Snapsterpieces: Our latest idea

We’ve now collected almost 60 Snapsterpieces altogether and I’m fairly happy with that amount. In our most recent meeting, Pauric, Ashley and I spoke about what it is we are actually going to do with them all. The initial idea was to compile them into a viral video and post it to YouTube to promote the idea of Snapsterpieces. This is still an option for us but I wanted to explore other ideas.

What are snaps really used for? Telling a quick story about your day. An expression of your personality. Making your friends laugh. So I started to think about ways in which we could capture the essence of the process between sender and receiver. The sender wants to say something – or show something. The receiver opens it and perceives it. Does the recipient perceive the snap in the way the sender intended? Are they amused? Are they informed? Did they enjoy it?

We came up with an idea which puts our Snapsterpiece collection to use – letting it do all the work! We want to compile all of our snaps and present them to some friends and family, perhaps some passers-by at college will like to partake too! We want to provide them with a blank comic strip template. Ultimately we would like our volunteers to come up with their own stories using a compilation of the snaps provided. We will encourage them to fill in our template with their own story – told using the snaps from our collection, and some blank speech bubbles. This will hopefully capture the idea that all art is perceived in different ways by different people. Ultimately we want to inspire people to join in on the trend by demonstrating the creative potential of Snapchat. Snapchat is fast becoming the business world’s favorite new marketing tool not to mention it’s snowballing popularity in the realm of social media.

After all of this, we hope to have a small collection of comic strips, each one different from the last – which provide proof that Snapsterpieces are indeed artistic pieces of dynamic communication. In the end, our finished artifact will be truly considered a collaborative piece.

 

Thanks @Shonduras and @Mplatco for all of your donations! View them all here: http://www.hitrecord.org/collaborations/8576

Snapsterpiece update: Appealing to donators

I came across another fantastic snapsterpiece artist on twitter. His name is @Shonduras. I added him on snapchat and imediately I started receiving his elaborate snaps. I decided to get in contact with him because I loved his work and I knew his snaps would be perfect for our project because they provide a fabulous example of how intricate you can make your snapsterpieces. I decided to snap him this message that I laid out using Photoshop. I figured that if my approach was unique then I would get his attention. I also tweeted him (click the image to see the conversation).
His reply was immediate and thankfully he was kind enough to allow me to use his work in our project. I look forward to sharing his talented snaps with our audience.

Social Networking in Ireland – We’re just set in our ways!

Above is an info-graphic by EightyTwenty blog. It lays out the stats regarding usage of Social Media in Ireland. As I suspected, Facebook is currently the most popular social networking site in Ireland for all types of users including Irish Businesses. Twitter comes in second place.

I was asked in class last week which social media site am I on the most. It is definitely Facebook – but what is the reason for that? Well I guess it’s because Facebook has been a part of my social routine since I started my college career back in 2009. I know how to use Facebook (well, so I think) and I’ve developed a 5 year long relationship with it – establishing contacts and my own, personalised online persona. To move to another social networking site would take time and effort that I simply don’t want to give. I believe that this is the case for many Irish Facebook users. I’m sure there are plenty of shiny new social networks out there boasting a more user-friendly experience and what have you. But it’s simple – people, young and old, like what they know!

Now, on the other hand, I am not going to pretend that Facebook is safe forever. We all know it’s not. As shown in the above info-graphic, Twitter and LinkedIn are both hot on the heels of our number 1. But these sites are edging their way into our lives by claiming to provide a different type of service to what is already available to us. In this way, I believe it is quite possible for Facebook to be dislodged from it’s superior position. I believe that eventually users may unwittingly convert to a new favorite – whatever the site may be. By this I mean that Irish users will not consciously change their social media habits but may be unconsciously coaxed into learning the ways of one of Facebook’s competitors over time – due to a new convenience provided by the new site. Only then does this site have a chance at shoving Facebook off the top spot.

Remix/Collaborative Project: Snapsterpieces – Update #3

It’s been 3 weeks since I’ve distributed the poster around the college and so far we’ve received as little as ten snapsterpieces to our designated SnapChat account hitRECm3. So far on our HitRecord collaboration we have approximately 30 snapsterpieces collected. This is plenty to create a video from but I would have liked even more variety than that. A lot of the snaps have been donated by myself or my friends so I’m hoping that, with some more promotion in the coming days on Pinterest and perhaps reddit, we will receive some more donations from outsiders. I still think that the idea is great – I just feel like we haven’t advertised our appeal enough.