Re: Making FIRST Viral
 

Small businesses only with less than 50 employees.
I don't know of FIRST fits in that category. I would assume it could.

http://venturebeat.com/2013/07/31/wi...mate-ad-prize/

Re: Making FIRST Viral
 

Youtube Geek Week is Aug 4-10. http://www.eweek.com/cloud/googles-y...eek-week-event
Could be a chance to make it loud...

Re: Making FIRST Viral
 

Brainiac Tuesday looks like the perfect day. Science and Education are synonymous with FIRST.

And for the record, I got 174 on the Geek IQ thing.

Re: Making FIRST Viral
 

Well this sounds stupid, but what if we made the game like a zombie or end of the world game... like try to reach a goal before the world ends? It's something that is kind of trending now so it could be something that would help...

And I think we need a viral video or something so funny that it ends up on Tosh.0 as a web redemption

Re: Making FIRST Viral
 

Looking through today's Geek Week videos I really think we missed out on an opportunity here...there were tons of robot videos that were getting high view counts today.

Re: Making FIRST Viral
 

Regarding Youtube, it seems that if videos were named "team xxx's basketball-playing robot" or "High shcooler's frisbee throwing robot" rather than "team xx 2013 reveal", they would pull in more views. Darpa's video titles are very generic, leaving the potential audience wide open. A title change alone could have made 118's video viral I think - especially if the change mentioned the fact that their robot was built by high school students.

Re: Making FIRST Viral
 

It is really about our country's economic future, and people should care about this! I also agree that it need to capture peoples interest and entertain them, but these are not mutually exclusive objectives.

Re: Making FIRST Viral
 

1. Make a cool video
2. Post to reddit
3. Vote it up :D

Also, make a cool video or take some good photos and get it featured on Wired, Gizmodo (as well as the other Gawker sites with a lot of traffic), Huffington Post, local newspapers, etc. Telling a story of triumph and providing hope for the future will get the attention of readers and be shared throughout the Internet.

Viral is about understanding what strikes people in a way that they have to share. For instance, everyone loves cat videos. In fact, it's at least 64.3% of the Internet. Everyone loves videos of cats chasing laser beams.

I propose a modest adjustment to this approach: make a video of a dog catching frisbees from an FRC robot. However, don't just make it a robot shooting frisbees, make it a robot sidekick with an action hero dog (with a cape!). Perhaps it could fight criminals offending the Order of Operations or illegal Trigonometric Identities. :] I think that's good for at least 2 million views.

In all seriousness, I think getting a quality video that tells a story in under 2 minutes is key. One thing that connects everyone on a basic primordial level is the childhood dream. Developing a video that shows how FIRST has helped students achieve their dreams will help foster a working platform to capture an audience. Perhaps connecting with some successful FIRST alumni and detailing their story will help establish an outlet for mentorship and guidance.

Re: Making FIRST Viral
 

Or we could get a lot of celberties in a video that talk about how cool first is? wait that has already been done.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vYuOKb3gO7E

Re: Making FIRST Viral
 

239,011 views. Must not have worked.

Re: Making FIRST Viral
 

I don't think it did either, but don't discount the prime time viewers that watched the full version live.

Without getting too philosophical, I felt it sent the wrong message and didn't actively spread the word of FIRST to those outside of FIRST.

Re: Making FIRST Viral
 

I just said the same thing to one of my friends.

"My robot is better than your robot." Really?

Re: Making FIRST Viral
 

okay i agree its not the greatest way to get it out there but it is something. If only we had a better way. WHY not break a world record. People love the world and records.

Re: Making FIRST Viral
 

This is a great thread! I have been thinking about the same type of thing recently. How do we tell people about FIRST not only to get more students to join teams but also to build up a following and an interest in the competition?
I agree wholeheartedly with the people who have said that it needs to be easily understandable (and generally searchable) and very cool to watch.
FIRST has made many videos that try to promote the program. The one with Morgan Freeman was very good. However I'm ALWAYS disappointed that they don't show ROBOTS! The robots are extremely powerful and amazing! A good FIRST promotional video needs to have a good voice-over and great music, but the visual portion of the video needs to be taken up solely by robots from a variety of teams doing amazing things. Everyone keeps mentioning 254's climb. That would be great! People do need to be careful when editing these videos not to make them boring. A video of 254 climbing is actually going to be boring to people who watch it without knowing exactly what's going on (I've had that happen when I show it to people). The shots of robots need to be only a couple seconds long and they need to show the robot DOING SOMETHING, not just driving around or getting knocked over.

Re: Making FIRST Viral
 

Excellent quote from another thread that I think could help us out.