Together with my friend Kim Rowan, I recently started a project. The idea of this project came from her own experience. Since Kim is a newbie in the PHP world, coming from a Filemaker background, she saw a need for good online video and audio content where she could pick up ideas to investigate some more and learn proper PHP programming. Yahoo has something like this, called YUI Theater, but there is nothing like this for PHP as far as we know.
Our aim is to create an online community resource called ProTalk, that provides a central point of access to video and audio content with a PHP focus. On the web there are lots of video’s, podcasts, seminars and self-recorded talks spread out for us PHP developers to find, but we are lacking one central resource where we can find all this and it all comes together. At least, that’s what we think. So, we invite you to tell us what you think!
We feel that video and audio recordings have been an underrated medium for too long. We believe they actually provide an excellent vehicle for getting your ideas across and can be a more effective means of learning for beginners and professionals alike than the written word. Slides are great also, but so much of the message is lost without the speaker’s narration to guide you through. We know there are conferences that record the talks and we’d like to centralize all this content at ProTalk for easy access to everyone that is interested. Another important thing to emphasise here is that we propose to create a community-driven site. We will create, manage and maintain it, but we’ll need a regular flow of content and that’s where you come in!
This is an open call for your response to the following questions:
1. Do you think the PHP Community could benefit from a online resource providing a central point of access to video and audio content with a PHP focus?
2. Would you be willing to contribute video and/ or audio content to the site?
3. Do you have any ideas or suggestions on how the site should look, or what functionality you would like it to have?
What we’re trying to do here is generate a conversation, so please don’t hold back. We want to know if the PHP community actually wants this and, if you do, what are your requirements? Anything else you might want to add is very welcome (no haters please). Leave a comment, email me or find me on twitter, whichever works best for you and let us know your answers to these questions!
I am at the phpnw conference this weekend in Manchester, if you would like to discuss your thoughts with me in person. I will also speak there about this project during the speed geeking in the unconference. Please feel free to come up and say hello – I would be very happy to talk a bit more about the project with you.
Check back here in November for a summary of the responses and what we plan to do next. We hope you are as excited about the concept as we are!