Promotional video?

#1

Is anyone here good at video and video editing?

I think if we put out a video, no narration, maybe just a few captions, with just a montage of 1 or 1.5 second clips showing off the many things that TiddlyWiki can do, we might drum up a boatload of interest in it.

Super short clips of people tagging and linking (with autocomplete), resizing the sidebar, changing palettes and themes, using tabs and tables, and things like kanban and muuri and anki and lists of backlinks, and data visualizations, and checklists and list searches and calendars and modals and emojis and mindmap, and text formatting and pasting things from editor toolbars, and hiding tiddler sections with a click, and embedding images and youtube videos and tweets, and transclusions and a little bit of the advanced hieroglyphical java stuff…you get the idea. Not tutorials, not explanations, just clips of people using TW to do all these things. Maaaaybe with captions at the topic to help people interpret what they are seeing. To expose people to the multitude of things people do with TW, and whet their appetite to at least try it.

My own video ability is crudimentary, and it is the busiest time of the year for me in my work. So it’s not going to be me. I just thought this would be a great way to reel people in. Anyone game?

2 Likes
#2

… and a theme song!

I love the idea, but don’t have the skills to contribute.

#3

and don’t forget… the children’s book: “Tiddler - The story telling fish”

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#4

Nice to read that post! I agree. With caveats.

Making videos is an art. I made many. Many commercial.

My better ones are art-works … or promos …

(e.g. Italian literature of Calvino) — Ti racconto una storia #2 - “Zio Lupo” on Vimeo

(e.g. English promo for artist Angela Weyersberg) — Angela Weyersberg: Storyblocks on Vimeo

The point is NO video for TW would ever work unless SEVERAL people worked together to get the visual language to do it justice.

Why is that? TW is radical. I often wanted to try a promo but failed as I COULD NOT articulate visually what is very special in it.

Group pre-work would be needed IMHO to get the right visual lingo.

Can you form the army for that?

TT, x

#5

That is fine.

Though something more specific might work better?

Rather than LITTLE BINGO have TIDDLY WIKI? :slight_smile:

TT

#6

Damn, I wish I spoke Italian! I love Calvino (in translation) and this film is absolutely gorgeous!

Kudos to the actors, director, editors, crew, musicians, and all others involved. Beautiful!

– Scott

1 Like
#7

Thanks for the kind words! Appreciated.
May I riff off that and try say something about how to promo TW??

Regarding @DaveGifford’s OP, which is about promoting TW, I confirm I would be willing to do a film to help.

My difficulty is mainly (visual-) conceptual.

WHAT is to be promoted?

There are very good documentation videos like @pmario, and others, have done. But a promo for TW is not a docs resource, however good.

A promo evokes passion for a thing’s uniqueness.

So, IMO, for a promo, we would need show what is unique in TW to deliver the specialness (“USP”) that deserves attention.

There lays the problem, perhaps?

TW’s architecture is very radical yet, in practice, out-there, that tends to get lost in a “forest” of wiki-things.

I am of the opinion we would best promote TW as “Your Flexible Friend” (aka @TW_Tones’ “Platform” or @EricShulman’s [really ace] take on it)… something like that.

BUT how do you show that visually? TW is FAR more than just-another-wiki-system.
Yet easily gets sucked into, and adrift in, the sea of “wiki concepts”.

I do think this is well worth going into more.

A further discussion might be fruitful?

A long comment
TT

#8

In “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy”, the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation’s Marketing Division defined “robot” as

"Your Plastic Pal Who's Fun To Be With!"

:slight_smile:
“Share and Enjoy!”

#9

I can think of three things, in descending order of importance:

  1. The variety of things that can be built in it. I can see this as a series of questions, with an all-of-the-above answer: Is it a personal notebook? Is it a to-do list? Is it a blog? Is it a genealogy report? Is it a novel-organization-and-writing tool? Is it a documentation tool? Is it a Kanban board? Etc. Of course all of these would need impressive and varied visuals.
  2. The ease of use. (This is hard to do given the steep learning curve. But the point is how easy these tools are to use, rather than to build.) How do I add another entry to my journal? (Watch me do it in seconds.) How do I add a new Person to my genealogy wiki? (Watch me do it in a minute.) Etc.
  3. The consistency. Everything is a tiddler is liberating. I could see taking some of the ideas from Soren Bjornstad’s Inside Grok TiddlyWiki, Part 1: Architecture & Philosophy, where he points out the advantage of the common structure between platform and content. That presentation is geeky, and perfect for me, but not likely for our target audience. But we could present this in a manner something like, “Hey, you already know how to edit a tiddler. So if you want to change X, edit this tiddler. If you want to add functionality Y, create that tiddler.”

The first one would probably be the biggest selling point, although only if handled carefully. I can imagine a visualization that presents half-a-dozen varied uses that each get a few seconds of video, each with a still shot added into a permanent spot in some abstract idea space, with some glimpse of that space as we transition between uses. Then we follow with just the name and stills of another half-dozen, followed by an avalanche of twenty or thirty more over the course of a few seconds, plastering that idea space with possibilities. This might be a good first minute of a video.

One big problem is that there is a lot of sameness to TW sites. There are many exceptions, but an awful lot of the best places out there are clearly made with TW. I’m sure we can find good sites that look different, but I don’t know if we could find enough to make this sort of visualization impressive. Here of course the problem has nothing to do with how capable or technically impressive the sites are, just how different they look.

#10

Brilliant!

Your Flexy Robot … ??? Could be a TW! and it’s champion.

A LOCOMOTIVE BREATH … could clarify a few things about motivation …

TT

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#11

Great post! (I immediately loved the details.)

I need think on it a bit. I will reply.

TT

#12

My current feeling is a promotional video may have people talking and interacting with tiddlywik in real world circumstances;

Alice: “Is Bruno our 2nd cousin?”
Bob: “Lets look at the family tree I have built in TiddlyWiki”
Alice: Wow, that was a simple search?
Bob: Yes, and you can Just click on “Bruno” and see his parents, brothers and sisters"
Alice: You really have build a sophisticated family resource.

Ha Ha, but
Was Marvin the paranoid robot “Fun to be with” ?

#13

I too think that a good idea, i.e. visually present simple END-USE cases?

But there you get into the issue of whether to "Promo Specific Apps or “Promo an Application Maker”???

TT

#14

Right! Astute.

I think now, even more, about whether we should promo …

1 – The MAKING SYSTEM; or

2 – The DIVERSE OUTPUTS of it; or

3 – A MIX of both.

???

Just reflects, TT

#15

I often think that @jeremyruston is far too modest …

HE is the man-who-can and did …

TT

1 Like
#17

Much as he will not like it, Oxford modest, our redeemer, is @jeremyruston, long on short beard, and extensive span.

Screenshot 2023-02-02 195527
Screenshot 2023-02-02 195527480Ă—510 44.7 KB

IMO, HE could be marketed too for TW???

A very clever man.

Meanwhile, I KNOW A MAN WHO CAN …

TT

#18

A mix, of course, but the diverse outputs would absolutely be the hook to grab attention.

We should show the viewer that TiddlyWiki is powerful and varied. There should be enough to make viewers ask themselves, “I wonder if it could be used for…?” Even better would be answering that question as they keep watching. “Oh, look, a recipes/Christmas letters list/train history/whatever example… perfect!”. While we couldn’t get everything, having enough examples could allow them to answer for themselves, “Most likely.”

Then we could demonstrate that these applications can be built with exactly the same toolset that people are using to add the content in these apps.

Of course we’d have to end with something about how to get started with TW.

#19

Don’t forget about selling TW to the many people who tried TidddlyWiki 5, 7, 9 years ago and moved on and have no idea of all it does now. Just showing someone sliding the sidebar resizer back and forth for less than a second would be a “wow” moment. I am imagining a video with no narration, just music, with 50 or 60 surprises like that.

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#20

Nice one. SO WHAT are a few of those “surprises” of?

A film maker needs a few concrete ideas / suggests caro.

TT

#21

Neither in my view, I would just talk about an application area with no specifics such as genealogy, GTD and although some imagery may be seen in passing you are selling the ideas not the specific product.