Digital Kite

December 2010
Table of Contents

Digital Kite
News
About GoFly
Volunteer Opportunities
Digital Kite
Blog Digest
GoFly Blog
Christmas Favorites: A list of Questions for Facebook Fans
Digital Kite
News

About GoFly

GoFly is basically an experiment I'm conducting involving the Internet, social media
technologies, digital publishing, and methods for distribution. I know that's a lot to take in,
especially in the same paragraph, so let's call it integrated Digital Publishing.
I really started this project a few years ago when I first began experimenting with ways to
publish newsletters so that they could easily be shared via the screen or the page without
having to change their layout. This meant getting away from the complex layout and standards
that you seen in publications such as newspapers or magazines, but maintaining better
aesthetics than what you normally see in an average Word document.
My research lead me into the world of eBook publishing, where I learned that text
couldn't be formatted very heavily, and that pagination was typically being handled inside the
ebook reading software. In other words, you couldn't insert page breaks into your publication
and expect it to look the way you wanted to in an eBook reader.
Then, I began to experiment with Facebook. I often heard from people that there was no
point to social media. I began to wonder if blogs, Facebook, and other social media services
could be applied towards a greater purpose.
Now, in addition to the things that I listed above, GoFly is about controlling the flow of
content from one service or format to another. The idea right now is that content can be written,
fine-tuned with the help of crowd sourcing, released to a broader audience, fine-tuned again,
and then ultimately published as a finished document.
My goal right now is to prove that all of this is true with help from volunteers.

Volunteer Opportunities

There are a lot of ways in which people can help with the GoFly project. As of this
writing, there are three community-focussed Facebook fan page which need help from
moderators:
● Shepherd Today
● Hartland Today
● Marlette Today
If you are from any of these communities, then you certainly are welcome to join in with
the fan page and post as a Facebook user, or let us know and you could be made a fan page
admin.
 Moderators are able to pull from a constant stream of news, information, and other
resources located on internally consumed GoFly blog. By "internally consumed," I mean that
this blog is directed at the people who help with the GoFly project, and not our external, more
public audience. There are also forums where GoFly team can post questions or communicate.
If you are not interested in covering one of the community fan pages, help is needed with
supporting the internal blog. This blog covers topics ranging from current events to technology,
health, parenting, and sports. These posts are fed to the moderators who can re-post them to
the fan pages.
If you would like to help out, but haven't seen a description that meets your skills, please
contact me at 32bpwr3@gmail.com or post a comment below. I'm sure there is a way to fit you
in.

Digital Kite
The Digital Kite is the official newsletter for GoFly. It provides our volunteers with a
digest of news, information, resources, and a summary of posts published on our different
pages. Right now, it is semi-regularly published but will hopefully be published monthly in the
future.
You can view the Digital Kite in four different formats: the Blog, the web newsletter, the
Facebook Group and the PDF.

The difference between GoFly and the Digital Kite

Anything that comes from the GoFly blog or fan page is meant to be passed along to our
audience via the Facebook fan pages or individual newsletters.
The Digital Kite is a blend of information from the Digital Kite blog (news and announcements
for the team), the GoFly blog, and the different community blogs. The content of the Digital Kite
is meant to help guide our volunteers, and only the parts in the GoFly blog section should be
shared with our audience.
The Digital Kite is published as a blog, a web newsletter, and a PDF. You can also post
questions or comments on the Digital Kite Facebook group.
There is a GoFly fan page which you can join. The posts there are shared with the hopes that
they will be posted on other fan pages, or discussed and tweaked until they are more usable.
Blog Digest
GoFly Blog

Christmas Favorites: A list of Questions for Facebook Fans

The following is a list of questions that I heard recently on a Christmas-themed podcast. The
questions were presented "lightning round" styled to the person who was being interviewed.
Most of the questions fall within a specific category or topic related to Christmas, and are
followed by two choices.
I thought that these questions would be great to post on the different fan pages. There might
even be enough to post just one or two per week until Christmas comes. Please take a look,
and then let me know if you can use these in your communities.
Also, can you think of any questions that you would ask which you'd like to be added to this list?
● White potatoes or sweet potatoes
● Ham or turkey
● Bing or Sanatra
● Christmas eve presents or morning presents
● Its a wonderful life or Miracle on Thirty fourth street
● Real tree or fake tree
● snow or the beach
● gloves or mittens
● Outside Christmas lights: chasers or static
● Santa Snack: cookies and milk or reindeer food
● Santa Snack: Oreos or chocolate chip
● shopping: at the mall or online
● Blow up frosty or manger scene
● Christmas Morning: Sleep in or up at crack of dawn
● Favorite Movie: Christmas Vacation or Elf
● Shopping: Start early or last minute?
● Wrapping presents: pretty paper or newspaper
● Wrapping Gifts: Bow or no bow?
● buying presents: Gift cards or planned purchase?
● Open presents one person at a time or everyone at once?
● Christmas cards: Real paper or online
● Christmas Tree: Frothed or natural
● Christmas day attire: PJs or dress up
● Big family christmas or small
● New Year's Eve: Watch the ball drop or in bed by 10 p.m.?