Throughout the Prototyping stage of my Digital Artefact, I continued to produce regular content and began experimenting with content creation and curation, and the overall aesthetic and direction of my project. My Digital Artefact consists of the articles I write for Eject Music and an Instagram page (eject_ftremain) where I promote my work and create further discussion around new Hip-Hop music, news and issues.
Readings during the Prototyping and Making stage focused on the importance of content curation including Todd Clarke’s Complete Guide to Content Curation and Mel Wick’s Ultimate Guide to Content Curation. These tips were utilised for when I post stories about the latest Hip-Hop related news and during the tiebreakers in my voting bracket. The voting bracket I created sought to give my audience something more interactive than regular content and aided me in understanding their preferences and creating more discussion within my small community.
Using the paper prototyping to help guide the format and experience, the bracket ended successfully with high engagement and private discourse. For future brackets, I would be loved to see more public discourse, possibly by transitioning the story exclusive content to a post for the final round so the audience can comment publicly and interact with myself and other members of the audience.
Other new content I experimented with included a feature piece discussing posthumous works in Hip-Hop. Due to writing for a company, the roll out of content on the Wix part of my Digital Artefact is up to them, so the article is currently in the editing stage. However, with my Instagram, I am able to create promotional content for the article and might even have the next voting bracket be titled ‘Best Posthumous Album’. The aforementioned roll out of content from the Eject team came into play even more when trying to release weekly reviews but I iterated the posting schedule of my Digital Artefact to include more promotional posts. This was simple content to produce and helped gain the most from content that was more time-consuming. The Voting Bracket and News story highlights also allowed me to release content every couple of days, adhering to the ideas of BEBO and RERO.
A key source I used in guiding my DA during this stage was The Maker Manifesto by Mark Hatch. The Maker Manifesto encouraged me to become more experimental with my work and be more supportive of others. I downloaded Photoshop to test out a possible future aesthetic for my Digital Artefact that will break my current one and change the way my audience interacts with my Instagram posts. In doing so, I was able to participate in Hatch’s key terms of Share, Learn, Tool Up, Play and Change.
To explore some of the remaining terms including Give and Support, I tried to actively engage with media similar to my own including theneedledrop and Off The Clef. Additionally, this process was helpful for giving me ideas for the future direction of my Digital Artefact, by including a podcast in my content. Currently I’m unsure of what kind of podcast to make as I could do a live voting bracket similar to One Song Only, or do an analytic album breakdown like Dissect.
The most likely choice will be a topical/discussion based podcast like Everyday Struggle. Within BCM114, the Three’s A Crowd and Sonic Waves podcasts have been points of inspiration for this early ideating stage. On top of continuing to ideate this, I hope to stick to a strict posting schedule with regular content creation and curation that targets my established audience and hopefully, attracts more.
If you’d like to check out what I’ve produced throughout the Prototyping stage, or would like to stay posted on all the new content coming in the Making stage, you can find me at Eject Music or on Instagram.
Frank Tremain.
Frank Tremain 
I think the prototyping stage of your digital artefact project is going very well. The experimentation and engagement with your viewers will definitely help to improve future content creation and user relevance. I’ve found through my own project that it is very important to ask your audience questions, send out polls on platforms such as instagram and find out exactly what will be successful and perhaps not so. Perhaps you could do regular polls discussing what future content your audience would like to engage with and this might help you to experiment with new artists, songs, ideas etc. It could also assist you if you’re ever stuck for content ideas.
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Thanks for your comment! Including my audience more in my DA is definitely a goal for me, hope yours is going well!
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Just threw your eject instagram a follow man, after reading this I know I want to engage more with your content and be a part of your audience. I wrote in my online presence 2 mainly about how important the making and participating stage is with audience engagement. Engagement with your instagram stories is important to allowing the audience to also be a part of your own digital artefact. As I said in the ideating stage, love the work man keep it up and you’ll have to come to the next 15 Minutes at the Lodge and be a part of my audience yew.
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Just wrote you a comment on your own! Cheers for the follow, I’ll definitely have to make an appearance
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Enjoy the trajectory of your project, clever use of Instagram stories to gauge interaction from your following. I’ve used a similar path in my prototyping stage and have noticed significant growth in engagement. Your Instagram analytical rundown is also very thorough and gives great insight into the engagement of your audience from a numbers perspective. Clever use of hyperlinks back to reading material also, overall should be happy with where you project is heading, great stuff.
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You have made the prototyping stage beneficial within your DA through utilising tips and readings to your advantage. This is especially done through the story feature. By starting to upload more on the story feature you are inviting your audience to engage with your content, allowing for specific feedback on posts and content being produced. Planning your content through the paper prototype looks like it has also been beneficial as you have followed through with the plan of doing weekly polls/votes. It is another good way of engaging with your audience while uploading the main reviews. Personally, the podcast has immense potential as it is a popular source of content in society today. The raw aspect of the podcast would be perfect for your genre of Hip Hop/Rap as you could convey your opinions on the genre today as well as issues and major talking points. I would love to see how your DA further improves in the future.
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Hey Frank, I’ve really enjoyed keeping up with your digital artefact it definitely is a really solid idea! It seems as if that you’re prototyping stage is going really well, with the analytics and screenshots which you have provided. I really enjoy how you put so much effort and detail into your work; it really does make it that much better. I thought your blog post was really detailed and had the perfect screenshots to help convey your point! I also have a suggestion and was thinking if you have thought of collaborating with pages which are similar to yours, as I am currently thinking of doing this with my DA. I presume it is a good thing to take into consideration as it might help your page in many aspects of creating different interpretation in what your main focus is for the future of your digital artefact. Keep up the good work, and I look forward to seeing how you end up going with your DA.
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As someone who’s been following and interacting with your DA account for some time now, I feel that the introduction of your separate segments during the prototyping stage, including Instagram brackets has really opened your account up and made it a lot more engaging. I know for a lot of people, music analysis and review can be confusing or somewhat intimidating, as they may not understand the product to the same degree as you. The interactive component has really helped this, as everyone has been able to have their say. I know a lot of the results were controversial, but that is indicative of a wider audience interacting with your DA, and ultimately a good sign. With my DA being a podcast, I also understand the challenges that come with setting one up. I think a general discussion, or weekly round-up music podcast would be great for your DA, as it would be engaging for fans of your written work, and give you an avenue to further explore something you are clearly knowledgeable and passionate about. Overall, looks really clean and professional, and is highly engaging as a fan of music!
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