With the Innovators’ Road Trip, I have been thinking and very excited by the evolution of documentary projects and the intersection of web 2.0 technologies.  As I am now focused on upcoming iRoadTrips, I am framing these more fully in the context of documentary 2.0.  I wanted to share with you some of my thoughts on this topic.

First, a quick definition of terms. Now this may be tricky and open to much debate because both terms ‘documentary’ and ‘web 2.0′ have been somewhat open to interpretation, but here is my take:

Documentary: The sharing of an opinion through the presentation of the un-manipulated facts. (see Wikipedia for more info).

Web 2.0: The use of the internet as a platform to enable collaboration, development, and contribution.  There is lots written on this – and distilling it to a Tweet-sized statement may not do the term justice, but I do try to be pithy – you can always read more here.

So we have defined terms, what happens when we put Documentaries and Wed 2.0 together?

Documentary 2.0: A web-based presentation of a issue or opinion where the audience and presenters interact freely during the course of the presentation.

Ideally, the audience is no longer passively consuming the content, but an active participant – engaging with the producers and posing questions to the subject of the documentary as well.

To make a Documentary 2.0 possible involves a range of techniques:

• Real-time Audience Interaction: Twitter enables the documentary crew to update and interact with the audience and even allow the viewers to ask questions.  Twitter even more powerfully draws the audience into the experience when combined with other technologies such as TwitPics for instant image uploads.
• Qik or UStream live video: The audience is really with you live and can actually see what the producers see live – the phone becomes the camera.  While the quality is lower, the gain is in immediacy and transparency.
• Audio Comments: Technologies such as Utterli get the voice of the producers or their subjects available immediately.
• Photographs: A picture is always worth 1,000 words and by uploading the Documentary 2.0 images to a public images gallery such as Flickr the topic will have greater exposure and the audience will have a greater opportunity to interact and contribute.
• Blogs: Yes, the tried and true with 133 million and counting.  However as a Documentary 2.0 blog it is focused experience with the audience on a particular topic.  The blog then becomes the central repository for all of the documentary 2.0 material; all audio, video, photos, tweets, text can be showcased here.
• Other technologies & techniques: the above is not a complete list, nor do I think (or hope) that there will ever be a complete list.  I am now looking at the best ways to incorporate Facebook Fan Pages, YouTube Channels, and much more.

Interaction is key: the key component to any ’2.0′ platform is interaction and Documentary 2.0 is no different.  The audience is central and must be included in the conversation.  In a prior post, I have discussed the Fifth Passenger concept on the Innovators’ Road Trip – indeed the audience should be thought of as an additional member of the team on all documentary 2.0 projects.  In my opinion, technologies are abused by many who just use Twitter to broadcast and not engage and have a dialog with their audience.  The same can be said for blog comments.  Social technologies provide so many great techniques for interaction and engagement, the power of using them is really incredible.

Documentary 2.0 as a concept allows a more focused effort on conveying a message in a new, exciting way, where the audience can get involved if they choose.

I am eager to hear from you – how would you define documentary 2.0?  What techniques would you use?

/colin