Drumbeat/website/brief

Overview & Goals

Mozilla Drumbeat will find and connect people, ideas and actions that make the web better. Drumbeat is launching a PHASE ONE web site. The major goals of this early, beta-type site are to:

• “Show people what we mean.” Explain what Mozilla Drumbeat is and where it’s headed -- primarily through powerful examples of what we mean. Use these examples to illustrate the overall concept and show rather than tell.
• Showcase compelling a) IDEAS, b) PEOPLE and c) ACTION for making the web better. These are the three major content streams for the site, and heart of the site.
• Crowdsource great new content. Make it easy for others to submit their own ideas, people and actions, using templates and workflow we provide. This is a key priority for Phase One -- we want to create a great container that models the kind of stuff we’re looking for, and make it easy for others to start feeding their own ideas, people and action into it.
• Showcase and get people excited about a big upcoming EVENT: Drumbeat Istanbul in June 2010. Make it sexy and trumpet key values: genius ideas, rubbing shoulders with the web’s leading lights, and the prospect of Internet “fame and fortune.”

In addition, the Phase One site will:

• Encourage the best content to float to the top. Get an early sense of which THEMES, IDEAS, PEOPLE & ACTION have the most traction and interest with our audiences. Use a simple voting & reviewing layer (probably Digg) to make this easy.
• Showcase LOCAL events and action, primarily in the form of short, Ignite-style presentations. Trumpet the big Istanbul event at the center -- but also local events and opportunities for participation around the edges and in your community. Should feel like a global community.
• Capture a “co-opetive” spirit and flavour.
• Be easy to share socially and push content to the places people are already at.

Scope: Phase One vs. Phase Two

The emphasis for Phase One is RAPID prototyping and implementation. The goal is to get to a point quickly where we can invite others to crowd-source and populate great suggested ideas, action and people. Phase Two will be more robust and public-facing, with a greater emphasis on graphic design, scalability, a more robust back-end CMS, etc.

Target Communities

Leaders and social entrepreneurs making the web better. The audience for this early "Phase One" site is more apt to be technologically inclined, and already understand the issues to a degree. In Phase Two we will aim more explicitly to get beyond the "techosphere," and reach a more mainstream audience. But for phase one, we can assume an audience of more mavens and insiders.

Information Architecture

From an information architecture standpoint, the Phase One site is primarily about PEOPLE and PROJECTS, plus raising awareness about a big upcoming event, the Drumbeat Festival.

The people and projects need to cross reference and relate to each other in multiple ways. We need the ability to easily associate a particular PERSON, for example, with a project they're working on.

Ten broad “themes” or categories

The ideas, people and action all fall under one of ten broad “categories.” These themes are like mini-impact or mission statements. Like: “The web gets better when we...

• ...ensure anyone can connect to do or say anything.
• ...make the internet more accessible.
• ...use and promote open standards."

Timelines

The site will soft launch in early January.

Photoshop mock-up of phase one Front page (Nov 8; v28):

Photoshop mock-up of phase one Festival page (Nov 8; v8):

Photoshop mock-up of phase one Project page -- Mozilla-led project (Nov 8; v16):

Photoshop mock-up of phase one Project page -- Community-led project (Nov 8; v16):