Humid Beings

If you feel as we do, you know New Orleans is often taken for granted by America and the rest of world. Our cultural and economic contributions the world-at-large are wildly undervalued and often overlooked. It wouldn’t be hyperbole to say that some would rather see us disappear than to see us rebuild. We are very misunderstood in the media and therefore by those who have never visited. But there are those in New Orleans and abroad that will not stand by and allow our culture to become relegated to the history books. These “humid beings” understand the value of this area’s history, culture and creativity. It is for these people that we are launching this new website.

HumidBeings.com is a publishing platform and portal that will unite those who understand New Orleans via the web. Humid Beings will help New Orleans stick together. Our focus is ensuring that citizens of New Orleans and the rest of the world have a place to receive information about our beloved city from the people who know it best, the locals. New Orleans deserves a web portal that respects the viewpoints of its citizens. It deserves an ongoing archive of the lives we are living and the culture we are creating and trying to sustain amongst the myriad of challenges.

By publishing weekly original content created by local talent and republishing the best of the local media, news, and events, we are creating a true portal for all things NOLA. Our site will allow those who understand the city to create profiles and publish their opinions, ideas, images and media. Humid Beings will make it possible for you to define why New Orleans matters.

The Humid Beings site will evolve overtime and respond to the needs of its community. Already we have in the works new features:

• A Juried Online Marketplace For Local Creatives
• Mapping tools for the places, events, ideas and problems.
• Widgets to share our content with your community.
• New publishing tools for your profile
• Content Partner Channels

So how will this site work?

Original Content Produced by the Humid Beings team:

It is the mission of the creators of Humid Beings to bring to it’s audience content of the highest caliber. We will feature many artists from around New Orleans that are established in their discipline. We will present writers, photographers, filmmakers and musicians all creating original works for humidbeings.com. As we move forward through projects and cultivating ideas, we will constanly be on the lookout for new members who can bring something fresh and unique to the table.

Our Content Partners:

Creating a partnership with Humid Beings will be very beneficial to all involved. By allowing humidbeings.com to share content, the audience has the potential to grow exponentially and thus, the profile of the content creator(s) is raised. For example, we recently formed a partnership with an organization called Cornerstones, which has a book published with brief interviews with locals and short profiles of important New Orleans landmarks. We didn’t want to create a replacement for the book, rather we wanted to add a new dimension to it.

Some of our current partners are AntiGravity Magazine, Defend New Orleans, Cornerstones, Blake Makes, Gambit Weekly, 504Ward, Stay Local, Static Television, NOLA YURP, Neighborhoods Partnership Network, and the Creole-Tomato. We are working with the best of the local media. As our network expands so will the value to our community.

Our unification of New Orleans local talent will serve as a go to site for locals and tourists alike. Not just another social network site, this is a publishing platform for local opinion, photography, audio and video. It is a community cornerstone online. We are a network of places and people, a clearinghouse for New Orleans content. Our emphasis is on forming Partnerships and collaborating with locals to serve as a true portal for all things NOLA. In our efforts to provide the best content available, we are extending an offer to content generators a place to republish their work and extend their audience even further with minimal effort. We will choose content partners based on quality of content, a clear voice and respect within the New Orleans community.

Approved partners with be given access to a password protected content management section of the site. Content can be published one item at a time or pulled into the site via an RSS feed. The staff of Humid Beings will monitor all content that gets posted, yet will have a laizze-faire approach as to regulating what is being posted. We believe that the majority of partners will be well meaning and mindful of the appropriateness of their content. But, with that said, harmful, hateful posts will not be tolerated and will be supressed. We have seen the sort negativity and bigotry that has flourished on popular local websites and we find that casts a negative shadow over the population.

As our community grows so will the site. Based on our own experiences and those of our users and partners we will create new publishing tools, channels and features to expand the archive of news worthy and culturally significant content. We hope that you might join us.

Content from the people up:

The people of New Orleans are what makes the city interesting and compelling. For every person there is a history and a story that can and should be told. Humid Beings will give literally anyone who can sign up the opportunity to share their story or their opinions about the city and where it’s headed. We will give those who understand the city the tools to publish content, continue the conversation and examine our past, present and future.

Rules of conduct will be agreed upon by the community of site users and abuses flagged by members of the site and monitored by Humid Beings staff. All views are respected as long as the community is respected.