Web Application Startup

Overview

Some web applications like Facebook and Twitter and a very interesting story on how they started. Go to http://icomment.posterous.com/web-20-startup-signup and choose one that you would like to research. Make sure you research it a little before choosing to make sure there is an interesting story!

Your summary will be used to teach students next year and years to come so please do your best but be efficient with your time.

Using iMovie, create a slideshow of photos to go along with your narration of the web application's story of how they started and grew to where it is today.

Instructions

Read all of the directions below before you start!

Type out a paragraph in a Word Doc for each section: beginning, growth, & where it is today. Make sure you cover the following in your paragraphs:

• Which person or persons were primarily responsible for coming up with it
• How did they come up with the idea (very important)
• Include important years (specific days and times are not as important)
• Highlight how they grew and what caused it; what made them different
  • Cite informative facts about the company and where it stands today
  • Make sure you make it interesting and fun

Share your Google Doc with a classmate or someone from school who is at least a grade higher and ask them to insert comments (highlight a word or phrase and go to Insert > Comment or hit cmd + option + shift. These comments will appear on the right side like the example below in the Google Doc and should show how to improve it. Give them Doc permission to view and edit along with me (mouseflip@gmail.com).

Then search the Internet for good photos that can go along with summary and insert them into iMovie.

iMovie Format

• Using Photoshop, create a creative but neat title page that will be the intro for your video. Make sure to include the web application's logo and web address. Remember to use white space wisely. Include the title "The Story Behind (Your Web Application)" by Your Name. You should only have this show for a few seconds, enough for the viewer to read it.
• The next scene is a quick video clip of you introducing yourself and the web application. Share a brief background of what it does and how you use it. If you don't use it, then play around with it and find a good use to use it now. When you start to explain how you use it, insert a video clip of a screencast using Quicktime showing how you use it, which will match your narration.
• Then you need to transition to begin explaining the history. You could say something like, "But this application was not always this advanced with all these options. In the very beginning it only had..." Begin sharing how it started and who started. Switch between photos to go along with the narration and you narrating. Do not switch too much, try to find a good balance and good times to do so (at least one switch in each of the three parts (beginning, growth, and now).
• Then end with you explaining what the company has said, any rumors, and/or what you think the company will do in the future in terms of growth and the evolution of the application. End with a video clip of you giving an ending. Do not thank them for watching or put up a cheesy "End" picture. Think of a creative way to end it.

Narration Format

The most important part of the narration and what I'm really going to look for a lot when grading is the following:

• I don't suspect that you are merely reading a report. You wrote it so you should be able to freely explain and talk
• The pace of your narration needs to be upbeat to keep the attention of your audience, smile, and appear to be excited about your topic. If you have trouble doing this, ask a friend to help and narrate for you
• Wear clean clothes and a shirt that has a collar
• Choose a good background that has nothing distracting; when you film your narration with plenty of light
• When you narrate, use iMovie's video recording option and speak clearly. Narrate the whole summary and then you can insert pictures or other video clips over the video parts of you narrating while keeping the vocal of the narration going. Review the iMovie tutorial if you forgot how to split the audio/video and to place video clips over other clips.
• Try to be funny at times in your narration, humor goes a long way (important)
• Choose a nondistracting copyright free music background with no vocals but make sure it is not too loud that it distracts from your voice.
• Resources: Freeplay, SoundBible, Beatpick
• Insert two appropriate sound effects
  • Resources: SoundBible, PacDV, PartnersInRay

Video Recap

The final video narration may be 1-3 minutes long so make sure you read your summary out loud and time it before you start creating it in iMovie. Again, make sure the narration pace is smooth and upbeat. I would rather have one quality minute that is catchy and smooth than 3 minutes of long drawn out narrations.

This will be graded on creativity and meeting the requirements and is not merely a completion grade.

Publishing

Then go to Internet Startups and click "Create Page" at the top right (make sure you are signed in to your class gmail account). Use the name of your web application (e.g. Facebook) as your title. Make sure you choose "Put page Under Internet Startup"

Upload the video to the castudents YouTube account, password happyhowzit. Name the title of the video "The History of how __________ Began" and in the description of the video, write A video made by your name describing....(write a one sentence summary).

Then view your video and click "Share" to the right of the "Add to" -- then click Embed and check mark "Use old embed code" located below the HTML code.

Then go to your page your created and in edit mode, click on the HTML icon on the toolbar and paste your HTML in the box after you delete everything inside the box. Change all the width sizes to "600" and all the height sizes to "385" & click update.

After a line space below your video paste your narration paragraphs and make a line space between each paragraph. Insert one coordinating picture in each paragraph and choose Align R, Size S, and Wrap on.

After the last paragraph, insert a line space and type By Your Name

Scroll to the top of the page, take a screenshot of the whole screen and post to posterous along with the link to the page.

Assignments like these that take more time and graded on requirements always have more weight than other tutorials/classwork.