Jeannie Novak Discusses "Creating Internet Entertainment"

Anne Papina [Staff]
Welcome to the Internet Publishing Forum! Today we welcome Jeannie Novak, author of "Creating Internet Entertainment" In her book, Jeannie explores Internet audience demographics and shows how to appeal to the emerging entertainment marketplace. She also discusses effective publicity and promotion techniques as well as design principles and the software tools you'll need. eannie is a co-founder of Kaleidospace and has consulted for numerous high-profile clients in the entertainment industry. Ooops... that's Jeannie :) Jeannie, is there anything you'd like to add?

Jeannie Novak Thanks for the intro, Anne! First, I should mention that Pete Markiewicz (my business partner) is co-author of the book. It was published by Wiley Computer Publishing - and we've recently heard that it will be translated into Chinese!

Anne Papina[Staff] Wow!

David Lypka I tried some of the streaming video demos a few months ago and found it too primitive for my application yet - even the vendor agreed. But recently there have been some improvements. Have you tried it?

Jeannie Novak David - We have tried it. Until Progressive Networks came out with RealVideo, we had stayed away from streaming video.

David Lypka What is the best frame rate you have used?

Jeannie Novak (cont'd) . . . and we'd stuck with QT (play

during download option) Now that RealVideo is available, we're interested not as much for the quality (which *is* still somewhat primitive) but for the implied streaming video standard. Best frame rate we've used is 5 frames/sec (good for talking heads at 28.8) (cont'd) . . . For music videos, we frequently go to a "slide show" format (1 fps) because most of the interest is carried by the music itself

Michel Jeannie: I am afraid I haven't read your book (I am developing a 'boring' business intranet), may I ask what platforms you have used and if you have any preferences (web-servers, cgi language)

Jeannie Novak Michel - Are you using Windows NT or UNIX?

Michel OS/2 smp the reason I asked

Jeannie Novak Michel - Our experience has been primarily with UNIX systems. We've done very little work with OS/2. The UNIX still feels the best, particularly when CGI is involved. The main advantage for us has been the enormous amount of freeware available for common UNIX systems (Sun/BSDI)

Michel Have you used any of the *api instead of CGI

Jeannie Novak Michel - We've investigated "fast" CGI as well as integrating code modules directly into an Apache server. For the time being, we're sticking with CGI.

David Lypka How important would it be to you to have an SDK that hooks into a streaming video player. I think it is essential to have before I can use it.

Jeannie Novak David - What are the general features of the app you're planning on using it for

David Lypka Well, to me the ultimate site would be purely video - so we need to have hotspots, and multiple views, etc. I have developed my own software to try to move in that direction.

Jeannie Novak David - The type of entertainment that we have been providing on our own site ha s somewhat different requirements, since it's from indie artists rather than large media companies . . .

David Lypka I'm not a large company. I think that video on the web helps pave the way for the next big wave in TV broadcasting.

Jeannie Novak David - I think you have a great software idea. Just make sure that you do allow for enough interactivity so that the audience doesn't feel "broadcast" to. . . Our opinion is that the Web is a highly interactive medium in which the audience is active (not passive as a TV-watching audience).

Michel I wonder why there is so much hype surrounding Java when almost all the examples out there are can be done with animated gifs - have you done anything more interesting with

Java than jumping frogs:) and have you found any books or sites with real life examples? (other than gamelan)

Jeannie Novak Michel - The most interesting areas for Java appear to be on Intranets (your area!), where you can write proprietary programs that accomplish specific tasks in the same way that the old client/server model did. . .Out on the general Web, its potential appears to lie in creating superior interfaces for sites with rapidly updated information (e.g., events sites such as NetGuide or Online Access) - the former recently purchased the latter! . . .

Michel Exactly my thought - therefore it is rather pathetic that so little interesting stuff has shown up - I have been abusing JavaScript and CGI to accomplish things that really should be done in Java

Jeannie Novak . . . On our own site, we're using animated gifs - and we're integrating Java only for next-generation shopping carts, order forms, etc. Perhaps the real potential for Java might be for an upgraded WebTV where consumers may use temporary apps (e.g., word processors, draw/paint programs). Just a thought!

David Lypka Thanks for the video thoughts. Another question - how much of your resource pie is being allocated to producing artwork - drawings? Do you have to employ a full time graphic artist?

Jeannie Novak David - I supervise all the design, and my partner happens to be an *excellent* detail artist. So, we have been fortunate in this area. On our own site and on sites we have designed for corporations, we are known for the "Kspace look"!

Wiliam Stephens Sorry if this is a bit off-topic. What would you say is the best HTML editor to create good, fancy sites?..What would you say is the best GIF Animator around?..What would say is the best graphic package around?...And why?.. Jeannie Novak William - Most of our HTML coding has been on Macs. In that environment, FrontPage is definitely *not* optimal. We've heard high praise for it on Windows systems. We use an expanded text editor, BBEdit, for our HTML design. (We were around long before editors were available, hence we think in HTML directly.) Our gripe about editors is that most of them don't allow editing of pages on a remote web server - something that we often need to do for corporate clients.

Wiliam Stephens Yep, I agree..I love Notepad editor :-)..

Jeannie Novak The gif animator we use is the Mac program, GifBuilder. It's simple, but it allows manipulating the individual frames in Photoshop at the same time that we're testing the animation . . As far as graphics packages, we've done the majority of our work in Photoshop. Again, it's simple - easy to import the huge array of file types we receive from our clients.

Michel How much of a typical site of yours is Static HTML and how much CGI driven - in my experience, most site creation books and software are geared towards static HTML - bad news if all one's data has to be dynamically retrieved. And may we have some Kspace URLs, please?

Jeannie Novak URLS - http://kspace.com
http://american.recordings.com
http://www.bellind.com http://www.bellind.com (must have www due to firewall)
http://ecospace.com
http://artsednet.getty.edu

Jeannie Novak Michel - Most of the sites have been static.

This is due to the client more than our own inclinations. Most clients go through several stages before they accept the reality of having to spend tens of thousands of dollars on a database (yes, even those Fortune 500s!). Another reason clients don't want dbases is because search engines don't deal with the very well at present.

Wiliam Stephens Of the many websites you have designed, which would you say is the best, be it entertaining or a serious one?..

Jeannie Novak William - Our own, of course! :)

Wiliam Stephens LOL..What's the URL?..

Jeannie Novak This is because of the content - from over 500 artists, musicians, filmmakers, performers, writers. (I am also a musician on my own site -http://kspace.com/novak) The main URL is http://kspace.com. Well, all our clients found out about us through our reputation as being our own content company - and they know it's one half of our business.

Michel Just an hour ago I visited www.firefly.com -have you seen it and are you thinking of using that technology (brilliant site)

Jeannie Novak Michel - I love Firefly. We mention it a lot in the book. Before we implement this technology ourselves, we are waiting to see if Firefly is successful at making their particular agent architecture an Internet standard.

Michel It really works

Jeannie Novak Michel - The best thing about Firefly is that it's completely original entertainment. There's nothing like it in any other medium.

Michel How much time do you spend on making your sites compatible with different browsers?

Jeannie Novak Michel - Our main approach has not been to support Explorer vs. Netscape (or some other combination) - but to be extremely conservative in our use of advanced markup features. For our larger clients, we are careful to explain to them that they may exclude part of their audience with advanced features - unless they allow us to build 2 versions of their site. For example, many entertainment companies have felt that WebTV audiences are important - but WebTV does not support side-to-side scrolling. You may have heard that Rysher Entertainment had to completely revamp their site when they heard about the difficulty that WebTV audience had in viewing it - In short, it is extremely important (in our opinion) to make sure that everyone can view your site at some level-whether it's a dynamic script that recognizes browser type or a readily-identifiable menu item that leads them to the appropriate version.

Michel Thanks Jeannie

Wiliam Stephens Thanks..

Jeannie Novak You're welcome!

Anne Papina[Staff] Jeannie, why don't you tell us how we can get a copy of your book?

Jeannie Novak If anyone wants to contact me for further questions, my email address is jeannie@kspace.com The book *Creating Internet Entertainment* is available from the Kspace site at http://kspace.com/intertainment Thanks, Anne, for inviting me to do this. I really enjoyed it!

Anne Papina: Jeannie, thanks for being here! We covered a lot today!

Jeannie Novak Thanks Anne!

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