What’s in your DFOS? LAN Party

Are you old enough to remember local area networks? These were closed, local servers where a group of computers could talk to each other before the internet as we know it was a widespread thing. Back in the day we played video games on our LAN with a local bulletin board for announcements and listings. You could talk and share within the network, but nothing went out.

It’s both a coincidence and not a coincidence that one of the early thriving DFOS spaces is a project called LAN Party led by curatorial duo Vienna Kim (Paris) and Benoit Palop (Tokyo) that curates exhibitions, publishes texts, and organizes community activations both online and IRL that explore technostalgia, video game art, and internet subcultures.

This month LAN Party is hosting a Summer School series with guest lectures by four internet culture luminaries — Alice Bucknell, Side Quest, Chia Amisola and Janne Schimmel. 

In the past, LAN Party would have needed to run this series using a complicated stack of Google Docs, email threads, a Discord, Calendar events, Zoom, payments infrastructure, a newsletter product, and more.

To operate Summer School, LAN Party are using just DFOS, Metalabel, and Zoom. DFOS to organize members, handle all communication, share reading materials, and distribute the schedule and event details using a new Calendar feature we added. 

All of this reflected in a space that allows them to set the right vibe for their forward-thinking group of speakers and curators, that puts their magic and taste front and center, not the tool’s.

Passes available for purchase on Metalabel here. This Friday the first talk kicks off with Alice Bucknell, a video game artist we personally know and are big fans of. Not to be missed.

DFOS updates

In addition to the new calendar app, some major new updates to DFOS this week.

DFOS DIGITAL STORES

All DFOS spaces can now launch digital stores and sell digital products. In Sol Invicto, for example, they’re selling digital editions of a new track. In the DFOS home space, we’re selling copies of our digital releases for $1 each. Anything you purchase gets saved to your digital library in DFOS for easy access and reading.

For now, stores are private just to members. (This is why LAN Party isn't using it for their tickets.) Soon stores will be public too.

BETTER WAYFINDING

Another new piece of utility: a persistent nav bar that lets you hop into the main parts of DFOS spaces: posts, chats, calendar, and store, letting members easily access what’s new and upcoming, while dedicating the desktop to being an expressive medium for sharing your portfolio, purpose, and work.

EMAIL IMPORTS

You can also now import an existing email list or audience into DFOS. Combined with our newsletter tool, this means DFOS can serve as your newsletter provider for your wider subscriber list, while maintaining smaller circles of communication for space members. A single-stack communication tool, now with both import and export functions.

All of these features are live today.

— DFOS