Mute Magazine - new publishing, networked economy

We've crossed oceans of time for you to find us. Summary

For years, it has been Mute's dream to conduct its publishing on a more participatory platform. Starting with our mini-manifesto Ceci N'est Pas Un Magazine (Sept 2001), we plotted the project as it moved through various developmental stages and now, after years of planning and building, it is alive and kicking at brand new site Metamute.org.    

With the move to this new location, Mute has embraced the evolving culture of Open Publishing and finally made the web its home. Mute content is now made freely available as soon as it is published and users can post to the site in numerous newly created areas.

Mute still retains a printed magazine (now quarterly), which is produced using print on demand (POD) technology and extends our core editorial activity through themed issues. We have also added a facility for users to make their own personalised collections of POD content, straight from the site.

Another online facility, called the Agent Network, exists for distributing publications. Through this, users can sign up to distribute Mute in their own neighbourhoods and communities and receive a portion of the cover price in return. At Metamute.org, you can register, input details about sales outlets and events to build up the existing network, as well as manage your own activity by organising orders, deliveries and payments. Our hope is that this feature will help get the magazine to the full diversity of its audience and build a more sustainable economy for the organisation as a whole. On the back of this model, we also encourage users to get involved with editorial and promotion too.

Mute continues to feature the critical writing it is known for, but by using the internet as a production base and home, it can explore the web's multimedial nature and better engage its  audience. In this respect, other notable projects associated with our relaunch are a BitTorrent, the Public Library, and a series of online art commissions.

Finally, keep in mind that what you are looking at is the BETA version of Metamute.org. This is currently being tested to gauge usability, design and architecture. This phase will be complete once beta users' feed back has been acted on. If you would like to be part of this process and would find a beta users' document helpful, you can view it here.

Please come and join us - Mute http://metamute.org/ Table of Contents

    What's new?     Participation         How do you get involved?     Economy         The mission!         How are we doing it?         Partnering with Mute         Consulting with Mute

What's new?

Membership Metamute.org is a membership based site where you can log in to submit articles or upload media. There are a variety membership categories, reflecting levels of involvement and usage. These are: anonymous, authenticated, subscriber, agent and editor.

Free to share magazine content Simultaneous to its publication in print, Mute will be making its magazine content freely available online for non-commercial use, reprinting and translation.

OpenPublishing The following areas of the site are open for members' contributions: News & Analysis, Public Library (P2P file sharing service), Calendar, Forums & lists.

POD and User POD [*] Print on demand is a high quality, low cost form of digital book printing, through which one or 1000s of copies can be printed in several locations throughout the world. Mute has opted for this technology for reasons of cost, but also so we can be more responsive to developments on our website. Outside of our regular magazine run, we will be producing a variety of other POD imprints.     As a user, you can recompose any content items from the site and have your own book printed and delivered at low cost. The digital print process also means you can leave a PDF of your book online to share with others, in our POD Park.

Public Library (PL) Media based works can be uploaded/ downloaded by any user at our P2P BitTorrent, the Public Library. At the PL, you can also share your opinions on the files available and we encourage users to regard this reviewing as integral to the uploading and downloading of their media warez.

Content filtering [*] The Mute site is vast and will become even more so. To make its content more accessible, we have added a system of classification which helps you sort the content of the site. We feel strongly that the new Mute should be about your view of things as much as ours; to make this happen we invite you to expand on the subjects we've included in our category listings. Help guides will soon be available on how to do this, and we will also keep our own classifications constantly under review (the present listing is definitely just a beginning!).

Shop We have opened up our shop to allow users to sell their cultural products and digital downloads next to ours. In line with this, we have also enabled multi-currency transactions via PayPal or credit card to make it easier for users to make associated financial transactions.

Agent network, the Networked Distribution Services/NDS  [*] Mute invites site users to join our agents scheme, which rewards the local distribution and sale of Mute with 30% of the cover price. The system – whose working title is NDS (Networked Distribution Service) – is made possible by software which allows orders, deliveries and payments to be tracked online. Mute's agent network is also open to users offering their publications for distribution and sale: through this process of mutual support, we aim to contribute to alternative distribution networks globally.

Translations [*] Users can translate articles on the Mute site into a variety of languages through a simple online editing process. Volunteering to translate can be done without contacting the editor, as the site provides an easy to use text editor and automated submission process. Mute is still working on the protocols involved, as multiple translations in (likely) varying degrees of completion will need to be categorised systematically and original authors consulted on their preferred relationship to new texts.

Banner monitoring Metamute.org allows web advertisers to have greater control over, and awareness of, the activity of their ads. Information relating to banners' performance can be viewed and analysed by day, week, month, and banners can be switched on and off for specific periods of time. As in other areas of the site, this activity is contained in a personalised work area which automatically responds to members' status and registration details.

Project commissions Metamute.org has a projects area where we will regularly feature new art and cultural commissions.

[*] Items accompanied by this sign are still in varying stages of development, although they are a full part of our project planning.

Participation

Participating in Mute happens through three roughly drawn categories, namely Content, Distribution and Technology.     On the content side, our OpenPublishing features mean users are free to contribute articles to the site. Should you want to have greater involvement, you can also work as an as editorial agent in closer contact with Mute editors.     This deeper dimension of participation engages the hybrid nature of Mute, since it highlights the gap between open content and content commissioned and edited in the conventional way. Mute's print magazine will be heavily influenced by what users contribute through the OpenPublishing channels: getting involved in between the two will help editors make a more responsive magazine.     On the distribution side, our agent network and online distribution system mean users can help Mute and other publications directly in their distribution efforts. You can add details of appropriate outlets and events and/or actually sell the magazine for a commission. Mute engages with FLOSS as a social movement. In addition to doing editorial work, it has done this through technology initiatives. To carry on this work we need your involvement and support, whether it is in the area of research, coding, finances or another realm of activity we haven't imagined yet.. How do you get involved?

Content OpenPublishing areas of the site are places that you can openly post to once you are registered as a member. These include: