Visualive streams user generated content on downtown screens

Visualive is a network of screens that will be featured inside several downtown locations. The screens are intended to serve as an interactive community bulletin board, promoting events, host location food and drink specials, and other culturally relevant content of the Charleston area. Advertisers also have the opportunity to promote products on the Visualive screens.

The screens stream content from the host website, www.visualive.tv, which is the engine that drives the metaphorical car. On Visualive.tv, users can sign up for a profile for free, and upload their own "vibes." A "vibe" is the term for a user-submitted piece of content, such as an event poster or flier, original artwork, videos of live performances or anything else that the user wants to share with the community. After approval of each vibe, that piece of content will be put into the rotation on the screens around the peninsula as a way to promote events or the users themselves.

Programmer and creator Alex Summer's intent with Visualive is to streamline the promoting process through the utilities of modern technology. The days of relying on promotional fliers and posters seem to be coming to an end, and Visualive seeks to be a modern and convenient step forward with a crisp, high-def presentation.

"The website allows anyone to come to Visualive.tv with a piece of content that they want to share, be that a poster, image or a video," Summer said. "Within 10 minutes, you can sign up for a free account and schedule for your content to be seen, and by the time you launch your campaign, your content will be seen on the screens in those locations."

Advertisers and other members can buy credits on the website to have more creator-control with their vibes. With credits, a member of the Visualive network can pick which locations they want their vibes to appear at and ensure that a vibe will be shown a set number of times per hour on each selected screen, when free vibes will have no preset frequency or location specificity.

The screens primarily will feature content from the website's pool of free user-submitted vibes.

The rest of the content will be split between purchased vibes and promotional content submitted to the website by the screen's host location.

Creator Josef Kirk Myers II envisions the community that they are creating as a conduit for local artists, musicians and entertainers to reach as many people as possible in the shortest amount of time.

"It will allow the creative community to get out messages in an innovative way to a wider audience than they could before," Myers said. "Visualive facilitates the sharing of content and information in a method that previously didn't exist. We are creating a medium that channels people's creativity in a different, more dynamic way."

Visualive's first screen went live at Fuel on Dec. 29, 2009, and it has been conducting a test run of the network since then with seven other screens installed at Bubba Slye's, The Blind Tiger, Black Bean, the J.C. Long Building at the College of Charleston, D'Allesandro's, Mellow Mushroom and Wok. The Visualive creators estimate that there will be 20 host locations for the launch on Saturday. Other confirmed screen locations include Big John's, Moe's Downtown Tavern, Vendue Library and Vendue Rooftop, Juanita Greenberg's, Remedy Market, Club Habana and the Charleston Museum.

People who see vibes that interest them can simply visit www.visualive.tv and click on a host location to seek more information about the vibe they saw. The website keeps an archive of past vibes shown at each host location so that people can gather the information when they return to their computers.

Creator Will Willis looks at the network as a way to use technology to reach an audience that wouldn't otherwise be subjected to it. The screens still have appeal to people who don't have the Internet at home or who are otherwise not computer savvy.

"The crux of Visualive is that you're able to reach people who wouldn't have been exposed to the content through the Internet," Willis said.