpose and usefulness will become more clear.
_________________
Justin S. Barrett
http://www.justinsbarrett.com/

[asnively]

I think this would be very useful and awesome! Thanks for taking it on!
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[jrodriguez315]

You mean sort of like a VO focused Del.icio.us or StumbleUpon, yes?
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Joe Rodriguez, Bilingual Voice Actor | The Voiceover Thespian Blog

[bobsouer]

Justin,

I'm with you. Please let me know how I might help.
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Be well,
Bob Souer (just think of lemons)
The second nicest guy in voiceover.
+1-724-613-2749
Source Connect, phone patch, pony express

[KaraEdwards]

I think it's a wonderful idea! Google is great, but you can get aall types of responses, many not VO related. A concise list would be wonderful.

Please let me know if I can help in any way (also)!
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Threadjackers local 420

Kara Edwards
http://www.karaedwards.com
kara@karaedwards.com

[JBarrett]

Joe: That's a pretty good comparison!

Bob, and Kara: Thank you for your generous offers. Because you are both active bloggers, my initial thought would be to ask you (at the appropriate time) to categorize your respective blog entries. To assist in that effort, I'll provide an interface that allows you to pull up each entry and flag the appropriate categories before adding the whole shebang to the database. Ideally I would love it if other VO bloggers could do likewise, but I understand that it won't be possible in all cases. Therefore it would be helpful to have people categorize blogs other than their own, and I may enlist your help in that endeavor if you're willing.

In a similar vein, there will need to be a LOT of work done to add forum threads to the database, from both here and...*ahem*.....elsewhere. I will likely build another interface to assist in that process, and invite any who are willing to help in the effort. The plan is to break it up into chunks, with each chunk containing a specific number of threads that someone can review and categorize in a short stretch of time. More details on that will come later.

On my end, I've started building a rough prototype for the main interface, and hope to present it for feedback in the Critique forum soon, along with a rough organization for the category tree.

Thanks again for all the comments!
_________________
Justin S. Barrett
http://www.justinsbarrett.com/

[Deirdre]

There's an "elsewhere"?
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