By Katarina Hybenova
Paper Swan is a Bushwick-based collective of musicians, producers, filmmakers and artists, and a source of many great ideas! These awesome guys have organized several music events in their Bushwick loft, including the famous Melodica Festival earlier this year; and a series of 9 music nights at Union Hall, the finale of which is taking place this Wednesday. [Paper Swan will conclude the series with a free concert starting at 8pm! More info here.]
Now Paper Swan is coming with their newest project – an ambitious idea of their own social network called Swan City. Swan City will provide a platform for artists in and around Brooklyn to connect, and to share music, videos, photos, drawings, stories, poems, blog posts, links etc.
Because I had approximately 2,845 questions about how exactly they want to do it, and what they want to achieve with Swan City in the times of Facebook, I asked our pal Jason Zucker from Paper Swan a couple of question.
1. How did you come up with the idea of a new social network?
We wanted Swan City to feel like a meeting place where artists can share their work freely. We realized that if we make it easy for people, then we’d be able to give our friends a loud voice on a small social network in a social media-frenzied world where everyone’s talking at once.
2. Who are the people you would like to have signed up for Swan City?
Eventually everyone! But for now, we’re asking our friends and all the people we’ve worked with over the years. We’re adding a couple users a week, so we’ll see where that takes us.
3. Do you think that there is still space for space for small social networks with giants like Facebook, Twitter or Tumblr out there?
Sure there are giant social networking sites, but that doesn’t mean that there isn’t room for smaller sites with a niche. But we still use those resources to connect to a much greater pool of people, which is important as well.
4. What do you plan to achieve with Swan City?
We want to connect as many people as possible, and we want to feature great work from great artists. Swan City will be an ongoing dialogue that will also help to capture this fine moment in time. There are some really creative people who are contributing, and Swan City will help them share their work and connect to each other. We also want to be able to show our support for our friends’ projects, which is a big part of our mission statement.
5. Are you planning to develop a smart phone app?
That would be really cool! But we don’t know how to do that, and we have no money to pay anyone 🙁 [Bushwick Daily: Hint for you technical readers! Help Swan City if you can! :-)]
6. What do you personally are taking from Swan City when using it?
For us, Swan City is a way to keep up with all the friends we’ve made over the years. We’ve been fortunate enough to work with some amazing artists, and we want those people to know that once you’re in the Paper Swan family, you’re in for good! So it’s nice when our friends drop in and say hello, even if only on our website. But at least we know what they’re up to, and we get to support them and help them share their work, which we’re happy to do 🙂
7. Did you make any new friends there yet?
Not yet, but I’m sure Bushwick Daily could make a lot! 🙂
