Big, Fat Idea #1

Please bear with me as I try to communicate my thoughts. I’m quite ill today, so what I write might be slightly difficult to understand. I’ve been groping for a big, fat concept for our site, and maybe somebody can find some association to this idea and run with it in some wonderful direction.

We don’t really know what cyberspace looks like so why don’t we open with a black screen that looks like outer space…some small twinkling stars, but also some “planets” (or black holes?) that represent the different environments that users can enter? The “planets” could be round representations of icons that symbolize environments such as “social,” “informational,” “education,” etc. I’m not saying that those have to be the names we use, but that they would be easily recognizable in some way so that the user knows where he’s going within our space. I’m thinking now about some association with a Twilight Zone appearance. (the signpost up ahead…) I just thought about another possible URL…www.purduezone.com. However, my vote goes with www.boilerspace.com. I think Pete is a ridiculous-looking, ill-conceived mascot, and hope we don’t use his name in our URL.

I had the same idea as Linda regarding how you enter each environment through a door or some other landmark on campus that would be the familiar part of that particular “space.” In other words, after the user selects his “star” or “planet” or whatever, he could travel through a brief (5-6 seconds) video of extremely fast-moving scenes of US landmarks from several cities, ending up at Purdue, and then end up at a specific doorway. This would allow each section of the site to have its own look and feel, and we could do something like what TJ has been talking about at some or all of these other spaces. I believe it is the familiarity with the major buildings/places on campus that would help set the stage for our communitas. The visitors have to “feel” that they’re on campus.

Okay, I am now braindead. C’mon people, would anybody like to run with it?