After three major releases and a few more point releases than I’d care to mention, I believe we’ve reached a turning point with www.pcavote.com. The actual awards show we were developing the site to support and complement aired last week, so the timing is really ideal.

For anyone living under a rock, the writer’s strike caused the People’s Choice Awards to radically alter the format of the broadcast, a few weeks before the show. As a result, the program did not get the high viewership it had been hoping for (The TVSquad article “Did you catch the People’s Choice Awards? Neither did anyone else” says it all….). So the television broadcast didn’t do well, because the format was different than what people expected (and assumedly wanted). What’s interesting, however, is that the website has certainly continued its popularity post-show. Last week we launched a feature where users could create their own “buzz polls” for other users to vote and comment on. Less than a week later (and with poll creation being limited to registered members, to a maximum of nine active polls per user at a time), we now have over 850 polls (polls may be removed due to “offensive content”). Some of the polls focus on specific personalities, others are more related to the event behind all this community.

In all, this is a great example of what we Resourcians refer to as “open brand.” Despite being part of the team that developed the site, I now see it differently as a “community member”. It’s fun, and being actively engaged in the site has brought up all sorts of thoughts of improvements or enhancements. Many of the projects I’ve worked on over the past seven years in my career as a web developer have ended with the deliverable: something that was put out into the world. But this is different: what we created is fundamentally different than what it IS. The community, how people are interacting with the site, how people could interact with the site.. it’s an organic entity with opportunity to change and develop and improve. Hm, I think we may have invented our own Frankenstein’s monster, although not in a bad way….

Although it’s a disappointment for the organizers that the show format changed, I think it’s really fortunate we have been working on fostering this community over the past 6 months. Really, the People’s Choice Awards are not solely about those two hours on the red carpet: they are supposed to represent the power of the people to influence hollywood, to have a say. Here, we have provided them with that opportunity, 24/7/365. The show must (and will, and did) go on, but it’s not just about those two hours….