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Behind the scenes of itsweb.org - a late night webchat with Develon
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July 06, 2005
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If you want visibility today, what do you have to do? Well, depending on the money you have, you can do some advertising, like putting some posters around saying "hey, it's me!", you can go on TV, you can be the sponsor of some great event, or make some promos with your logo or your name on them and distribute them...these are the things you would have done until a few years ago. But today, in the world of internet, you're nothing without a website!
When ITS was born (2002), it was immediately obvious that one of the most important communicational instruments with the outer world (you might not know it, but our offices are a world apart...) was an internet site. Therefore, we started right away the search for the right partner that would give us the best solutions for our needs. We needed it to be creative, to be made of young people as we are, able to understand without too many explanations what we wanted our website to be like. We also wanted our internet partner to be always updated on the latest technological innovations for the web, in order for them to be able to satisfy all our requests and never say "no, we can't do this". We wanted them always eager to improve, to look forward, to go ahead. In other words, we wanted them to be really, really good in what they do!
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Looking at our website the most important part is the ITS#TALENT section, where you can find all the past and present finalists of ITS with information on anything they've been doing from the moment they entered the ITS family. So if you want to know what they are doing at present, if they are working on new collections (and see photos of the outfits), or click on the link to have a look at their personal website if they have it, this is the place to go. The search engine helps you out in searching through ITS editions and talents, and you can search by so many different criteria!
Starting from this year with ITS#FOUR, we have introduced an online-registration, that enables us to collect and analyse a lot of info on who enters the contest in a much faster way than before. The press area is where you have to go if you want to see what the journalists all around the world say about us. At ITS#ONE this was a small section since we had just started, but now there's more than 400 articles to read...it's quite a lot!
The ITS website also has 4 updates every month, divided in news and articles. The news always talk about the timings of ITS and anything related to the event, while the articles talk about what's happening in the fashion world with particular interest in young creatives and their initiatives.
All of this is possible thanks to Develon, our internet partner, and we couldn't be happier about this: they provide us with the right platform to make ITSweb a space of pure creativity where all information on ITS can be found, giving the chance to those who surf the website to have a global view of what is ITS. They are a team of high-skilled young developers, always ready to make the last-minute-change, or to correct the errors (oops!) we sometimes make.
I arranged to meet Marco from team Develon in chat, one late night we both were working overtime to keep up with our "deadly" deadlines. Here's a small abstract of our chat log
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[eventlogger on d:¥chatlogs¥eve_develon.log]
* logging active *
*** M@DVN JOINS THE CHAT
[EVEr]: Hey Marco
[M@DVN]: Hi Fabio, am I late?
[EVEr]: Don't worry.
[M@DVN]: Let me grab some coffee and I'll be back in a moment (if the coffe-machine is still working)
[M@DVN]: I'm back! what's the buzz???
[EVEr]: shall we begin? As I said on the phone this is going to be a quick one...
[M@DVN]: Alright.
[EVEr]: A lot of years have passed since the first time we met, and we can actually say that the ITS project and Develon have grown together and that you have always been our internet partner, and not by accident, right?
[M@DVN]: No, not by accident. The support we have offered to EVE for the realisation of all of these editions of ITS began as a commercial and marketing opportunity, but it is now dangerously becoming a question of affection between us. We know all of you personally now, we respect and admire all of the work you do to give young talents a chance. Just seeing the happiness of the finalists as they walk close to their collections the night of the fashion show makes us understand that all efforts have been worth it.
[EVEr]: Together with us you have studied and realised the various sections of the web, but you have never told us what you think are the strengths of itsweb.org
[M@DVN]: definitely the ITS#TALENT archive, as well as all of the pages that explain the structure of the contest. The GUESTBOOK is amazing. If you were to read all of the messages of those that believe in your initiative, a day wouldn't be enough. It is a really honest appreciation-meter of every edition. Also the new FEATURED section of the news is very interesting, and also fun to read: take the last article for example: "What are they doing now", it was like looking at a family album!
[EVEr]: Are there in your opinion sections that really express the spirit and the philosophy at the roots of our project
[M@DVN]: No doubt on this point! The videos of the Scouting Tours. Fabio from Multimedia would probably kill me for what I'm saying, since he passes several sleepless nights editing the videos of the event, but even though the event is unforgettable, in my opinion the true ITS is in the reportages of the Scouting Tours.
[EVEr]: On a scale from 1 to 10, what is the importance of a website for projects like this one???
[M@DVN]: Ehm...15?!? Impossible to not have it? We're not being pompous, there wouldn't be ITS without itsweb.org. It would not have been possible to get in contact with your public with the same amount of money and with this level of interaction.
[M@DVN]: Can I ask a question instead? ???????????
[EVEr]: Sure!
[M@DVN]: What will be the surprises with the fifth edition of itsweb.org? As you know our job starts as soon as you relax after the end of the event, and knowing the premises of next year, I guess that the new version of the website will have a lot of new things in it.
[EVEr]: with ITS#FOUR the website is at the beginning of a big development. This year we have Photography, a project that will expand and become bigger next year. And next year we should open another new field .... sssh! stop here: that's our secret plan to conquer the world!! Just imagine what this means for the website ... ... umm, no, don't, we are already spending so much time on it :). Luckily, with?you we feel we are in safe hands!??
[M@DVN]: Thanks! Do I need to worry then?
[EVEr]: We'll see. I'll meet up with you in Trieste so we can talk a bit about the new features.
[M@DVN]: The whole team is coming up in Trieste for the event night. Everyone here is looking forward to see the new collections and to attend the final party, too ;-)
[M@DVN]: meanwhile take good care and hug the others for me
[EVEr]: Ok, same here. Byez!
[M@DVN]: Ciao!
*** M@DVN LEFT THE CHAT
[eventlogger off]
* logging inactive *
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