Kind of like the French Musical, Les Miserables except it should be One day more - but hey, who’s quibbling. The site should go into Beta tomorrow - with maybe a week - 2 weeks tops of testing - maybe even less.
The process is one of endless improvement, but you have to start somewhere and we need to test some critical functions. If you think you’d have fun being a Beta tester - send us an email and let us know why - you can comment on the blog too - we read everything.
The final pages on the website are concerned with “The Riders”… It’s quite a tricky concept because we are looking to develop a cross between a traditional grass roots fan club and an online community - basically - to create a community. Communities arise for many reasons - the Ehlers-Danlos National Foundation is one such community. Motivated individuals will always seek out others in order to work more effectively together - to take comfort in each other. The biggest challenge for EDS is awareness; if you don’t know about it - take a second to learn - you might save someone’s life.
Communities also grow because people want to have a good time! This is America after all; the pursuit of happiness is not just good for you - it’s State mandated. Our position is this:
A Rider is someone who is interested in Kelli and is interested in receiving information about her.
It’s kinda like the airlines and now even the main evening TV news: “We know you have a lot of choices for your “insert service of choice here” and we thank you for choosing us!” Don’t know about you - but doesn’t it just smack of obsequity ?
The challenge for a community that communicates by email is SPAM. If you like Kelli’s music, you’ve seen a show or you just dig who she is and what she’s about - then chances are you’d be interested in hearing about her; tour dates, new releases, cool stuff like new videos, Kelli’s blog, merchandise, discounts, stuff from rehearsals that we wouldn’t release for sale to the general public - but which fans would dig….that kind of thing.
Which when you think about it - is actually quite a lot!! In order to keep people updated with what is going on - we will produce a monthly newsletter - basically - we will push the information out to you - you give us your email address and we’ll take care of the rest.
Here’s where the SPAM problem comes in - with junk traffic so high - email is proving to be notoriously bad at getting people to actually change their behavior. Even a non-profit with two thousand motivated individuals - who are paying money to be a part of the organization - will respond at single figure rates…….
The trick is to create something that people actually choose to make time in their day for to do. More and more people are spending more and more time online, look at MySpace and YouTube.
The world is exploding in information, more and more people are getting it - in more and more sophisticated methods and its all happening really quickly.
In order for people to get what they want - they need to make a paradigm shift in how they get information. Receipt of information will no longer be a passive act - it will be a conscious act of behavior to receive that information in the first place.
And that’s why Kelli.com needs an interesting website 
That is what a Bus Rider is - someone who is actively interested in Kelli and wants to know about her - that’s all - ..It’s no big thing and we don’t charge…yet!!
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